for the market; while here, where the lake is scarcely ever ruffled by a wind of any violence, where the water is shallow, the shelter good, and the fish abundant near the shore, the means of procuring supplies of food from thence are uncertain and neglected.

When the sun had set, we retired into an inner room, which the whole of the family inhabited, including the Abuna and his wife, the elder son Yusuf, his wife Martha, and the infant child Ibrahim, with two grown boys, younger sons of the old man. The whole of the space appropriated to this number, was about ten feet long, by six broad; and in the same enclosure, on a lower level, was a stall for two cows, and a little place apart for three pigs. Besides this, were to be seen above little balconies, like large breedingcages for birds, which appeared to be store-rooms or lockers for provisions. The whole compass of the outer walls which inclosed all these departments, was not a square of more than twelve feet at the utmost. The roof was flat, and composed of branches of wood laid across rude beams, and covered by mortar, which formed the terrace above. The only ornament seen within, was the cross, daubed in red upon the walls, and repeated at every interval of space not otherwise occupied; and even over the stall of the oxen and the trough of the hogs, this holy emblem was conspicuously pourtrayed.

The hour of supper arrived, and a bowl of boiled wheat and dûrra with oil was produced for the family. I was turning up my sleeves to wash my hands in preparation for the meal, when the old man asked me, whether we had no provisions in our sack. I replied, that we had only taken sufficient for the day, and had finished it at Sook-el-Khan, being assured by the friars at Nazareth that we should find every thing we could desire here. He then said," you must purchase supper for yourselves." I replied, that we would not willingly intrude on his stock, and had therefore sought to purchase fish at first; but that since none could be procured, we should content ourselves with whatever might be found. Four eggs were then produced from a cupboard in the house; but

before they were broken, eight paras were demanded of me for them. I desired that their number might be doubled, and the remaining eight paras were also asked for before they were produced. Six paras were then claimed for oil to fry them in, though this was poured out of the same jar from which the lamp was filled, and they seemed to think that they had laid us under great obligations to their hospitality in merely furnishing us with bread and shelter.

All this was so contrary to the behaviour of Arabs in general, and so directly opposite to that of the Mohammedans, and of the Bedouins in particular, that we were forcibly struck with it; nor could even the evident poverty of this religious chief account sufficiently for it; since among the very poorest of the classes named, the same warm hospitality is found as among the richest, varying only in its extent according to their several means. We made a hearty supper, however, and the old Abuna himself, after finishing his portion of the family bowl, came without ceremony to begin a new meal at our mess, of which he took at least an equal share.

A number of visits were paid in the evening by heads of Christian families, and the topic of conversation was the heretical peculiarities of the English, and their lamentable ignorance of the true religion. Some insisted that none of them believed in the existence of a God; others thought it was still worse that they did not bow to the Pope; many seemed to know that they did not hold the Virgin Mary in esteem, and that the crucifix was not worn by them; and all believed that there were neither churches, priests, fasts, festivals, nor public prayers throughout the country, but that every one followed the devices of his own heart without restraint.

It would have been as easy to have moved a mountain, as to have changed opinions like these; and the task of informing the very ignorant is often an ungrateful one. I barely replied with truth, therefore, to their questions; and, even in doing this, I made more enemies than friends, since it necessarily implied a contradiction of what they before held to be true.

Before the retirement of the party, we talked of our road to Damascus, and it was the opinion of all, that there was danger in every route which could be taken to that city. This was a subject on which their authority was of some value, and therefore worth consulting them on. By the latest advices from Sham, it appeared that the division of parties grew rather higher every day there, and that the roads in the neighbourhood were therefore infested, and robberies committed on them with impunity. On the seacoast it was said to be worse, on account of the domineering insolence of the soldiery, who were now indeed all masters of their own particular districts. Besides the original usurper of the pashalick of Sham, who still continued at Damascus, and the pretensions of Suliman of Acre thereto, it was said that one Ali Pasha, who had been the Capudan Pasha of the Turks, was on his way from Stamboul, to take possession of the city by order of the Sultan. A general belief prevailed also that Toussoun Pasha, the eldest son of Mohammed Ali in Egypt, had designs this way, since he was now at the Sublime Porte, as conqueror of the Wahabees, and deliverer of the Prophet's tomb; and it was thought that the city of Damascus, which is one of the gates of pilgrimage, would be given to him as a recompense.

Such was the state of things, at the present moment, and the hope of its amelioration was but faint and distant. It was recommended to me, however, to take from hence two armed men as an escort, and attempt the journey by an unfrequented road, where the danger was thought to be less, from there being less chance of plunder, and consequently fewer adventurers. An arrangement of this nature was so generally approved of, that before we slept, two men were found, who engaged to depart with us in the morning.

FEBRUARY 13th. Having paid for the food of our horses, and purchased some bread of our host for the way, we prepared to mount, when the old grey-bearded Abuna demanded of us a backshish*, for our entertainment: although we had already paid for every article consumed by us, a few paras were then given to him,

, backshish, though represented as a word of Persian origin, is in use through most parts of Arabia, to denote a gift or a reward.

which he accepted with evident avidity, and at sunrise we departed from his dwelling.

Leaving Tiberias, by the same gate at which we entered, we pursued our course to the northward, along the western edge of the lake. The ground rises here, so that the north-west angle of the town stands on a hill, while all the rest of it is low. We observed some fragments of a wall, which might have been part of the inclosure of the ancient city, and if so must have been at its northern extremity, as just beyond it are a number of old tombs, apparently of higher antiquity than the present town.

In about an hour after quitting Tiberias we came to the remains of some ancient baths, close to the water's edge. Of these there were three in number, the only portion of each remaining being a large circular cistern, in which the visitors must have bathed openly, as there is no appearance of any covered building ever having been constructed over them. They were all nearly of the same size; the one around the edge of which I walked being eighty paces in circumference, and from twelve to fifteen feet deep. Each of these were distant from the other about one hundred yards, ranging along the beach of the lake, and each was supplied by a separate spring, rising also near the sea. The water was in all of them beautifully transparent, of a slightly sulphureous taste, and of a light-green colour, as at the bath near Oom Kais; but the heat of the stream here was scarcely greater than that of the atmosphere, as the thermometer in the air stood at 84°, and when immersed in water rose to 86. The first of these circular cisterns had a stone bench or pathway running round its interior, for the accommodation of the bathers, and the last had a similar work on the outside; in the latter a number of small black fish were seen swimming Each of the baths was supplied by a small aqueduct

Pliny mentions a fountain in Armenia, that had black fishes in it, of which whoever ate died suddenly. Nat. Hist. b. xxxi. c. 2.