rather than inclination, if I could have found my way alone; but that was difficult, and our guides refused to advance a step further. for the present, so that no alternative remained but to return by the way we came. We accordingly quitted Tal-hewn about an hour after noon, and followed the western shore of the lake on our way back. Our conversation on the road was entirely on the affair which had thus arrested our progress, and our new companions certainly felt terrified beyond description at the accident that had befallen them.

No new observations occurred to me on the route of return, except that we observed several shoals of fish in the lake from the heights above, and storks and diving-birds in large flocks on the shore. As we re-entered Tiberias from the northward, we had a commanding view of the interior of the town, from the rising ground on which its north-west angle stands; and though that interior presents nothing of grandeur or beauty, the Moorish appearance of the walls and circular towers that enclosed it, gave the whole an interesting air. In passing, I had an opportunity of noticing also, that the small village of Sumuk, on the site of the ancient Tarichæa, bears from Tiberias nearly south by compass, distant four or five miles, though it is not visible from the town itself, from the intervention of a point of land over which we now saw it; and that a village on the opposite shore, called Ghearbi-el Summara bears S. E. by S. about the same distance.

As I had already experienced how far the hospitality of the Christian priest extended, I felt disposed to seek another shelter for the night, and accordingly the guide, who had brought us from Nazareth, offered to take me to the house of his brother, who was settled here as a baker, and with whom he himself had passed the preceding evening. I very gladly accepted his offer, and separating from our pillaged companions at the gate, we proceeded straight to his dwelling. This man being a communicant of the Catholic church, was one of the Abuna's flock; and, whether from desire to contrast his behaviour with that of his pastor, which was already

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

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

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

FEBRUARY 14th. As it was now necessary that we should return to Nazareth to seek some more safe occasion of pursuing our journey, I rose early to make an excursion through the town before we set out, and visiting in the course of my rambles every part of it, was enabled, from what I saw, added to the information collected during my stay there on the two preceding evenings, to make the following observations.

The present town of Tabareeah, as it is now called, is in the

*Spelt in Arabic, but in its original Greek form, Tiepias, to which this interpretation is given, "Bona visio, vel umbilicus, aut confractio."

Urbs

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

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

The interior presents but few objects of interest besides the ordinary habitations, which are, in general, small and mean. There is a mosque, with a dome and minareh, now frequented, and another with an octangular tower, in ruins. The former of these is not far from the gate of entrance, the latter is nearer to the beach. There are also two synagogues of the Jews near the centre

Galilææ ad mare sita, quod ab ipse civitate appellatur Mare Tiberiadis. Joh. vi. 1. Hanc civitatem olim Cenereth appellatam. Herodes tetrarcha in honorem Tiberii Cæsaris condidit, et Tiberiadem vocavit. - Onomasticum Sacrum, p. 315.

of the town, both of them inferior to that of Jerusalem, though similar in design; and one Christian place of worship called the "House of Peter," near the northern quarter, close to the water's edge. The last, which has been thought by some to be the oldest place of Christian worship now extant in Palestine *, is a vaulted room about thirty feet by fifteen, and perhaps fifteen in height; it stands nearly east and west, having its door of entrance at the western front, and its altar immediately opposite, in a shallow recess. Over the door is one small window, and on each side four others, all arched and open. The masonry of the edifice is of an ordinary kind; the pavement within is similar to that used for streets in this country, and the whole is devoid of sculpture or other ornament, as far as I could perceive. In a court without the House of Peter, I observed, however, a block of stone, on which were the figures of two goats, 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

* Quarterly Reviewers on Dr. Clarke's Travels.