404 SKETCHES OF PALESTINE. 



water of which was so hot as not easily to be endured ; but, to 

 render it more temperate, we ordered the passage through which 

 it runs into the basin, to be stopped. The inhabitants of Tiberias 

 have built here a small house with a cupola; but there seems to 

 have been formerly a much more splendid edifice, as the baths 

 were very famous. The water rises something higher, whence it 

 is conducted into a stone basin. This water is so salt as to com- 

 municate a brackish taste to that of the lake near it.' Hassalquist 

 has given a still more minute account, which Dr. Clarke has 

 evidently overlooked in referring to him. 'The fountain or 

 source,' he says, ' is at the foot of a mountain, at the distance of a 



Sistol-shot from the Lake Gennesareth, and a quarter of a league 

 om the coasts of Tiberias. The mountain consists of a black and 

 brittle sulphureous stone, which is only to be found in large masses 

 in the neighborhood of Tiberias, but in loose stones also on the 

 coast of the Dead Sea, as well as here. They cut millstones out 

 of it in this place, which are sent by water from Acre to Egypt. I 

 saw an incredible quantity of them at Damietta. The spring 

 which comes from the mountain is in diameter equal to that of a 

 man's arm, and there is one only. The water is so hot, that the 

 hand may be put into it without scalding, but it cannot be kept 

 there long: consequently, it is not boiling hot, but the next degree 

 to it. It has a strong sulphureous smell. It tastes bitter, and 

 something like common salt. The sediment deposited by it is 

 black, as thick as paste, smells strongly of sulphur, and is covered 

 with two skins, or cuticles, of which that beneath is of a fine dark- 

 green color, and the uppermost of a light rusty color. At the 

 mouth of the outlet, where the water formed little cascades over 

 the stones, the first-mentioned cuticle alone was found, and so 

 much resembled a conferva, that one might easily have taken this, 

 that belongs to the mineral kingdom, for a vegetable production j 

 but, nearer the river, where the water stood still, one might see 

 both skins, the yellow uppermost, and under it the green.' At that 

 time (1750), the waters appear to have been neglected, and the 

 'miserable bathing house' was not kept in repair. 



It seems at first difficult to account for the statement given by 

 this usually correct writer, that there is but one spring, when 

 Captain Mangles states that there are three ; but Mr. Buckingham's 

 minute and lively description explains the apparent discrepancy. 



* Leaving the town at the western gate, we pursued our course 

 southerly along its wall, and came to some scattered ruins of the 

 old city of Tiberias ; among which we observed many founda- 

 tions of buildings, some fragments of others still standing, and 

 both grey and red granite columns, some portions of the latter 

 being at least four feet in diameter ; but among the whole, we saw 

 neither ornamented capitals nor sculptured stones of any kind, 

 though the city is known to have been a considerable one. 



'In our way, we passed an old tree, standing amid these ruins, 

 and observed its branches to be hung with rags of every hue and 



