HAIFA. (continued 6)

This very synagogue was probably the scene of the healing of the demoniac and of the delivery of many of those divine lectures on faith, humility, brotherly love, and formality in worship, as we read at the end of one of them: “These things said he in the synagogue as he taught in Capernaum.” Perhaps it was in the little creek, where a boat was now riding at anchor only a few feet from the shore, that Christ taught the people from the boat so as to avoid the crush of the multitude. It was doubtless in one of these inlets that James, the son of Zebedee, and John, his brother, were mending their nets when, being called, they left their ship and followed him; and it was on this coast that Andrew and Peter were casting their nets when they were summoned to become fishers of men. It has a higher claim to be called the birthplace of the religion which has since revolutionized the world than any other spot upon it; and it is a matter of some surprise to me that neither the Greek nor the Roman Catholic churches, in their zeal to discover holy places, which may serve as levers for political intrigue, have yet thought of occupying this one, which would seem the holiest of all. Perhaps it would lead to a comparison between their practice and the teaching of which it was the scene, which might give rise to some inconvenient reflections.

Apart from their associations the ruins themselves are not particularly striking. They cover an area of about half a mile in length by a quarter in breadth, and consist chiefly of the black blocks of basaltic stone which formed the walls of the houses. The traces of the synagogue, however, remain sufficiently for the building to be planned. Built of white limestone blocks, it must have formed a conspicuous object amid the black basalt by which it was surrounded. It was seventy-five feet by fifty-seven, built north and south, and at the southern end had three entrances. Many of the columns and capitals have been carried away, but enough still remain to convey some idea of the general plan and aspect of the building. The capitals are of the Corinthian order, and there were epistylia that rested upon the columns and probably supported wooden rafters. There are also remains of a heavy cornice and frieze. The exterior was probably decorated with attached pilasters.

Two miles north of Capernaum are the ruins of Chorazin. There is no difficulty in identifying the site, which may be determined partly by the itineraries of early travellers, and partly by the similarity of the modern name, Kirazeh. The path to them leads up the sloping, rocky hillside, but, owing to the peculiar character of the masonry, which is barely to be distinguished at one hundred yards from the rocks which surround it, the extent and importance of these ruins have been overlooked until quite recently. They cover an area as large as, if not larger than, those of Capernaum, and are situated partly in a shallow valley, partly on a rocky spur formed by a sharp bend in the Wady Kirazeh, here a wild gorge eighty feet deep. From this spot there is a beautiful view of the Lake of Tiberias to its southern end; and here, too, are gathered the most interesting ruins—a synagogue with Corinthian capitals and niche-heads cut, not, as at Capernaum, in limestone, but in hard black basalt. The dimensions of this building are about the same as those of the one at Capernaum, but the interior is a mass of ruins. Two pedestals still remain in situ, and a portion of the wall. The characteristic of this synagogue is an excess of ornamentation of rather a debased kind. The niches are most elaborate, and remain as sharp as when they were cut in the hard material used. The mouldings of the door-posts are similar to those used in other synagogues, and there are many stones cut with deep mouldings and pieces of classical cornices strewn among the ruins.

Many of the dwelling-houses were until recently in a tolerably perfect state, the walls being in some cases six feet high; and, as they are probably of the same class of houses as that in which Christ dwelt, a description of them may be interesting. They are generally square, of different sizes, the largest, however, not over thirty feet square, and have one or two columns down the centre to support the roof, which appears to have been flat, as in the modern Arab houses. The walls are about two feet thick, built of masonry or of loose blocks of basalt. There is a low doorway in the centre of one of the walls, and each house has windows twelve inches high and six wide. In one or two cases the house was divided into four chambers.

We now pushed on to the point where the Jordan enters the lake, distant about three miles, for it was only on the other side of that river that my exploration of new ground might be said to commence. I had been attracted hither by rumours which had reached me of a remarkable stone which was said to be in the possession of an Arab, on which were pictorial representations and inscriptions. As my information on the point was somewhat vague, I rode up to a Bedouin encampment, near which was also a collection of mud hovels occupied by fellaheen, which were situated on the west bank of the river. They were naturally so suspicious that I pretended at first to be merely anxious to have a guide to show me the ford, but it was not until the old sheik himself appeared that I could find any one willing to offer me the slightest assistance. They gazed at me with open-mouthed stupidity, real or assumed, and the sight of silver scarcely moved their stolidity. Far different was it with the eagle-eyed old gentleman who, having seen the group assembled round us, strode up from the Bedouin encampment, and at once entered into the spirit of the thing. Not only was he prepared to show me the ford, but, for adequate consideration, would take me to all the ruins in the neighbourhood, with the positions of which he professed an accurate acquaintance, if I would only wait until he went for his horse. This I was only too happy to do, and in a few minutes he galloped up with his kufiha and abbaye fluttering in the wind, a genuine son of the desert. We forded the Jordan by following the little bar which it makes on entering the lake, the water reaching to our saddle-flaps, and, following the shore, here a grassy plain for half a mile, reached a large square building, charmingly situated near some trees on the margin of the water. This was the granary and storehouse of the great Arab proprietor of the neighbourhood, the only building with any pretensions for miles round; and it was the local agent of this man, himself a resident in Damascus, whom I now found to be in possession of the relic I had travelled so far to see. My disappointment may be easily conceived when I was told that he had gone to Damascus, and would not return for a week. My disgust, as I squatted beneath the walls of this detestable building, making a lunch off hard-boiled eggs, and revolving burglarious schemes of entry, all of which came to naught, may easily be imagined. The fact that the building itself was surrounded by ruins was small consolation, for these consisted only of large hewn blocks of black basalt, and the foundations of houses which were clearly to be traced, but the area they covered was not extensive, and I could not find any indications of any public building. The name of the spot is El-Araj, which signifies The Lame, but I was unable to identify it with any Biblical locality.

DISCOVERY OF AN ANCIENT SYNAGOGUE.

Haifa, Feb. 2.—I narrated in my last letter the disappointment I experienced when, after making a pilgrimage to the north end of the Lake of Tiberias for the express purpose of seeing some stones covered with inscriptions and pictorial representations, said to be in the possession of the agent of a rich Arab proprietor, I found their owner gone and the relics locked up in a building of which he had taken the key, and all ingress to which was impossible. The Bedouin sheik whom I had picked up as a guide at a neighboring encampment, seeing my chagrin, comforted me by the assurance that if I would only follow him he would take me to a place where I could find others which were quite as good. I mounted my horse, therefore, in somewhat better spirits, as from his description of the locality I knew it must have escaped the attention of all former travellers, and consoled myself by the reflection that a discovery of some importance might still be in store for me.

Our way took us due north across the fertile plain of the Butêha, an alluvial expanse about two miles in length by one in breadth, formed by the detritus which, in the course of ages, has been washed down the Jordan, and the winter torrents which rush into the plain down the wadys that descend from the elevated plateau of Jaulan.

The Butêha is not unlike the plain of Genesareth. Both are well watered and extremely fertile. Butêha has the largest and most prominent brooks, Genesareth the most numerous and abundant springs. The old traveller, Burckhardt, says that the Arabs of the Butêha have the earliest cucumbers and melons in all this region. It was on this plain, at the foot of the hill or “tell” we were now approaching, that Josephus fought the Romans under Sylla, concerning which battle he says: “I would have performed great things that day if a certain fate had not been my hinderance, for the horse on which I rode and upon whose back I fought fell into a quagmire and threw me to the ground, and I was bruised on my wrist and was carried into a certain village called Cuphernome or Capernaum.”

The tell which rises from this plain, about a mile and a half from the lake, is thickly strewn with ruins, consisting of hewn blocks of black basalt, with which, in the ancient times, all the houses in this region were constructed; but as yet no traces of any large building have been discovered. It has, indeed, been very rarely visited, but it is considered by many to be the site of Bethsaida-Julias and the scene of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. At present all we know for certain is that one of the Bethsaidas was somewhere in the Butêha; that Josephus in his descriptions advanced it to the dignity of a city, both by reason of the number of inhabitants it contained and its other grandeur; and that inasmuch as the plain of the Butêha contains many heaps of ruins, none of any very great extent, any of them may be Bethsaida, while if it were a large city in our modern acceptation of the term, the whole plain would not be large enough to contain it.

Indeed, one is much struck in exploring the ruins of the country by the limited areas which they cover. I am afraid to say how many sites of ruined towns I have visited in Palestine, certainly not less than forty; and I think one could crowd them all into the area occupied by the ruins of one large ancient Egyptian city—Arsinoë in the Fayoum, for instance; but then the ruins of an Egyptian city are composed mainly of mounds of potsherds, while these consist of large blocks of building stone, either limestone or basalt, measuring generally two feet or two feet six one way, and a foot or eighteen inches the other. Then they are usually comparatively near together; all around the Lake of Tiberias, and in the country in its vicinity, they are generally not more than from one to three miles apart; so that this section of country must have been very thickly peopled. The ruins of Et-Tell are now built over by the Arabs, who live in a squalid village among the basalt blocks which formed the mansions inhabited by the more highly civilized race which occupied the country in the days when all this region was the favourite haunt of Christ and his disciples.

Leaving Et-Tell on our left, we followed the east bank of the Jordan for more than a mile. This river is here very rapid, and, splitting into numerous streams, whirls past the small islets they form. It is the very ideal of a trout stream, on which on some more propitious occasion I propose to cast a fly. Meantime, even had I been provided with the requisite tackle, I should have been obliged to forego the temptation. It was on the steep rise of a hill, about a hundred yards from the river, that my guide suddenly stopped. Here was a small collection of Arab hovels, recently constructed, and it was in their search for stone, last summer, that the natives had for the first time uncovered the ruin which now met my delighted gaze.

I found myself in the presence of a building the character of which I had yet to determine, the walls of which were still standing to a height of eight feet. The area they enclosed was thickly strewn with building-stones, fragments of columns, pedestals, capitals, and cornices. Two at least of the columns were in situ, while the bases of others were too much concealed by piles of stone to enable me to determine their original positions. My first impression, from the character of the architecture which was strewn about, was that this was formerly a Roman temple; but a further and more careful examination convinced me that it had originally been a Jewish synagogue, which at a later period had been converted to another use; probably it had been appropriated by the Byzantines as a basilica, or Christian church. This was the more probable, as the existing walls had evidently been built upon the foundations of a former structure. The massive stones were set in mortar, which is not the case with the synagogues hitherto discovered; and I should doubtless have been completely at fault in classing this building had my attention not been already directed to the remains of the synagogues brought to light recently by the exertions of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

I was now fortunately in a position to compare the dimensions, ground-plan, and architectural fragments which were strewn about, with those which distinguish the synagogues already discovered, in regard to whose original character there can be no doubt, as the Hebrew inscriptions and sacred Jewish symbols carved on the lintels prove it. The building measured forty-five feet by thirty-three, which is exactly the measurement of the small synagogue at Kefr-Birim. The columns were exactly of the same diameter. The floor was depressed, and reached by a descent of two steps, which were carried around the building in benches or seats each a foot high, the face of the upper one ornamented by a thin scroll of floral tracery. These features occur in the synagogue at Irbid. There was a single large stone cut into the shape of an arch, which had evidently been placed on the lintel of the principal entrance, like the one which stands to this day over the doorway of the great synagogue at Kefr-Birim. The niches, with the great scallop-shell pattern which distinguishes them, almost exactly resemble those of the synagogue of Kerazeh or Chorazin; while the cornice, which was extremely florid, and not unlike what in modern parlance is called “the egg-and-dart pattern,” though differing in some respects from the cornices hitherto observed, was evidently of the same school of design. The capitals were two feet three inches high, and Corinthian, in the same style and of the same dimensions as those of the small synagogue of Kefr-Birim, and there was the upper fragment of two semi-attached fluted columns, with Doric capitals, the ditto of which is to be found at Irbid. The two columns in situ exactly answer in position those of several of the synagogues, and though the position of the door, which was in the centre of the western wall, was somewhat unusual, this was accounted for by the fact that the building had been excavated from the hillside, so that the top of the east wall, nine feet of which was still standing, was level with the surface of the slope of the hill.

The only convenient entrance was in the wall of the side immediately opposite to it. The name of this most interesting locality was ed-Dikkeh, a spot hitherto unvisited by any traveller. Indeed, if it had been visited, it would have been passed unnoticed, for its antiquarian treasures have only been revealed for the first time a few months ago. The word ed-Dikkeh means “platform,” a name, considering its position, not inappropriate; but I have not been able to identify it with any Biblical site.

The area of ruins apart from those of the synagogue itself was not very large, but the situation was highly picturesque. Half a mile to the north of where we stood the Jordan forces its way through a gorge which I hope some day to explore, while immediately below us it rushed between numerous small islets. Opposite the hills swelled gently back from its western bank, behind us they rose more abruptly to the high table-land of Jaulan, while to the southward stretched the plain of Butêha, with the Lake of Tiberias in the distance.

Meantime the few wild-looking natives who inhabit this remote locality clustered around me, as they watched me measuring and sketching, with no little suspicion and alarm. “See,” said one to another, “our country is being taken from us.” My request for old coins only frightened them the more. They vehemently protested that not one had been found, an assertion which, under the circumstances, I felt sure was untrue; nor did the most gentle and reassuring language, with tenders of backshish—which was nevertheless greedily accepted—tend to allay their fears. I have forgotten to mention what was perhaps the most interesting object of all, and this was the carved figure of a winged female waving what seemed to be a sheaf in one hand, while her legs were doubled backward in a most uncomfortable and ungraceful position. It was on an isolated slab about six inches thick, and two feet one way by eighteen inches the other.

The area of the hillside all around was strewn with the blocks of building-stone of which the town had been built. It had apparently not been a very large place, but as the villagers will probably continue their excavations for their own purposes next summer, it is not at all unlikely that they may bring some more interesting remains to light. I earnestly impressed upon them the necessity of preserving these, promising another visit next year, when I would reward them in proportion to the carvings, coins, or other antiquities they could provide for me; but they listened to my exhortation with such a stupid and suspicions expression of countenance that I did not derive much encouragement from their reluctant consent.

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE RUINS OF SYNAGOGUES.

Haifa, Feb. 16.—I described in my last letter the discovery of the ruins of an ancient Jewish synagogue at a spot on the east bank of the Jordan, about three miles north of the upper end of the Lake of Tiberias. As the question of ancient Jewish synagogues is one of great interest, in regard to which considerable misapprehension prevails even among archæologists, I may be excused for entering upon a short disquisition upon the subject, as I am not aware that the great light which has been thrown upon it by recent Palestinian research has yet been distributed in a popular form to the general public, and the old and recognized authorities are often misleading. For example, “Smith's Dictionary of the Bible” contains a long article on Jewish synagogues which has hitherto been considered the great authority on the subject, in which I observe that it states under the sub-head “Structure:”

“Its position, however, was determined. It stood, if possible, on the highest ground in or near the city to which it belonged. Its direction, too, was fixed. Jerusalem was the Kibleh of Jewish devotion. The synagogue was so constructed that the worshippers, as they entered and as they prayed, looked towards it.”

This may have been the case in respect of the earlier synagogues, long anterior to the time of Christ, the traces of which have been lost, but in the case of eleven which have been discovered by the officers of the Palestine Exploration Fund, since the above was written, no such rules have been adhered to. These all date either from the time of Christ, or shortly before it, to three centuries after it. We know they were synagogues, and can approximately calculate their dates, from the Hebrew inscriptions found on some of them, and from the emblems with which they were ornamented, such as the pot of manna, the seven-branched candlestick, and other purely Jewish devices. In the cases of these synagogues, many of which I have seen, the builders have by no means selected the most prominent positions; the existing remains have, with two exceptions—at Irbid and at ed-Dikkeh, where the ground would not admit of such an arrangement—their doors on the southern side, so that every Jew entering would have to turn his back on Jerusalem. The ark, if there was one in these synagogues, would necessarily, in that case, be placed at the northern end, and the worshippers would therefore have to pray with their backs to Jerusalem.

We know, besides, how abhorrent to the Jews were the figures of animals, and the popular impression has been that none such were permitted to decorate their synagogues; yet in these synagogues we find them prominently carved in stone in six out of the eleven. The carved figure I found at ed-Dikkeh makes a seventh, and they probably existed in the others and in greater quantities than those already noted, but have been destroyed by the Mohammedans as contrary to their religion. As may be supposed, as they were all built at nearly the same period, there is a great similarity in the architecture of the synagogues recently discovered. It is of an extremely florid and somewhat debased Roman type. In all of them the same class of mouldings is observable. There is a great resemblance in the niches and cornices, while the capitals show some variation, being Corinthian, Doric, and Ionic. There is also a great similarity in the ground plan and in the position of the columns. In the case of a Roman temple these are all in colonnades outside the building, in cases of synagogues they are all within it. There should be no possibility, therefore, of confusing a synagogue with a Roman temple, even though it abounds with Roman architecture; but it is not always so easy to distinguish it from an early Christian church, or basilica, where the columns were also inside. The reason that the architecture of these latter synagogues was so purely Roman in character is to be found in the conditions under which they were built. Shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, the Jewish Sanhedrim was established at Tiberias, under a patriarchate whose authority was recognized by the foreign communities at Rome and in Asia Minor, and large numbers of these came to live in the district, while alms poured into the treasury at Tiberias from all directions. It thus became very wealthy, and the centre of a great Jewish population. It was recognized by the Romans, and by them granted many indulgences, and, during the reign of Antoninus Pius, A.D. 138–161, increased in power and influence.

At the beginning of the third century the Jews were in high favor with the Emperor Alexander Severus, who was even called the Father of the Synagogue, and this name may have been given him from his influence over the erection and architecture of these buildings. It seems, therefore, almost a certainty that the Roman emperors aided and inspired the erection of these synagogues. They were built by Roman labor, for the Jews, being immersed in commercial pursuits, by using Roman workmen, obtained much finer results than we are led to think they would themselves have been capable of. No synagogues of the kind have been found in other countries, though there were many in Babylon and in the colonies of the Jews, and this type has never been perpetuated in later works, while we have seen how many points in their religion were disregarded in their design and ornamentation. We may therefore suppose that they were forced upon the people by their Roman rulers at a time when they were completely submissive to their power, and directly they were able they deserted such pagan buildings as a disloyalty to their religion. It is stated that Rabbi Simon, son of Jochai, is the founder of many of these buildings. Indeed, it is related that he built with his own money twenty-four synagogues in this part of the country. As he was a most fanatical teacher of the law, it is evident that if he erected so many buildings in such violent contradiction to many points of his own religion, he must have done it under great pressure. These synagogues built under Roman auspices were probably only an alternative evil; they had to choose between having them or none at all. With the exception of one on Carmel, and a problematical one at Shefr-Amr, about six miles from Haifa, all the synagogues hitherto found have been within the immediate limits of what was formerly the patriarchate of Tiberias. The fact that the building at ed-Dikkeh would be included in this district is an additional reason for assuming it to have been one of this class of synagogues, and, if so, we should probably be accurate in fixing its date at somewhere in the first or second century after Christ.

From ed-Dikkeh I proceeded under the guidance of the old sheik, who was much pleased at the satisfaction which I evinced at his successful leadership thus far, in an easterly direction to another place, where he assured me that the villagers had also been at work getting out stone during the summer, and had unearthed some more old ruins. Our way led us along the flank of the Jaulan hills, with the plain of the Butêha on our right, and, after a ride of about an hour, we reached a village of huts, in the midst of which was the anticipated excavation. I could not quite expect such another stroke of luck as that which had befallen me at ed-Dikkeh, but yet I had no reason to be dissatisfied. Here, upon a terrace built of large blocks of basalt about five inches in height, I found a curious condition of things. The villagers had laid bare, eighteen inches below the surface of the earth, the cement floor of an old chamber about twenty feet in one direction. I could not tell how far it went in the other, as it was still covered with earth, but where it abruptly terminated it revealed, about eighteen inches beneath, another floor of some building of much older date, across which it had been built diagonally. This floor was of stone. It, too, had been cleared for some distance by the natives, and upon it was standing, at intervals of six feet apart, five solid cubes of stone, measuring two feet each way, which had probably been the foundations or lower stones on which had been placed the pedestals of columns. As this lowest floor was three feet below the present surface of the ground, the top of these stones was one foot below it, and the line of them may have continued, though only five had been uncovered. I have no means of conjecturing what the building may have been. I found many fragments of columns and capitals strewn around among the ruins, which covered a larger area than those at ed-Dikkeh, and which, like them, are a new discovery, though what its results may be must depend very much upon further excavation. I impressed upon the villagers here, as I had already done at ed-Dikkeh, if, in the course of their excavating for stone, they came upon any with inscriptions or pictorial representations, to preserve them; but I felt, as I did so, that my words fell upon deaf or rather unwilling ears. They gazed at me with alarmed stolidity, either not understanding or not caring to understand, and evidently dominated by the fixed impression that my proceedings implied in some way the future ownership of the soil. I looked from here wistfully up a valley, at the mouth of which this ruin was situated, and at the head of which others were reported to exist, but circumstances prevented me at the time from pushing my explorations in this direction. Indeed, travel in this part of the country is attended with many difficulties, some political and some material, among the latter the chief one being, if one is unprovided with a tent, the question of where one is to spend the night. If, on the other hand, one is provided with a tent, it involves a much larger retinue, increased expense, excites even more distrust among the natives, and becomes sometimes dangerous from arousing their cupidity, and this necessitates having guards and escorts, which are the cause of endless quarrels and annoyance, as the more people you have with you the less are you your own master to go where you like, and the more difficult it is to provide for man and beast. It is a choice of evils at best of times, and the worry and discomfort can only be compensated for by good luck in obtaining results, and this is by no means always to be secured, though thus far on this particular journey I had had no reason to complain. I now propose to tempt fate on the highlands to the east of Lake Tiberias, with what success remains to be seen.

A NIGHT ADVENTURE NEAR THE LAKE OF TIBERIAS.

Haifa, February 28.—The tourist who follows the ordinary track of Palestine travel from Jerusalem to Damascus inevitably passes Tiberias. Standing on the flat roof of the convent, where, if he is not one of a Cook's party, he is compelled to lodge, he has a splendid view of the lake and of the precipitous cliffs opposite, which descend abruptly to its margin from the elevated plateau behind, that averages two thousand feet above the level of the lake. That sheet of water being nearly eight hundred feet below the sea-level, the only engineering problem which presents itself to the consideration of the surveyors who have been engaged in tracing a railroad line between Haifa and Damascus is how to ascend from this depression to the highlands above.

The solution of the problem is to be found in a large wide valley called the Wady Samak, which is exactly opposite Tiberias, and up the unknown recesses of which our tourist looks with longing eyes. Practically this wady is a sealed book to the Palestine traveller. To explore it he would have to obtain special permission from the government, with a guard, and be exposed to all manner of extortion from his dragoman, who would take advantage of his ignorance to magnify the dangers and add to the already existing obstacles. Indeed, one of the most singular characteristics of Palestine travel is the close proximity of unknown and unexplored districts to beaten tracks. Just as it often happens in a large city, that in the immediate neighborhood of one of the most frequented thoroughfares there are back slums inhabited by thieves and criminals, into which no respectable person penetrates, so, in Palestine, within ten miles of a place like Tiberias, there are spots as yet untrodden by the foot of the explorer; but these are all to the east of the lake and of the Jordan. Almost every inch of western Palestine has succumbed to the exhaustive researches of the Palestine Exploration Fund.

It was on a gloomy winter afternoon that I found myself skirting the eastern shore of the lake with the view of attacking the mysteries of this interesting valley—interesting from a practical point of view, because I wanted to look at the possible gradients which it might offer for a railway, and still more interesting from an archæological point of view, because I felt sure that in searching for gradients I should find ruins. But the search was undertaken under difficulties. I was without a tent, because my journey partook of the nature of an exploratory dash, and a tent would have been an encumbrance. I was without a guide, because my guide had deserted me in consequence of one of those misunderstandings which are not uncommon between travellers and their guides; but I had two companions, baggage animal and servant, and an amiable soldier, upon whom, in case of trouble, it was supposed we should be able to rely for protection and aid.

Owing to a variety of causes, principally arising from a desire to find ruins where there were none, and to map certain wadys which are incorrectly laid down in the maps, we were about two hours later than we should have been when we reached the mouth of the wady. The clouds were lowering ominously, there had been no sun all day, and now that luminary seemed to have given up the attempt to shine upon us in despair, and to have made up his mind, in a fit of disgust, to retire permanently to rest. I felt, considering the journey up the unknown wady, which we still had to perform without a guide before I could hope to reach a resting-place (I did not look forward to its being much of a sleeping-place), that it had no business to get dark so early. However, it was still broad daylight, and we took our bearings by compass as carefully as was possible, and were encouraged by observing that the track we were on was a broad and well-beaten one, and which, as the formation was white limestone, would show plainly even when it got dark. The valley I knew to be about seven miles long. The village we were bound for, the only village in it or near it, was at its head. We had only to keep going straight up, and the path we were on would surely lead us to it.

This fond delusion I hugged to my soul as we pushed on as rapidly as our wearied steeds, which had been travelling since daybreak, would allow us. The breadth of the valley in a bee-line from one edge of the plateau above us to the other was not less than two miles. It was a broad valley, with many shoulders running into it from both sides, and terraces here and there of cultivated land, the crops the property of wandering Bedouins, who come here in winter to sow them, and come back in spring to gather them. Down the centre of the valley brawled, over a rocky bed, a mountain brook, even in the dryest season a respectable trout stream, and often after heavy rains an impassable torrent. On the present occasion, however, it was behaving itself respectably, and gave us no trouble. It was fringed with oleanders, and here and there received tiny tributaries, which all helped to produce more vegetation than is usual in Palestine valleys, and to enhance the beauty of scenery the natural features of which were strikingly picturesque. As long as it was light I could see natural terraces on the flanks of the valley, up which it would be easy to take the line. Then I saw where long curves must be taken, winding up lateral hollows, through which we could twist the line up the two thousand feet it had to ascend, and lengthen out the seven miles of the wady to a distance which would suffice for the required gradient.

Assuredly when that long-looked-for and much-to-be-desired line is made, the stretch up the Wady Samak will be one of the most romantic and interesting sections upon it, while its well-watered slopes will doubtless tempt the speculative agriculturist or stock-farmer to intrude upon domains now appropriated by a few wandering Arabs, whose scanty flocks might be increased tenfold without consuming half its pasture, and who do not cultivate a tithe of its fertile soil.

While thus indulging in airy imaginings of the future, darkness gradually closed in, and I became suddenly aware, as so often happens in this world, that all my calculations would have been sound in regard to my finding my way if they had not been based upon thoroughly delusive premises. The cause of my error may be summed up in the one word, basalt. I had forgotten one of the most remarkable geological features of this part of the country, and this is, that only the lower stratum of the range which rises from the east shore of Lake Tiberias is of limestone. All the rest is basaltic, and this formation is of vast thickness. The whole of this district is, indeed, an immense volcanic field, consisting of irregular heaps of amorphous lava and disintegrating scoriæ, with mounds of globular basalt. So that when darkness came on everything below me, as well as all above, seemed suddenly to have become as black as night. The path had disappeared as if by magic, and I called a halt, and we found ourselves on a patch of black rock, with exactly similar patches of black rock all around us. The outlines of the hills had vanished, the path had led us up from the bed of the torrent, so we no longer had that to guide us. To attempt to descend to it would have been madness, as we might have fallen over a precipice in the darkness; indeed, we were afraid to move, except with extreme caution, in any direction. We had a compass and matches, and knew that by keeping due south we might, if no accident befell us, and the rocks permitted a passage, ultimately reach the plateau; but we also knew that the direction of our night-quarters was due cast; but here we ran the greater risk of tumbling into unknown transverse gorges with precipitous cliffs. We cautiously worked south, but our progress soon became barred by thorny brushwood, and we had to face the alternative of a night out-of-doors without water or anything to drink, and a very limited supply of food.

We were just bracing ourselves to this unpleasant prospect, when, in a southwesterly direction, we suddenly saw a gleam of light; it lasted for a moment, then seemed to go out. But that one ray was one of hope, and we steered cautiously for it. We had been scrambling by compass in the dark for about half an hour, and were just beginning to despair, when the bark of a distant dog put new energy into us, and not long after, around the shoulder of a hill, we came upon an encampment, and were greeted by the furious yells of the mob of noisy curs which infest the tents of the Bedouins. It was a startling apparition to burst upon these nomads in their remote retreat—horsemen of a type they had never seen before, and an armed soldier. Such children as were awake set up a dismal squalling, the women cowered tremblingly over their camp-fires under the pent roof of black camels' hair. All the side of the tent being open, its whole internal economy was exposed to view, and enabled us to judge of the slight protection in the way of bedding or clothing or covering of any sort which was provided against the inclemency of the season.

Meantime the men had gathered round us, half timidly, half threateningly. The presence of the soldier suggested fear and suspicion, while the smallness of our party encouraged the bolder ones to look defiant. As far as I could make out in the darkness there were about a dozen tents here in all—apparently the fag end of an insignificant tribe whose name I forget. It was at first impossible to induce any one at that late hour to act as guide. Even abundant offers of backshish failed to shake their suspicion, which was to the effect that we wished to decoy one into durance to act as a hostage until some arrears of taxes which they owed the government should be paid up.

The other alternative was that we should take up our quarters in the sheik's tent, whether he liked it or not, which, with a piercing wind blowing, accompanied by sleet, was not a very pleasant prospect. He seemed to relish it as little as we did, and finally consented to be our guide as we made some silver gleam in the firelight. As he seized his eighteen-foot lance and mounted his ragged steed he looked like some Arab Don Quixote; and as the camp-fire threw its ruddy glow upon a group of wild-looking women, with dishevelled hair and tattooed chins, crooning over a pot like the witches of “Macbeth,” and upon barelegged men, as they flitted to and fro between the black tents, I thought I had seldom gazed upon a more weird and unreal-looking scene.

How our guide could find his way up the rocky hillside and across the prairie remained a mystery during the long two hours that we followed him. Of this I feel sure, that we scrambled up places in the dark that we should never have thought of facing by daylight. The very horses seemed to have become desperate, and to have abandoned themselves to their fate. At last we dismounted and scaled the rocks like goats, every one, man or beast, doing the best he could for himself on his own account, and so at last, wearied and half-starved, for we had fasted for about ten hours, we reached the goal of our endeavour, too tired to see what an utterly miserable hole it was.

I passed a wretched night in a room in the middle of which a fire had been built, which filled it with smoke, for it had no other exit but the door, which it was too cold to keep open. Around the fire were stretched fifteen Arabs, who quarrelled with a government official, whom they were compelled to entertain, about their taxes, until they exhausted themselves, and then they exchanged their discordant wrangling for no less discordant snoring. After replenishing exhausted nature with the eggs which was all that my host could provide me with, and a tin of canned meat, I vainly tried to follow their example, but was too busily occupied in scratching to think of anything but fleas, and so tossed and tumbled and longed for the morning, when I proposed to enter upon a new field of exploration, for this was the village of El-Al, where I had heard that ruins existed; and as I had every reason to believe that in ancient times this neighbourhood had been the centre of a large population, I felt sure that they had left interesting traces, which were yet to be discovered.

KHISFIN.

Haifa, March 15.—There is no part of ancient Palestine which offers a more fertile field for antiquarian research than that portion lying to the east of the Jordan, which fell to the share of the half-tribe of Manasseh. In Biblical times a part of it was called Golan, and its modern name of Jaulan is almost identical with its ancient appellation. It is to this day the finest grazing land in all Palestine, as it was in the days of old, when Job fed his vast flocks and herds upon its more eastern pastures, but it is now very sparsely inhabited. The sedentary population has all been driven away by the wandering tribes of Bedouins who have appropriated the country; the very few villages that remain are squalid and miserable, and the inhabitants live in terror for their lives, for they never know what day, or rather night, the Arabs may not be down upon them, and carry off their stock. They surround their houses, therefore, with large yards enclosed by stone walls, and it was in one of these that I found a lodging on the night that I had so nearly been obliged to spend in the wilds of the Wady Samak. Attached to these yards are large stone vaults, capable of containing great herds of cattle, and some of them apparently of great antiquity. In the one in which I staked my horses I found, on examining it in the morning, part of a Corinthian column, still in situ, standing to a height of about six feet. I failed to discover any more, but the vault was so dark that my examination was carried on with difficulty, and I had no time to spend over it. The sheik's house in which I lodged, and to which this vault belonged, was evidently, however, built on the site of what had formerly been a building of some importance, for in the yard, to my surprise and delight, I came upon a prostrate statue of a woman, life size. The head was severed from the body, and the feet had been broken off at the ankles, but it was a fine specimen of Greek statuary. Both the features and the drapery were beautifully executed. The feet I found in situ, the ankles just appearing on a level with the ground. On clearing this away I laid bare the feet, which were still firmly fixed on the original pedestal, which it would have required a great deal of labour to disinter. It is not improbable that the pedestal is covered with carving in basso-rilievo, and I promise myself at some future time to dig it up. In the meantime both feet and pedestal cannot be safer than where they are, more especially as my companions secured the head. This the sheik was induced to part with for $3. The body was too cumbersome to carry away now, as a camel would have been needed for its transport, and, as it is not of much value without the head, it may be considered secured by the possession of that portion.

The statue apparently represented Artemis, as the left arm clasped what seemed to be a quiver for arrows. The right arm was unfortunately broken away, otherwise the statue would be perfect when put together. The pedestal, without doubt, contains an inscription describing the statue and the goddess represented upon it. I was sorely tempted to devote a day to its examination, but, in that case, I should have been compelled to give up visiting some other spots of interest which had never before been investigated, and the hardships and discomforts of these preliminary dashes into the wilds, more especially in the depth of winter, are so great that one is not tempted to prolong them—my present object being rather to know where to go at some future time, when the conditions, political and otherwise, may be more favourable than they are now. I therefore did not linger longer than was absolutely necessary at this place. I had seen enough to prove to me that it would, in all probability, amply repay a fuller investigation, and I determined without delay to push on to a village called Khisfin, which I was extremely anxious to examine, as it has hitherto escaped the careful attention of all former travellers. And yet, from the records which I have been able to examine in regard to it, it must have been a place of considerable importance in mediæval history, though hitherto my efforts to trace it back to an earlier date than the beginning of the tenth century or to identify it with any Biblical site have been in vain. Yakubi, an Arab geographer, who lived about the year 900 A.D., mentions it as one of the chief towns of the province of the Jordan. In his day Syria was divided into three provinces, namely: The province of Damascus, the province of the Jordan, and the province of Palestine. Yakut, in the thirteenth century, mentions it as a town of the Hauran district, below Nawa on the Damascus road, between Nawa and the Jordan. Khisfin was also at one time a fortress of the Saracens, as it is further mentioned as the place to which Al Melek Al Adil, Saladin's son and successor, fled after having been routed at the battle of Beisan by the Crusaders, who advanced upon him from Acre. As it is mentioned as being one of the chief towns of the province, so long ago as 900 A.D., it is probable that its importance dates from a much older period, as indeed was indicated by some of the ornamentation which I found there.

Securing my host, the sheik, as a guide to a locality which promised to be so full of interest, we started at a brisk pace across the plateau, in the teeth of a bitterly cold east wind and driving sleet, and, after riding an hour, came to the ruins of Nab, situated on a small mound. They consist of blocks of basalt building-stone, some traces of foundations, some fragments of columns and capitals, and a tank, dry at the time of my visit, but which evidently held water at some time of the year. It had, apparently, been much deeper at a former period, only the two upper courses of masonry being new visible. It was oval in shape, and measured sixty yards by thirty. This place does not appear to have been previously visited or described. Shortly after leaving it I observed masses of black stone, which, on nearer approach, proved to be the walls of a fortress that, my guide told me, was Khisfin itself. It loomed strikingly up from the grassy plain, and gave rise to pleasing anticipations as I galloped impatiently up to the base of the walls, and, jumping off my horse without even waiting to tether him, in my excitement, scrambled up a breach to see what was inside. I looked down upon a ruin-strewn area, but, alas, no columns, nor capitals, nor signs of Roman remains. This had evidently been in turn a Saracen and a Crusading construction. The outer walls measured sixty-eight yards one way by fifty-four the other. They are nine feet in thickness, and are eight courses of stone in height, the stones being from one foot to one foot six inches square; but some are much larger. Within the fort are the traces of a second or inner wall, forming a sort of keep in the centre; but the whole area was too much encumbered with ruin for any accurate plan to be possible in the limited time at my disposal.

A little beyond the fort stood the village itself. All the intervening and surrounding fields were thickly strewn with the large hewn blocks of black basalt of which the houses of the former population had been constructed, and which, to judge from the area which they covered, quite justified the description of Yakubi, that in his day this was one of the chief towns of the province, and the centre of a very large population. The present squalid inhabitants, few in number, seemed to live in a perfect quarry of these old building-blocks. No difficulty had they in finding material wherewith to build their houses, their large cattle vaults, and enclosing yards. They simply piled the tumbled masses of stone in a little more regular order, one above another, to make walls of any height or thickness they chose, without mortar or cement, and had houses that would last forever. As all the stones were beautifully squared and shaped, they had far more symmetrical walls, thanks to the ancients, than if they had been left to themselves. These black, massive huts all jumbled together with their vaults and yards, without regular streets or lanes, formed one of the strangest looking villages I ever saw. In some cases the walls were formed of stones placed diagonally, in others horizontally, in others perpendicularly. The very roofs were of stone, with earth on the top of them to fill up the cracks. Where hewn stone is so abundant and wood almost impossible to obtain, it is astonishing what uses the former can be put to. And now came a search which I would willingly have protracted over days instead of over minutes, which were all I had to give to it. To “do” Khisfin thoroughly one ought to examine carefully every stone in every house, besides the acres of stones by which the present village is surrounded. As it was, I went into as many houses as I had time for, and made sketches of what ornamentation I found. The natives had evidently used as lintels for their doorways the stones which had served the ancients for the same purpose. These were usually four or even five feet long, and many of them were ornamented with curious devices. They were in part Crusading and in part Saracenic. There were the tablets with half-effaced escutcheons, rosettes, bosses, crosses, and other Crusading emblems, which left no doubt in my mind that this must have been at one time an important Crusading fortress, though in the only book relating to the crusades which I happen to have by me no mention is made of it. There were several of those curious carvings, difficult to describe, which characterize Saracenic architecture as an evidence that the Moslem conquerors of the crusaders had also had a hand in its adornment; but what was more interesting, there were floral wreaths and carved devices which are a feature in Byzantine art, which gave clear evidence that before the conquest of this province from the Byzantine empire in the seventh century it had been an important city of that civilization which immediately succeeded the Roman.

The important question which I could not determine was whether, in the old Roman times, it had been a place of note. There can be little doubt that a future examination, of a more minute character than I was able to give, would determine this point, and it is not at all impossible that upon the old stones might be found seven-branched candlesticks, pots of manna, or emblems of a still older date, which would carry it back to Jewish times. Meanwhile I looked anxiously, but in vain, for an inscription which might throw some light on the subject, and it is certain that amid such a mass of ruin such are to be found. All my inquiries for old coins only tended to alarm the villagers, who looked on my proceedings with their usual suspicion, and associated my visit and my desire for old money with their taxes, which is the only idea that the fellah of Palestine seems able to connect with the visit of a prying and inquisitive stranger. The whole of the country which surrounds Khisfin is susceptible of the highest degree of cultivation; the land is eminently fertile and almost a dead level, capable of producing abundant crops, if there were any people to cultivate it. As it is, it is allowed to run to waste. It affords pasture to their flocks, but these are scanty, through fear of the Arabs, and the people, unable to rely upon the government for protection, and, indeed, being only aware that there is a government through its tax-gatherers, are sullen and suspicious and discouraged, and utterly without energy to do more than provide themselves with the barest necessaries of life.

FURTHER EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY.

Haifa, March 31.—From Khisfin, the ruins of which I described in my last letter, I struck off in a westerly direction under the guidance of the sheik who had been my host the night before, and who, now that he was convinced that I had nothing to do with tax-gathering, and was only possessed by what must have seemed to him an insane desire to find old stones and make pictures of them, took an evident pleasure in ministering to such a harmless form of insanity; in fact he became quite a bore on the subject. As he was naturally unable to appreciate any distinction between one old stone and another, he was constantly making me ride out of my way to look at some weather-beaten piece of basalt which had a fancied resemblance to a wild animal; or to a mound, the ruins on which belonged to a village that had been deserted within the last twenty years. Still I never could afford to treat his assurances with indifference, as there was always the possibility, until I satisfied myself to the contrary, that the stones to which he was guiding me might possess interest; and indeed on one occasion they did, for they turned out to be the ruins of a Roman town, where a few fragments of columns and capitals still remained to bear testimony to the particular civilization to which they belonged, and which, although they did not present any striking architectural features—indeed, the remains were somewhat insignificant—it was always a satisfaction to have been the first to discover. The name of these ruins was Esfera.

Near them a very singular and unpleasant accident occurred to me. I rode my horse to drink at what seemed a muddy puddle, which was about ten or twelve feet in diameter. Instead of being content to drink at the margin, he took two steps into it, and suddenly disappeared head first; that is, his head disappeared, his hind-quarters remained for a moment poised above the water just long enough to enable me to throw myself off backward into about two feet of puddle. We had walked into an overflowed well. When his hind-quarters at last went down into it his head came up, or, at all events, as much of it as was required for breathing and snorting, which he did prodigiously, evidently in a panic of terror, while I stood drenched and shivering on the bank in the cold east wind and sleet, wondering how we were ever to get him out. The poor beast was out of his depth, but the dimensions of the well were too limited to enable him to swim, or even to scramble freely. Fortunately I had sent on my saddlebags by my servant, or the animal would have been hopelessly weighted down. As it was, it was only by the united efforts of the party tugging at the bridle and stirrup-leathers that, after many futile efforts, at the end of each of which he fell back and for a moment disappeared altogether, we ultimately succeeded in extricating him. Meantime my own plight was in the last degree unenviable, the more especially as I was not in very good health at the time, a consideration which induced my companion, with a truly commendable devotion, to take off his nether garments and insist on my wearing them instead of my own, while he performed the remainder of the day's journey in the slight protection which he wore beneath them.

It was in this guise, and while still discussing my strange mishap, that our attention was suddenly arrested by finding ourselves surrounded by what are perhaps the most interesting of antiquarian objects, a number of dolmens. In a very limited area—none of them were over two hundred yards apart—I counted twenty. The subject of these rude stone monuments of a prehistoric age is so interesting that I will venture on a few words in regard to them.

The most remarkable point about Syrian dolmens is, that while they have been found in numbers to the east of the Jordan, not one has been discovered in Judea or Samaria, and only two or three in Galilee; and those are doubtful specimens. Indeed, it is only of late years that they have attracted the notice of explorers east of the Jordan; but since attention has been specially directed to the subject, we have constantly been having new discoveries. Six years ago I found one of the first at a spot not more than twenty miles from the hitherto unknown field I had now come upon. That dolmen stood alone, and being previously unaware of their existence in this part of the world, I examined it with the greatest interest. Since then Captain Conder, during his hurried survey in Moab, has found above seven hundred in that part of the country, and the result has been that the controversy as to the purpose for which they were designed has been reopened with renewed vigor.

The dolmen, which usually consists of three perpendicular stones forming three sides of a small chamber, with a single huge covering slab as its roof, is found in almost every part of the world except America, though I saw a notice in a paper the other day of one having been discovered in Missouri. There are stone monuments in Central America, I believe, somewhat resembling them, but I am not aware that the point has been satisfactorily determined, and it is of the highest interest that it should be, as it would establish the existence of general contact between the universal families of that ancient stock which preceded both the Aryan and Semitic races, and which belonged, therefore, to the illiterate and prehistoric age of the use of bronze and of flint.

Dolmens have been found in almost every country in Europe. They are numerous in the British Isles, France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Prussia, and the south of Russia. I have myself found them in the mountains of Circassia, and they exist in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, in great numbers in Algeria and the north coast of Africa, in Asia Minor and India, and we have recently heard of them in Japan! Wherever they exist are generally to be found menhirs, or single monolithic stones, and stone circles, such as Stonehenge in England, or long rows of standing stones, such as those to be found at Carnac in Brittany, or smaller stone circles, such as are common to the east of the Jordan. Those found in Syria are generally placed in a position commanding an extensive view and in close proximity to water. They are either “free standing,” that is, quite alone and isolated, or they are covered by cairns of stones; or they are, as the majority were in this instance, perched upon piles of stones.

It has been hitherto supposed that in all these cases they were sepulchral monuments, but it has been recently suggested that those alone beneath the cairns may have served this purpose, and those which were free standing or on cairns may have been used as altars. The basis for this conjecture consists in the fact that the flat covering stones of the Syrian dolmens are very often provided with cups or hollows, which may have served to hold sacrificial oil; and, moreover, the free standing dolmens are often on smooth rock, so that it would not be possible to inter a body beneath them. I have seen the covering slab to be as large as eleven feet long by five wide, though those in the field I was now examining were much smaller, some of the covering stones not being above five feet by three or four; this was probably owing to their being of basalt, which is much heavier than ordinary stone. Nearly all were trilithons, the covering slab being sometimes held in position by pebbles inserted under it; and in many instances they appeared to have a slight slant which was not the result of accident.

The natives here call them “Jews' burial-grounds,” showing that the local tradition is in favor of their being sepulchral monuments, though it is very certain they date from a period long anterior to the Jews. Indeed, the probability is that the disappearance of these monuments from western Palestine, where they no doubt existed, is due to the command to destroy heathen monuments. Thus, in Deuteronomy, we find again and again repeated injunctions to overthrow the Canaanite altars, and to break or smash their pillars. These exhortations we find carried into practice by Hezekiah and Josiah in Judea, and as the Book of Deuteronomy was held sacred by the ten tribes as well as by the two, we are justified in supposing that they carried out the order in Samaria and Galilee. But the land to the east of the Jordan always contained a mixed population, over which the kings of Israel and Judah exercised but little control. Baal worship was rife in Bashan, Gilead, and Moab in the days of Jeremiah, and the reforming zeal of Hezekiah did not affect the land where Chemosh and Ishtar, Baal, Peor, Nebo, and Meni yet continued to be worshipped. This accounts for dolmens not having been found, except with a few doubtful specimens, in Galilee to the west of the Jordan.

With the exception of the roughly excavated hollows in the covering slab, these rude stone monuments of Syria have, so far as is known, neither ornamentation nor rune nor other mark of the engraver's tool. In comparatively few instances they are made of hewn stone, very roughly cut, but generally they are of natural blocks and slabs entirely unformed. Thus, if there be any comparative scale of antiquity on which we can rely connected with the finish of the monument, the Syrian dolmens may claim to be considered among the oldest of their kind.

The word “dolmen,” usually rendered table-stone, should, according to Max Müller, be more properly translated “holed” stone, implying either a gateway, such as is formed by the trilithon, or else applying to menhirs and dolmens pierced with a hole, as in the case of the Ring stone, the Odin stone, and a peculiar class of holed dolmens. The one I saw in Circassia was of this latter category. Instead of three stones supporting the covering slab, as is almost invariably the case in Syria, there were four, and in the centre of the fourth was a circular hole, about eighteen inches in diameter, or just large enough to allow a thin man to squeeze through. Some have supposed these holes to be connected with some sacrificial rite, others to be due to the superstition that the dead could not rest in peace in tombs without an inlet for air. But the whole subject is encompassed with mystery, and affords material for endless conjecture.

So also do the sacred stone circles, of which I have seen several to the east of the Jordan. They are held in the greatest veneration by the Arabs, who can give no rational explanation of the sacred character they possess, except that they have been sacred from immemorial time. Here, again, these may either have originally had a sepulchral character, or they may have had reference to that peculiar and most ancient worship of which the menhir or monolith was the emblem, for in some instances menhirs are placed in certain fixed positions in regard to the circles, or they may have had an astronomical significance. It is singular that to this day the reverential attitude of the Arab is outside of the circle with his face to the rising sun, while in India the same circles are to be found among the Khonds in connection with the worship of the rising sun, the tallest member of the circle being towards the east.

The conclusions at which we may proximately arrive with reference to these interesting monuments are—according to Captain Conder, to whose researches I am indebted for many of the foregoing remarks—that the menhir is the emblem of the earliest religious idea suggested by the creative potency; that the circle may either have a sacred significance connected therewith, or be a sepulchral enclosure; that the dolmen, when free standing, is more likely to have been an altar than a tomb, but when buried beneath a cairn it may have been sepulchral; that the cairn is not always sepulchral, being sometimes a memorial heap; and that all are relics of a long-buried past.

THE DISCOVERY OF UMM EL-KANATAR.

Haifa, March 20.—When we had sufficiently satisfied our curiosity with regard to the dolmens, which I described in my last letter, the sheik who was our guide disappeared suddenly over the edge of the plateau on which they stood, down what seemed to be a precipice of black basalt. His reply to our anxious inquiry as to whither he was leading us—“to very old stones, with writing on them”—was a talismanic utterance which at once overcame all hesitation. On such occasions there rises in the mind of the cold and weary and half-starving traveller (and I answered to this description at the moment) visions of possible Moabite stones, trilingual inscriptions, and all the other prizes which reward successful Palestine research. I felt, therefore, ready to make any plunge into unknown depths that he might choose to suggest, but certainly this was a bad one. Some two thousand feet below us, distant not more than seven miles, gleamed the still waters of the Sea of Galilee. We stood on the upper edge of one of the branches of the Wady Samak, which leads down to it. To our left, scarce a mile off, we could see the old crusading ruin of the Kasr Berdawil, or Baldwin's Castle, perched on a promontory the sides of which are sheer precipices, thus offering to the old warriors a position of magnificent strength. It is one of the least known of the Crusading strongholds, but I was assured by a friend, who, so far as I know, is the only traveller who has visited it, that beyond a few crumbling walls there was absolutely nothing to be seen, so, as I had better game in prospect, I did not turn aside to it, as I had originally intended, but resolutely prepared to risk my neck amid the basalt blocks of the cliff down which the sheik was now disappearing. Fortunately, though it was a bad descent, it was not a long one. I never could understand how my horse managed it, for I had left him to take care of himself, finding my own legs a safer method of descent; but in these lonely regions the instinct of not getting separated from the rest of the party is as strong with animals as with men, and they may generally be trusted to follow their companions.

After scrambling down about five hundred feet we came to a sort of bench or narrow plateau, on the flank of the ravine, and on turning round a huge rock of black basalt came suddenly upon one of the most delightful scenic surprises which it was possible to imagine. Here in this wild, inaccessible spot, in ages long gone by, the ancients had evidently contrived a secure and enchanting retreat, for it was provided with the first requisite of beauty and of pleasure—a copious fountain of water. It lay in crystal purity in a still, oblong pool, beneath the perpendicular black rock. Against the rock, and projecting from it, were two large arches which had been constructed of solid masonry, with blocks of stone of immense size. One of these arches was almost destroyed, but the other was still in perfect preservation. It measured twenty-three feet in breadth, sixteen feet in height, and six feet six inches in depth, this being therefore the width of the fountain, which was also twenty-three feet long and about two feet deep. To my astonishment it contained numbers of small fish, which was the more surprising as it possessed no apparent outlet; but it was too cold and fresh and sparkling to be anything but a living stream, and probably disappeared by a subterranean passage through a large crevice which I observed in the rock.

The wide-spreading branches of a venerable oak which grew directly in front of the arch threw a delightful shade over it, while delicate ferns clothed the sides of the grotto, which seemed to woo us to a repose and indolence which was, alas, under the circumstances, denied to us. On the keystone of the arch there was a partially effaced inscription. Though it was sixteen feet overhead, and therefore inaccessible, I should not have abandoned some attempt to decipher it had I not felt sure that, even if I were close to it, it was too much defaced by the storms of ages to be legible. I feel little doubt, however, about its having been in the Greek character; while on a slab of stone at the side of the spring I found carved the figure of a lion, which was in good preservation, and of which I made a sketch.

The sheik was so impatient to take me somewhere else that he scarcely allowed me time to avail myself of this tempting spot to take the refreshment of which I stood much in need. He told me the name of the place was Umm el-Kanatar, or, being interpreted, “the place of arches,” a name evidently derived from its most striking feature, and he said there was a ruin close by. This turned out to be not a hundred yards distant, and consisted of walls still standing to a height of about seven feet, composed of three courses of stone, the blocks averaging about two feet one way by two feet six the other, but being in some instances much larger. These walls enclosed an area of about fifty feet by thirty-five, which was covered by a mass of ruins which had been tossed about in the wildest confusion. It was quite evident that it had been the work of an earthquake. Six columns, varying from ten to twelve feet in height, rose from the tumbled masses of building-stone at every angle. It was impossible without moving the huge blocks which encumbered their bases and hid their pedestals, and balanced them in all sorts of positions, to tell whether they were in situ or not. The huge moulded stones which formed the sides of the entrance, though still one above the other, had been shaken out of position, but they bore all the character of carving which is peculiar to Jewish architecture, and at once led me to conclude that here, as at Eddikke, I had discovered the ruins of an ancient Jewish synagogue, dating probably from the first or second century A.D. This impression was confirmed as I came to examine the ruin more narrowly. Here was the large stone cut in the shape of an arch, which had probably stood upon the lintel of the principal entrance; and here was a fragment of a handsome cornice of the same peculiar pattern I had found at Eddikke, resembling the egg-and-dart pattern of modern ornamentation. Here were the columns inside the walls of the building instead of outside, which would have been the case had it been a Greek temple, and here were the massive stones, not set in mortar, which would have been the case if it had been an early Christian basilica or church. Here, too, was a stone on which was carved the representation of an eagle, in deference to the prejudices of the Roman conquerors under whose auspices these synagogues appertaining to the Jewish Patriarchate of Tiberias were built, the work having evidently been executed by Roman workmen.

I could find no inscription, but it would take days to examine all the stones thoroughly, and it is most probable that a careful investigation of them would reveal something which would throw a still more definite light on the character and period of the building, though I confess I entertain very little doubt in respect to either. Altogether I regard these ruins of Umm el-Kanatar as the most interesting discovery I have yet made, and as being well worthy another visit and a more minute examination than I was able to bestow upon them.

The sheik now appeared to think he had done his duty, and expressed his intention of returning to his village and of leaving me to find my way down the Wady Samak by myself. This I did not object to, as there was still plenty of daylight, and I could, in fact, make out from where I was now standing the position of the ruins of Kersa on the margin of the lake, whither I had despatched my servants and baggage animals direct from my last night's quarters, with orders to await my arrival there.

It was up the branch of the wady that I was descending that the projected railway from Haifa to Damascus would have to be led, and it was some satisfaction to see that it offered facilities for the ascent of the line. The scenery was in the highest degree picturesque, the sides of the valley sometimes sloping back for some distance to the foot of the basalt precipices which formed its upper wall; at others these approached and formed projecting and overhanging promontories, like that on which the Kasr Berdawil was situated. We scrambled down by a rugged path to the small stream at the bottom with the view of following it, if possible, to its outlet on the lake, but this we soon found to be impracticable, and were assured by a Bedouin, whose hut we finally reached on its margin, that we must cross it, and make an ascent on the opposite side. This led us by a roundabout, hilly, but picturesque route across numerous and intersecting wadys, and past one ruin, of which nothing remained but the black blocks of hewn basalt. I was fortunate enough, however, to meet a man who told me the name, which I added to my list of unknown ruins, and so, after much scrambling, we reached at last the white limestone strata, and the purling brook again with its fringe of oleanders, and could see in the distance the one large solitary tree which we had given as our rendezvous, and beneath which our servants were standing, that marks the site of the ruins of Kersa, or the Gergesa of the Bible, where Christ healed the two men possessed with devils, and suffered those malignant spirits to enter into the herd of swine.

There is a discrepancy in the accounts of the Evangelists in their narrative of the incident. Mark and Luke, in our version, locate it in the country of the Gadarenes, but Matthew states it to have taken place in the country of the Gergesenes. The Vulgate, Arabic, and others that follow the Vulgate read Gergesa in all the Evangelists, and there can be no doubt that this is the correct reading, for the simple reason that the miracles could not have taken place in the country of the Gadarenes, a district which lies south of the Yarmuk, and at a long distance from the lake, the principal town, Gadara, the modern Um Keis, about the identification of which there can be no doubt, being at least eight miles from it. Now the account says that “when he came out of the ship immediately there met him a man,” also that the herd ran down a steep place violently into the sea. To do this, if the incident had taken place at Gadara, they must have descended twelve hundred feet to the Yarmuk, swam across that river, clambered up the opposite bank, and then raced for about six miles across the plain before they could reach the nearest margin of the lake. Scarcely any amount of insanity on the part of the devils would account for such a mad career, but in point of fact it does not tally with the Scripture record, according to which they rushed down a steep place into the sea. This is exactly what they could do at Kersa. The margin of the lake is here within a few rods of the base of the cliff, where there are ancient tombs, out of which may have issued the men who met Christ on the plateau above; and it is easy to suppose that the swine, rushing down the sloping cliff, would have enough impetus to carry them across the narrow slip of shore at its base. The remains now only consist of long lines of wall, which may easily be traced, and of a considerable area strewn with building-stones, which show that it must in old time have contained a considerable population. This is the more likely to be the case as it was the chief town of a district which was called after it. In fact, this picturesque and interesting Wady Samak, with its evidences of a former civilization, and its “place of arches” and handsome synagogue, was, in fact, “the country of the Gergesenes;” and there can be little doubt that to Christ and his disciples the remote corners of it, which I had been one of the first to explore, were intimately known.^[3]

The ruins of Kersa are a good deal overgrown, and in the cover which is thus afforded I put up a wild boar. He dashed away so suddenly, however, that a bullet from a revolver, which was sent after him, failed to produce any result. I have little doubt that the old Roman road turned from the lake at this point up the Wady Samak, as there are traces here and there indicating such a probability. It will be a singular commentary on the progress of events if it turns out that it has taken the best gradient, and if, upon its ancient track, the scream of the locomotive may in the near future be heard waking up the long-silent echoes of the country of the Gergesenes.

THE ROCK TOMBS OF PALESTINE.

Haifa, April 26.—The fact that I am laboring under a peculiar phase of insanity, which takes the form of descending with a light into the bowels of the earth with a measuring tape, and writing down cabalistic signs of what I find there, whether it be in a cistern or a tomb, or a natural cavern, has become pretty widely known among the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, and the consequence is that from time to time I receive information which may minister to this harmless monomania. The other day, for instance, a stonecutter whom I had employed on some building operations came to me with the intelligence that while he and some villagers had been getting out stone for a house at a place about twenty miles distant they had unexpectedly come upon a series of subterranean chambers. His account was so tempting that, though prepared by experience for disappointment when acting upon purely native information, I nevertheless thought the possible results worth an effort, and proceeded therefore to the village in question, which was situated in the centre of the Plain of Esdraelon. The sheik was at first somewhat reluctant to show me the spot, as the fellahin have an inherent suspicion of all investigations of this nature, believing them to be mysteriously connected with the discovery of treasure, which, when found, they will be accused of having concealed, and punished for it. He finally consented, however, to lead the way, and brought me to an opening in the earth, from the surface of which a flight of nine stone steps led down to a small paved court, about six feet square, which had now been emptied of the soil which had previously concealed its existence. The sides of this court, which were about twelve feet high, were formed of massive masonry, the blocks of stone being each from eighteen inches to two feet square, set in mortar. A short vaulted passage, three feet long, two feet six wide, and five feet high, led from it into a subterranean chamber of fine workmanship, and in such a high state of preservation that it was difficult to realize that from fifteen hundred to two thousand years had elapsed since its stone floor had been trodden by the foot of man. It was fourteen feet long, eight broad, and eight feet six in height, with a vaulted roof, the walls consisting of plain chiselled stones set in mortar, in courses of from two feet to two feet six inches in height. On the left of this chamber was a single koka, or tunnel, hewn in the rock for the reception of a dead body. The roof was vaulted and of solid masonry. On the side opposite the entrance was another vaulted passage, which was seven feet six in length, and led into a chamber hewn out of the solid rock, twelve feet by ten feet six, and six feet six in height. This contained three kokim and a loculus under an arcosolium; but the side of the loculus, as well as those of the kokim, had been much injured. The villagers, who had opened these tombs for the first time only a few weeks before, told us they had only found human bones in them, but I strongly suspect they had found ornaments which they were afraid to exhibit, though I offered them money. One or two glass bottles and earthenware jars they also said they had found and broken.

Not far from these tombs was another smaller excavation, the entrance to which presented the appearance of an ordinary cave, but on entering it we found ourselves in a small, circular, rock-hewn chamber, the floor so covered with rubble that it was not possible to stand upright. In the centre of the roof was an aperture eighteen inches square, opening to the sky, carefully hewn, and from it led a passage of masonry, the stones also set in mortar, two feet six broad, and about five feet to the point where it was completely choked with earth. Had I had time to excavate I should no doubt have found that it led into a tomb. The entrance to this passage was almost completely blocked by the capital of a handsome Ionic column; the column itself was eighteen inches in diameter. How it ever came to be wedged down in this underground passage I cannot conceive. Among the stones in the vicinity which had been unearthed by the natives I found one on which was carved a seven-branched candlestick, another of Jewish moulding, a sarcophagus, several fragments of columns, and a monolith standing ten feet from the débris at its base, with grooves and slots similar to others which I have seen on Carmel, but taller. I can only imagine it to have formed part of some olive-pressing machinery. In the neighbouring rocks were hewn vats and wine-presses.

The discovery of this tomb, with the peculiar characteristics which marked its construction, and the objects which surrounded it, afforded a fertile subject of conjecture. In order that my readers may understand the considerations to which it gave rise, I must enter a little more fully than I have hitherto done into the subject of the ancient Jewish methods of sepulture. These consist of sundry varieties, and it has been attempted to fix their dates from the variations which have been observed, as well as to discriminate by them between Christian and Jewish tombs. So far as my own investigation goes, I have been unable to fix any positive rule in the matter, my experience being that one no sooner forms a theory based upon observation, than one makes some new discovery which upsets it. Roughly, the tombs which I have investigated may be divided into the following categories: 1. Rock-hewn tombs containing nothing but loculi; 2. Rock-hewn tombs containing nothing but kokim; 3. Rock-hewn tombs containing both; 4. Masonry tombs containing either loculi or kokim, or both together; 5. Sarcophagi; 6. Rock-sunk tombs. A rock-hewn tomb is an excavation made in the solid rock (advantage generally has been taken of a natural cavern), and round the sides of the chambers so formed, which vary in dimensions, are ranged the receptacles for the dead. In some cases these are more than one chamber. In Sheik Abreikh, for instance, I counted fifteen opening one into another. Sometimes these are one above another, and one has to enter them from below through a hole in the stone roof which forms the floor of the upper chamber. A koka is a rectangular sloping space cut into the rock, tunnel fashion, extending six feet horizontally, sufficiently wide and high to admit of a corpse being pushed into it. A loculus is a trough cut laterally into the rock, which is arched above so as to form what is called an arcosolium. This trough is generally about six feet long, two feet six broad, and two feet deep. It is thus separated from the chamber by a wall of rock two feet high. A large tomb will contain as many as twelve loculi ranged around it.

At first it was supposed that the kokim tombs were the oldest; then it was found that loculi and kokim were sometimes found in the same tomb; and, indeed, there seems now to be no reason to suppose that one kind is older than the other. That the Christians used both is certain from the fact that Greek inscriptions with Christian ornaments are to be found over the doors of tombs containing kokim as well as loculi. Masonry tombs are only found in Galilee, where they are very rare. Indeed, so far as I am aware, this is only the sixth that has been discovered; but what gave it a special interest in my eyes is the fact that the stones were set in mortar, which is not the case with any of the others, ancient Jewish synagogues, as well as their masonry tombs, being built without cement. I therefore had made up my mind that this was a Christian tomb, the early Christians having evidently continued the Jewish method of sepulture, more especially as it is oriented, which is not the case with Jewish tombs; and, indeed, the character of the masonry and the fragments of columns and capitals lying about induced me to place it in the Byzantine period, possibly as late even as the fourth or fifth century A.D. But then I stumbled upon the stone with the seven-branched candlestick, an unmistakably Jewish emblem, which threw the date back. It is true that this stone was not built into the tomb, and might have formed part of a building of a date long anterior to it. Indeed, we know that on this spot, which is now called Jebata, and which is undoubtedly the Biblical Gabatha, was formerly a Jewish town of some importance, and its remains have doubtless got mixed up with those of a later Byzantine period, to which I still think it probable that the tomb which I discovered belongs.

It differs from any I have yet seen in the imposing character of its entrance. Its flight of nine handsome stone steps, leading down the open court, and the vaulted passage, with its massive masonry, give it quite a peculiar character. The entrance to the rock-hewn tomb is usually through a small doorway from three to four feet in height, just large enough to permit a man to squeeze through without very great inconvenience, and it is usually closed by a circular stone like a millstone, which runs in a groove, and can be rolled across it, though sometimes the door consists of a huge curved slab. The sarcophagus is too well known to need description. The most remarkable collection of them which I have seen is at Umm Keis, the biblical Gadara, where there are at least two hundred, many of them ranged in two rows on either side of the way leading out of the city. They are of black basalt, and are often beautifully carved and highly ornamented. I do not think they were so much used by the Jews as by Christians, though sometimes sarcophagi are found placed in loculi. At all events, they were not the original Jewish method of burial, and, if used by them at all, the habit was one which they probably adopted from their Roman conquerors.

The sunk tombs are common in various parts of Galilee—especially in the rocky hillsides of the range upon which Nazareth is situated. They consist of rectangular troughs, sufficiently large to contain a human body, sunk into the surface of the living rock, and covered with a huge lid of stone, sometimes flat, but more often cut conically, so as to have a high central ridge. I have more than once endeavoured to remove these from the tombs, which had never been opened, where they were still in situ, but never happened to be accompanied by a sufficient number of men or to have adequate leverage appliances with me. As these stones are generally about seven feet long, three broad, and from two to three feet thick, they require the application of no little force to remove them. They vary in size, however, and I have seen sunk tombs for babies not above eighteen inches long. Apart from the interest which attaches to the whole question of rock sepulture in Palestine, the most interesting relics of antiquity are generally found in the tombs, while not uncommonly valuable inscriptions are met with. Many of them are ornamented with pictorial representations, which have been laid on with coloured pigment, and the designs are often curious and interesting. Altogether, although the investigation of these mortuary chambers is often attended with great difficulty and discomfort, they frequently furnish results which compensate for the fatigue that they involve.

GENERAL GORDON'S LAST VISIT TO HAIFA.

Haifa, May 10.—The interest which attaches to the memory of the late General Gordon must be my apology for devoting a letter to my personal reminiscences of one whose singularly pure and lofty character attracted me to him at a time when he was comparatively unknown. Nothing is in fact more remarkable than the suddenness of the notoriety into which he sprang, a notoriety from which he of all men would have the most shrunk, and of the knowledge of which, by the singular fatality which isolated him from the world in his beleaguered garrison, he was to the last unconscious. Owing to his own modesty and love of retirement, and to the fact that his life had been largely spent abroad and in the service of foreign governments, he was personally almost unknown in London society. His friends consisted chiefly of his brother officers and a few congenial spirits whose acquaintance he had made in various parts of the world. By the public at large he had only been heard of as “Chinese” Gordon, and few cared to inquire what manner of man he was.

It was just twenty-nine years ago since I first met him in the trenches before Sebastopol. He was quite a young and unknown officer at that time, and I should have forgotten the circumstance had we not again come across each other three years afterwards in China, and upon comparing notes found that we had already met in the Crimea. He had not then been appointed to the command of the “ever victorious army,” and was still a junior Captain of Engineers. I left China before he entered the Chinese service, and almost immediately after his arrival, so that I saw very little of him. Still, I had seen enough to make me watch his subsequent career with great interest, but our paths had not again crossed until one day, about two years ago, I received a letter from Jaffa signed C. G. Gordon, asking for information in regard to Haifa as a residence, and expressing his intention of possibly paying me a visit. As I have many friends of the name, I was puzzled for the moment. The writer did not mention anything in the letter to give a clew to his identity, though it was addressed as from one old friend to another. It was only accidentally that the same afternoon the vice-consul here asked me if I knew anything of a General Gordon, as some letters had arrived to his care for an individual of that name. I at once perceived who my correspondent must be. I immediately addressed him a cordial invitation to pay me a visit, which he promptly responded to, and we spent a few very pleasant days together. The Hicks disaster in the Soudan had not then occurred, so that the affairs of that country and its Mahdi had not yet acquired the notoriety they were destined so soon to attain; but Gordon's intimate knowledge of the country induced him to express his opinion in regard to its condition.