DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.10357#0356
322
PICTURESQUE PALESTINE.
rounded stones ; but below this, at a depth of four or more feet from the surface, a wall
was struck, which was followed some distance, and which at last turned an angle and ran
in another direction. This wall was built of limestone, the blocks finely squared and faced,
and the work belongs to the best class of Eastern ruins. The peasants had dug at other
points near by, and had come upon walls, pottery, and remains of various kinds. When
the spades struck the yellow earth full of smoothed stones, almost any person would have
declared it to be utter folly to expect to find debris and ruins below it; but the peasants
knew that even underneath this there was material, marble and limestone, which they
could convert into lime. Excavations here might reveal the extent of this buried town, and
possibly its name. Considering all the facts as they are known at present—the Roman
road touching the lake at this point, the suitableness of the place for a custom-house, the
garrison, the remains of a castle, and important ruins under the surface—we think the
evidence is very strong for regarding this as the site of Capernaum, our Lord's " own
city " (Matt. ix. i). (See page 313.)
About twenty minutes beyond this point there is another copious fountain called 'Ain et
Tabighah (see page 317). There are here a few ruins, and around the fountain itself is a
strong octagon wall, designed to raise the water to a higher level, so that it nwht he carried
over the small adjacent plain, and by means of the trench in the cliff at Khan Minyeh to the
plain of Gennesaret as well (see page 313) ; for 'Ain et Tin lies so near the edge of the lake
that the north end of the plain could not have been irrigated by it. The top of this reservoir
is at present fifty-one feet above the lake. In neither of these two fountains is the water very
cool, and that in 'Ain et Tabighah is besides slightly brackish. Some eminent scholars regard
this as the site of Bethsaida, the home of Philip, Andrew, and Peter (John i. 44). It is called
a " city," and hence must have been a place of some importance. Against this the absence
of extensive ruins cannot be urged as an argument, when we consider the practice that has been
carried on for ages of removing building materials from one place to another. Scholars are
now nearly unanimous in the opinion that there were two Bethsaidas, an eastern and a western.
About the one on the east of the Jordan there can be no dispute, for the site of the residence
and burial-place of Herod Philip is well known. The name Bethsaida is said to mean House
of Eisli, but it can just as properly mean House or Place of Hunting. In the Hebrew it is
invariably used in the latter sense.
The water of the lake at this point is alive with fish, and a native requested us very
urgently that we would not shoot near there, lest the fish should be frightened away. But the
clusters of oleanders along the shore, the nubk or dom trees scattered on the slopes above it,
and especially the thickets of reeds and papyrus about Khan Minyeh, are the resort of many
kinds of birds, which, with the waterfowl in the lake, make this region a capital hunting-ground
(page 313). We obtained here, for our natural history collection, cormorants, grebes, Smyrna
kingfishers, purple gallinules, bitterns, egrets, herons, spur-wing plover, pigeons, partridges, and
gulls ; and among the latter was a magnificent eagle-gull, which spread five feet eleven inches.
PICTURESQUE PALESTINE.
rounded stones ; but below this, at a depth of four or more feet from the surface, a wall
was struck, which was followed some distance, and which at last turned an angle and ran
in another direction. This wall was built of limestone, the blocks finely squared and faced,
and the work belongs to the best class of Eastern ruins. The peasants had dug at other
points near by, and had come upon walls, pottery, and remains of various kinds. When
the spades struck the yellow earth full of smoothed stones, almost any person would have
declared it to be utter folly to expect to find debris and ruins below it; but the peasants
knew that even underneath this there was material, marble and limestone, which they
could convert into lime. Excavations here might reveal the extent of this buried town, and
possibly its name. Considering all the facts as they are known at present—the Roman
road touching the lake at this point, the suitableness of the place for a custom-house, the
garrison, the remains of a castle, and important ruins under the surface—we think the
evidence is very strong for regarding this as the site of Capernaum, our Lord's " own
city " (Matt. ix. i). (See page 313.)
About twenty minutes beyond this point there is another copious fountain called 'Ain et
Tabighah (see page 317). There are here a few ruins, and around the fountain itself is a
strong octagon wall, designed to raise the water to a higher level, so that it nwht he carried
over the small adjacent plain, and by means of the trench in the cliff at Khan Minyeh to the
plain of Gennesaret as well (see page 313) ; for 'Ain et Tin lies so near the edge of the lake
that the north end of the plain could not have been irrigated by it. The top of this reservoir
is at present fifty-one feet above the lake. In neither of these two fountains is the water very
cool, and that in 'Ain et Tabighah is besides slightly brackish. Some eminent scholars regard
this as the site of Bethsaida, the home of Philip, Andrew, and Peter (John i. 44). It is called
a " city," and hence must have been a place of some importance. Against this the absence
of extensive ruins cannot be urged as an argument, when we consider the practice that has been
carried on for ages of removing building materials from one place to another. Scholars are
now nearly unanimous in the opinion that there were two Bethsaidas, an eastern and a western.
About the one on the east of the Jordan there can be no dispute, for the site of the residence
and burial-place of Herod Philip is well known. The name Bethsaida is said to mean House
of Eisli, but it can just as properly mean House or Place of Hunting. In the Hebrew it is
invariably used in the latter sense.
The water of the lake at this point is alive with fish, and a native requested us very
urgently that we would not shoot near there, lest the fish should be frightened away. But the
clusters of oleanders along the shore, the nubk or dom trees scattered on the slopes above it,
and especially the thickets of reeds and papyrus about Khan Minyeh, are the resort of many
kinds of birds, which, with the waterfowl in the lake, make this region a capital hunting-ground
(page 313). We obtained here, for our natural history collection, cormorants, grebes, Smyrna
kingfishers, purple gallinules, bitterns, egrets, herons, spur-wing plover, pigeons, partridges, and
gulls ; and among the latter was a magnificent eagle-gull, which spread five feet eleven inches.