and two lions, or tigers, coarsely executed; but whether this ever belonged to the building itself, no one could inform me. During my visit to this church, morning mass was performing by the Abuna, at whose house we had lodged; the congregation consisted of only eleven persons, young and old, and the furniture and decorations of the altar and the priest were exceedingly scanty and poor.

This edifice is thought by the people here, to have been the very house which Peter inhabited at the time of his being called from his boat to follow Christ. It was evidently constructed, however, for a place of worship, and, probably, at a period much posterior to the time of the Apostle whose name it bears, though it might have been erected on the spot which tradition had marked as the site of his more humble habitation from hence, they say too, it was, that the boat pushed off into the lake, when the miraculous draught of fishes was drawn.

Besides the public buildings already specified, are the house of the Aga, on the rising ground near the northern quarter of the town; a small, but good bazar, and two or three coffee-sheds. The ordinary dwellings of the inhabitants are such as are commonly seen in eastern villages, but are marked by a peculiarity which I witnessed here for the first time; on the terrace

of almost every house, stands a small square inclosure of reeds, loosely covered with leaves. These, I learnt, were resorted to by the heads of families to sleep in during the summer months, when the heat of the nights is intolerable, from the low situation of the town, and the unfrequency of cooling breezes. At the present moment, indeed, we had the thermometer at 82° in the shade, an hour after sun-rise, and calm; while on the hills it was considerably less than at noon in the sun.

The whole population of Tabareeah does not exceed two thousand souls, according to the opinion of the best informed residents. Of these, about the half are Jews, many of whom are from Europe, particularly from Germany, Russia, and Poland, and the rest are Mohammedans, exclusive of about twenty Christian families of the catholic communion. The military force here seldom exceeds twenty or thirty soldiers under the command of the Aga, and there are four old cannon mounted on different parts of the walls.

* In the time of Benjamin of Tudela, this place was in as great repute among the Jews as at present, and sepulture there was thought highly honourable. The hot baths of the neighbourhood were noticed by this traveller, and it would seem, from his account, that at that period there was a small salt lake called As Cloth Hapisga, lying between the lake of Gennesareth and the sea of Sodom, of which there are no traces at present. Bergeron's Collection.

Provisions are not abundant, and therefore are generally dear; and fish, when occasionally taken by a line from the shore, are sold to the Aga, or to some of the rich Jews, at an exorbitant price.

The origin of this city under its Roman name, mounts no higher than the age of Herod; and Josephus, in his Jewish Antiquities, touches thus slightly on its foundation. "Now Herod the

tetrarch, who was in great favour with Tiberius, built a city of the same name with him, and called it Tiberias. He built it in the best part of Galilee, at the lake of Gennesareth; there are warm baths at a little distance from it in a village named Emmaus. * The part of Galilee in which it lies, as bordering the lake, possesses great advantages, though they are not now used to the extent that they were in the days of this city's foundation. The word Emmaus, which is the Greek pronunciation of the Hebrew word Hammah, is said to signify a warm bath, and may have some affinity with the Arabic Hamman, and with the appellation of Hamé, given to the bath and hot springs at the mouth of the Hieromax. † As such, it would be a name equally appropriated to all the numerous warm

* Ant. Jud. b, xviii. c. 2. and 3.

† There was also a Beth-maus, probably one of the baths, only four furlongs from Tiberias. Life of Josephus, s. 12.

springs and ruined baths on the borders of this lake, and we know indeed that it was a name which, perhaps, from its applicability to local features, was given to many different places in Palestine. *

There is another circumstance mentioned by Josephus, which is worthy of notice. He says, that after having built this city in honour of Tiberius, Herod was obliged to use force in compelling people of condition to dwell in it, and to allure strangers and poor people thereto, by building them houses at his own expence, and giving them land also; for he was sensible, says the historian, that to make this place a habitation, was to transgress the Jewish ancient laws, because many sepulchres were to be here taken away in order to make room for the city Tiberias; whereas our laws pronounce that such inhabitants are unclean for seven days. † From

* The Hebrew names, Chama, Chamath, and Chamin, which the Greek and Vulgate write Emmaus, Amatha, Hamata, Amath, and Amathus, always signify such places as had these hot waters; and of them we find several in Palestine, whose waters were famed for curing a variety of diseases, some by bathing, others by drinking. The superstitious Jews were such admirers of some of them, as to imagine that their virtue was miraculous, though Josephus owns it to be natural. Anc. Un. Hist. v. ii. b. i. c. 7. p. 434.

+ Ant. Jud. 1. xviii. c. 2. s. 3.

the first moment of my seeing the sepulchres on the rising ground to the northward of the present town, my impression was, as there mentioned, that they were of a very ancient kind, and, at least, of equal antiquity with the first foundation of the Herodian city itself. They were no doubt, therefore, a portion of the extensive burying-ground from which many sepulchres were to be taken away, in order to make room for the city, as Josephus here describes.

*

This was a city with which this historian must have been well acquainted, for in many of the most striking incidents of his life, as written by himself, Tiberias is mentioned as the scene, and the lake and its shores, was almost as much the theatre of the Jewish wars as any other part of Judea. In one place, he mentions his having himself taken the city four times. By the persuasion of John of Gischala, whom he had given leave to make use of the hot baths of Tiberias for the recovery of his health, the inhabitants were induced to revolt from their fidelity to Josephus; and he, after fruitless efforts to regain their good will, effected a narrow escape by ship to Tarichea. The stratagem by which he afterwards got the whole of the senate of Tiberias

* Life of Josephus, s. 15.

+ Ibid, s. 18.