“Fifteen cents!” shouted the young vagabond.
He was a frequenter of the old Bowery Theater, and familiar with the prices at that establishment.
But we are in haste to go on; for before us is the Sea of Galilee, shimmering under the scorching rays of a Syrian sun. It lies deep-set in a basin of rough, barren mountains, and its surface, as we first look upon it, is very far below us. If any of us have pictured a lake, surrounded with luxuriant fields and shady groves, its waves kissing the feet of waving palms, and reflecting the rich foliage of the tropics, we are doomed to disappointment. It is a scene of desolation, akin to that revealed when we look from the bleak hills beyond Bethlehem, and cast our vision downward to the Dead Sea. The country must have undergone a great change in the past two thousand years, as we cannot understand how it could support the population that history accords to it.
The lake is oval in shape, and about thirteen miles long by six in width, and where there were many boats in Christ’s time, there are now only two. These are devoted more to the ferriage of travellers and their excursions to points of interest along the shores, than to the fisheries. A favorite mode of catching fish at the present time is to poison them with bread crumbs soaked in corrosive sublimate. The fish die, and rise to the surface, whence they are gathered and taken to the market of Tiberias for sale. The natives do not mind any little trifle like this, but foreigners should be cautious about the fish that they eat.
All around the shore of the lake is historic ground. We reach it at Capernaum, or rather at one of the three points claimed to be the site of that city, and known by the modern name of Khan Minyeh. It has, perhaps, the best claims to recognition, but I shall not attempt to say that it is or is not the real place. The ruins are not extensive, and can be seen in a short time. Traces of foundations and walls of buildings can be found here and there among the brushwood, and now and then a broken column or capital rewards the search of the explorer.
Proceeding along the western bank of the lake, we reach Magdala, the birth-place of Mary Magdalene. The shore of the lake in this part is quite fertile, but the fertility is not utilized, except to a very slight degree. Game is not unknown here, but the varieties are not numerous. Quails are abundant, and so are turtle doves. “The voice of the turtle is heard in the land,” is sure to be repeated by some one of the party as we ride through the tangle of thistles, weeds, and brushwood that lines the way from Capernaum to Magdala.
In itself, and without its historic associations, Magdala is of very little consequence. It contains about twenty houses, of the Syrian pattern, flat-roofed, and not over-pleasing in appearance. There are ruins of houses of a more pretentious character, and the indications are general that there was once a town here, of some consequence.