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ARTHUR W. SUTTON, ESQ., J.P., F.L.S., ON 



circumference and 5 feet deep. The water is so hot that the hand 

 cannot be kept in it for any length of time, and is considered 

 by the Arabs to be a sovereign cure for many disorders. 

 Herod is supposed to have come here to be cured, and the Baths 

 of Amatha were considered by the Romans as second only to 

 those of Baiae, and were much extolled by Eusebius and other 

 ancient writers. 



From the hot springs we climb up by a very steep pathway 

 by the side of the gorge to Gadara, occupying a magnificent 

 site on the western promontory of the plateau overlooking the 

 Lake of Tiberias. Captured by Antiochus the Great, 218 B.C., 

 it was, twenty years afterwards, taken from the Syrians by 

 Alexander Jannseus after a siege of ten months. The Jews 

 retained possession of it for some time, but, the city having 

 been destroyed during their civil wars, it was rebuilt by Pompey 

 to gratify the desire of one of his freedmen, who was a Gadarene. 

 It was surrendered to Vespasian in the Jewish war. It was one 

 of the most important cities east of the Jordan and called by 

 Josephus the capital of Persea, and was subsequently the seat 

 of the bishopric Palestina Secunda. 



The ruins of the two open-air theatres still exist, one with a 

 full view of the Lake of Galilee in the distance below. There are 

 enormous quantities of tombs everywhere, by which the neigh- 

 bourhood is honeycombed, many of these having massive 

 basalt doors which still swing on their hinges. More than 200 

 stone sarcophagi have been taken out of these tombs, and now 

 lie scattered among the ruins of the city. 



At Beit er-Eas we come on very extensive ruins — arches of 

 great size, columns, Corinthian and Ionic capitals, chiefly com- 

 posed of basalt ; a vast subterranean ruin, with several fine 

 arches underground. Inscriptions, chiefly Nabathean, are to 

 be found among the ruins. This was a city of great importance 

 in the Roman Empire, and has been identified with Capitolias, 

 one of the cities of the Decapolis. 



We now reach Deraa or Dera'a (old Edrei), which to-day is 

 a junction where passengers dine on the railway journey to 

 Damascus ; it is a remarkable place, for at least four cities exist 

 here one above another. The present Arab buildings are on 

 the top of a Grseco-Roman city, and this again stands on the 

 remains of one still older, in which bevelled stones are used. 

 Beneath this again is a troglodyte city entirely excavated in 

 the rock on which the upper cities stand, the subterranean 



