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and most hospitable kind. Our horses were fed, an excellent supper prepared, a party of friends collected, tales of humour and adventure related, our pipes filled from his own sack, and coffee served to us by his wife, unveiled and dressed in the most alluring manner. At every pause, the brother of our guide was reproached for not having brought us on the preceding evening to the house, and the only reply he made was, that he knew the Abuna to be more able, and naturally supposed that he would be equally willing, to entertain us.

We continued to sit together until a late hour, it being past midnight before the party of visitors had dispersed, and even after that, the Abuna and his son came, professedly to inquire the cause of our return, but, as it afterwards appeared, to beg that we would not make an evil report of them to the convent at Nazareth.

A good bed, with coverlid, cushions, &c. being prepared for me on a raised bench in the room, the rest of the party, consisting of the husband, his brother, the wife, and a male relation of her's, stretched themselves out side by side on mats on the floor, and we thus all slept as openly as a family of children.

CHAP. XXVII.

DESCRIPTION OF THE TOWN OF TIBERIAS.

FEBRUARY 14th. As it was now necessary

that we should return to Nazareth to seek some

more safe occasion of pursuing our journey, I rose early to make an excursion through the town before we set out, and visiting in the course of my rambles every part of it, was enabled, from what I saw, added to the information collected during my stay there on the two preceding evenings, to make the following observations.

The present town of Tabareeah *, as it is now called, is in the form of an irregular crescent, and is inclosed toward the land by a wall flanked with circular towers. It lies nearly north and south along the western edge of the lake, and has its eastern front opposed to the water, on

*Spelt in Arabic,, but in its original Greek form, Tepias, to which this interpretation is given, "Bona visio, vel umbilicus, aut confractio." Urbs Galilææ ad mare sita, quod ab ipse civitate appellatur Mare Tiberiadis. Joh. vi. 1. Hanc civitatem olim Cenereth appellatam. Herodes tetrarcha in honorem Tiberii Cæsaris condidit, et Tiberiadem vocavit. Onomasticum Sacrum, p. 315.

the brink of which it stands, as some of the houses there are almost washed by the sea. Íts southern wall approaches close to the beach; but the north-western angle of the northern wall, being seated on a rising ground, recedes some little distance from the water, and thus gives an irregular form to the inclosure. The whole does not appear a mile in circuit, and cannot contain more than five hundred separate dwellings, from the manner in which they are placed. There are two gates visible from without, one near the southern, and the other in the western wall, the latter of which is in one of the round towers, and is the only one now open; there are appearances also of the town having been surrounded by a ditch, but this is now filled up by cultivable soil.

To the northward of the town, is the road we passed over on our journey the day before; to the southward, the ruins of the ancient city, and a hot bath still frequented, as well as the burying-ground of the Mohammedans and the Jews; on the east, the broad expanse of the lake stretches over to the opposite shore; and on the west, it has a small space of plain fit for cultivation, from whence the land suddenly rises into the lofty hills which almost overhang the town.

The interior presents but few objects of inte

[graphic][merged small]

There is a mosque,

rest besides the ordinary habitations, which are, in general, small and mean. with a dome and minareh, now frequented, and another with an octangular tower, in ruins, The former of these is not far from the gate of entrance, the latter is nearer to the beach, There are also two synagogues of the Jews near the centre of the town, both of them inferior to that of Jerusalem, though similar in design; and one Christian place of worship called the "House of Peter," near the northern quarter, close to the water's edge. The last, which has been thought by some to be the oldest place of Christian worship now extant in Palestine *, is a vaulted room about thirty feet by fifteen, and perhaps fifteen in height; it stands nearly east and west, having its door of entrance at the western front, and its altar immediately opposite, in a shallow recess, Over the door is one small window, and on each side four others, all arched and open. The masonry of the edifice is of an ordinary kind; the pavement within is similar to that used for streets in this country, and the whole is devoid of sculpture or other ornament, as far as I could perceive. In a court without the House of Peter, I observed, however, a block of stone, on which were the figures of two goats,

* Quarterly Reviewers on Dr. Clarke's Travels,

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