402 SKETCHES OF PALESTINE. 



flanked with circular towers ; on the fourth, it is open to the 

 water. Its figure is nearly quadrangular ; according to Pococke, 

 it is about a quarter of a mile in length, and half that in breadth ; in 

 circumference, therefore, about three quarters of a mile. Like all 

 Turkish cita'dels, it has an imposing appearance from without; 

 and its fortifications and circular towers give it more the aspect of 

 a Moorish city than most of the towns of Palestine. But it 

 exhibits the utmost wretchedness within the walls, one-fourth of the 

 space being wholly unoccupied, and the few houses or huts which 

 it contains are not built contiguously. The sheikh's house is 

 described by Van Egmont as tolerably good, and indeed the only 

 building that deserves the name ; and even this owes its beauty to 

 the ruins out of which it is built. Adjoining to it is a large hand- 

 some structure, which serves as a stable. Near the sheikh's house 

 are the ruins of a very large castle, with some remains of towers, 

 moats, and other works, which probably commanded the harbor. 

 One of these works, facing the lake, has been turned into a 

 mosque. On the rising ground to the northward of the ruin, 

 stands the modern castle, which dates only a few years before the 

 period of Pocock's visit. Hasselquist informs us, that it owes its 

 erection to Sheikh Daker, a native of Tiberias, and at that time 

 independent lord of the place, which he had recently defended 

 against the Pasha of Seide. 'He had no more than six small iron 

 cannon in this work of defence ; but he used another method, still 

 more ancient than cannons, for defending forts. He ordered loose 

 etones to be laid on the top of the wall, four feet high, which in 

 case of a siege, might be rolled down, and crush the besiegers.' 

 The marks of the siege were then to be seen on the walls. 

 Pococke, who preceded Hasselquist 'about thirteen years, was at 

 Tiberias when the fort was building, and they were strengthening 

 the old walls with buttresses on the inside, the sheikh then having 

 a dispute with Pasha of Damascus. * They have often,' he adds, 

 4 had disputes with the pashas of Damascus, who have come and 

 planted their cannon against the city, and sometimes have beaten 

 down part of the walls, but were never able to take it.' The town 

 has only two gates; one near the sheikh's house, facing the sea; 

 the other, which was very large, is partly walled up, the city on 

 that side being uninhabited. The nouses are described by Van 

 Egmont as 'very mean and low cottages, some of stone, nnd others 

 of dried mud, and can hardly be said to be above the ground. On 

 the terraces, which even the lints in this country are not without, 

 they build tents of rushes.' Mr. Buckingham states, that there are 

 two synagogues near the centre of the town, both of them inferior 

 to that of Jerusalem, though similar in design ; and, on the rising 

 ground near the northern quarter, a small, but good bazar, and two 

 or three coffee-sheds. 



The only interesting relic of antiquity in the town, is the church 

 dedicated to St. Peter ; an oblong square edifice, arched over, said 

 to be on the spot where the house of St. Peter was though St. 



