punishment inflicted upon the Gadarenes for their insensibility to Divine instruction, as well, perhaps, as for their unhallowed pursuit in feeding animals forbidden by the law of Moses. The brink of the water presents many steep places where such a catastrophe might be easily realized.

At the upper end of the lake are the remains of Capernaum, now called Talhewm, or Tel Hoom, situated about ten miles from Tiberias, in a northeasterly direction. This village, although at present nothing more than a station of Bedouins, appears to have been occupied in former times by a settlement of some importance, as the ruins of stately buildings are found scattered over a wide space in the neighbourhood. The foundations of a magnificent edifice can still be traced; but the structure itself is so much dilapidated that it is no longer possible to determine whether it was a temple or a palace. The northern end is sixty-five paces in length, and, as the eastern wall seems to have extended to the edge of the water, its length could not be less than five hundred feet. Within this space are seen large blocks of sculptured stone, in friezes, cornices, and mouldings.

The appearance of the Sea of Galilee, as seen from this point of view at Capernaum, is very grand: Its greatest length runs nearly north and south, from fifteen to eighteen miles, while its breadth averages from five to six. The barren aspect of the mountains on each side, and the total absence of wood, give, however, a cast of dulness to the picture; and this is increased even to a feeling of melancholy by the dead calm of its surface, and the silence which reigns throughout its whole extent,

where not a boat or vessel of any kind is to be found. No fisherman any longer plies his laborious craft on the bosom of the lake, nor seeks to vary his scanty meal by letting down his net for a draught. Mr Buckingham observed, from the heights above, shoals of fish darting through the water, and the shore in some places covered with storks and diving-birds, which repair thither in search of food; but when, on one occasion, he suggested that a supper might be procured for his party by exercising a little skill with the rod or net, he discovered that the ignorant barbarians whom he addressed had not yet taken a lesson from the fowls of the air.

A circumstance deserving of notice is mentioned by Hasselquist, in regard to the tenants of this lake. He thought it remarkable that the same kind of fish should be here met with as in the Nile,-charmuth, silurus, bænni, mulsil, and sparus Galilæus. This explains the observations of certain travellers, who speak of the Sea of Tiberias as possessing fish peculiar to itself; not being acquainted perhaps with the produce of the Egyptian river. Josephus was of the same opinion; and yet it is worthy of remark that, in describing the Fountain of Capernaum, his conjectures tend to confirm the conclusions of the Swedish naturalist :- "Some consider it," says the Jewish historian, 66 as a vein of the Nile, because it brings forth fishes resembling the coracinus of the Alexandrian lake."*

That Capernaum was a place of some wealth and consequence in the time of our Saviour, may be inferred from the expostulation addressed to it, when

Josep. lib. iii. De Bell Jud. Hasselquist, p. 157. Clarke, iv.

p. 227.

he upbraided the other cities wherein most of his mighty works were done :—' "Woe unto thee, Chorazin! Woe unto thee, Bethsaida! And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell." But the history of all the towns on the Lake of Gennesareth has been covered with a cloud which it is now impossible to penetrate; and nothing, accordingly, is more difficult than to determine the situations occupied, even during the latter period of the Roman ascendency, by some of the principal places on which the emperors lavished their wealth and taste. Bethsaida was converted by Herod from an insignificant village into the dignity and grandeur of a city, named Julias, in compliment to the daughter of Augustus. At the present moment, however, no traces remain to point out the line of its walls or the foundations of its palaces. Gennesareth has in like manner disappeared; or if there be any relics of the town, which once gave its name to the inland sea whose shore it adorned, they are so indistinct and ambiguous as not to merit the notice of the traveller. Tarachea is represented by the hamlet of Sumuk, and the ruins. of Chorazin are imagined to meet the eye somewhere on the opposite coast; but, upon the whole, the denunciation uttered against the unbelieving cities of Galilee has been literally fulfilled, as they are now brought down to the lowest pitch of obscurity and oblivion.*

Travels in Palestine, vol. ii. p. 359. Quæ urbes, quod ipse servator iis prædixerat, hodie in ruinis jacent." Cluverius, lib. v. cap. 20. "Capernaum was visited in the sixth century by Ántoninus the Martyr, an extract from whose Itinerary is preserved by Reland, who speaks of a church erected upon the spot where St Peter's dwelling once stood."-Clarke's Travels, vol. iv. p. 211.

Tiberias is the only place on the Sea of Galilee which retains any marks of its ancient importance. It is understood to cover the ground formerly occupied by a town of a much remoter age, and of which some traces can still be distinguished on the beach, a little to the southward of the present walls. History relates that it was built by Herod the Tetrarch, and dedicated to the Emperor Tiberius, his patron, although there prevails, at the same time, an obscure tradition, that the new city owed its foundation entirely to the imperial pleasure, and was named by him who commanded it to be erected. Josephus notices the additional circumstance, which of itself gives great probability to the opinion of its being established on the ruins of an older town, that, as many sepulchres were removed in order to make room for the Roman structures, the Jews could hardly be induced to occupy houses, which, according to their notions, were legally impure. Adrichomius considers Tiberias to be the Chinneroth of the Hebrews, and says, that it was captured by Benhadad, king of Syria, who destroyed it, and was in after ages restored by Herod, who surrounded it with walls, and adorned it with magnificent buildings. The old Jewish city, whatever was its name, probably owed its existence to the fame of its hot-baths, -an origin to which many temples, and even the cities belonging to them may be traced.

The present town of Tabaria, as it is now called, is in the form of an irregular crescent, and is enclosed towards the land by a wall flanked with circular towers. It lies nearly north and south along the edge of the lake, and has its eastern front so close to the water, on the brink of which it stands,