LIFE IN MODERN PALESTINE. Hunting for the Lost Cities of Capernaum and Chorazln.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 98, 18 April 1885, Page 4

LIFE IN MODERN PALESTINE. Hunting for the Lost Cities of Capernaum and Chorazln.

Haifa, Dec. 26th.— In reading the works of Dr. Kitto and other writers who have endeavoured to present a picture of the manners 1 and customs of the population which inhabited Palestine in ancient times, I have been much struck by the erroneous impressions which the descriptions of those writers are calculated to convey in many important respects. This has arisen from the fact that while they have portrayed with tolerable accuracy the rude civilisation of the original inhabitants and the subsequent civilization grafted upon it by their Jewish conquerors, they have left out of consideration the changes worked upon, and the modifications introduced into, the social conditions thus produced by that still higher and later civilisation which resulted from Greek and Roman invasions. Thus while they carefully trace back the habits of the modern fellahin, and show that they differ slightly from those of the peasantry of the country in the time of Christ, and invoke the testimony of modern Bedouins as evidence of a modejof life which has undergone no perceptible alteration since the day of Abraham, they leave out of account altogether that magnificent Roman and Byzantine civilisation traces of which etili exist in such abundance as to astound the traveller with its splendour and its richness, but which has passed away like a dream, leaving nothing behind but the coarse barbarism which has succeeded it, and which is almost identical in character with that it supplanted. Hence it is that these writers have found thpse resemblances between the modern and ancient manners and customs of the inhabitants of this country by which they wore so much struck, and which they have given to the public as furnishing an accurate picture of what ancient Palestine was like. Wo are so much in the habit of confining our interest in this country to its history before the time of Christ that it will probably strike many with surprise to learn that the most flourishing epoch of its history was subsequent to that time ; that never before had the arts and sciences reached so hierh a pitch ; that never before had its population been so wealthy and luxurious, its architect ture so grand, its commerce so flourishing, and its civilization generally so advanced. It is true it had lost its independence, and was only a Roman province, but it is just because it was one, and not a Jewish kingdom, that our impression of its actual condition at the time of Christ is apt to be so erroneous. The fact has been very forcibly brought to my notice in a recent trip which I have made along the shores of the Sea of Galilee, more especially along its little-explored northern and eastern coasts, where the evidences of the wealth and luxury of the former inhabitants still remain in unexampled profusion. In reading in the Gospels the narrative of the works and life of O.rist, po much of which was spent upon the shores of the lake, in one of the cities of which He for somo time took up His abode, most of us have endeavoured, probably, to picture Him to ourselves amid purely Jewish surroundings and conditions closely resembling those which we have been in the habit of associating with that previous period of Jewish hi-tory with which we are familiar in the books of the Old Testament. So far from that being the case, the part of the country in which His ministrations were principally exercised was beyond all others a centre of Roman life, with all its luxurious accompaniments. Nowhere else in Palestine was there such a congeries of rich and populous cities as were crowded round the shores of this small lake. Nowhere else could the Jewish reformer como in closer contact with the rites of a worship alien to his own. On the shores of this lake might be seen temple after temple rearing their vast colonnades of beautifully-caived columns, thtir courts ornamented with faultlessly-carved statues to the deities of a heathen cult. Here were the palaces of the Roman high functionaries, the tastefullydecorated villas of rich citizens, with ?emi tropical gardens irrigated by the copious streams which have their sources in the plain of Gennesereth and the neighbouring hills. Here were broad avenues and populous thoroughfares, thronged with the motley concourse which so much wealth and magnificence had attracted— rich merchants from Antioch, then the most gorgeous city of the East, and from the Greek islands, traders and visitors from Damascus, Palmyra, and the rich cities of Decapolis ; caravans from Egypt and Persia, Jewish rabbid, jostling priests of the worship of the sun, and Roman soldiers swaggering across the market places, where the peasantry were exposing the produce of their fields and gardens for sale, and where fish was displayed by the hardy toilers of the lake, among whom were those whom the Great Teacher .selected to be the h'rst recipients of His message and the channels for its communication to after ages. Thus it was, as I rode along the margin of the sea the other day, that I was enabled to ropeople its shores in imagination by the light of the remains with which they are still strewn, and, overtaken in its desolation by the shades of night, to fancy ita now gloomy shores ablaze with the scintillations proceeding from the lamps of at least a dozon large cities, and the almost continuous street of habitations which connected them, and to illuminate its now dark and silent waters with countless brilliantly lighted boats, skimming over its smooth surface, containing noble ladiea and gallants on their way to or from scenes of nocturnal festivity, or in during in moonlight picnics, with the accompaniments of wine and song and music. That life in these cities was profligate and dissipated in a high degree we may gather from Christ's denunciation of Bethsaida, Chorazin, and Capernaum, which He declared to be so much more wicked than Tyre, or Sidon, or even Sodom, that it would be more tolerable in the day of judgment for those cities than for the three Ho was denouncing. That among these Capernaum was the one of the greatest splendour, and was puffed up therefor with the pride of its own pomp and n?agnifi cenco, we may gather from the indignant apostrophe : "And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven." It may have been because He considered this city the wickedest, as it appears to have been the largest on the lake, and therefore the most in need of His ministrations, that He chose it for some time as His residence. Hence it came to be called " His own city." This circumstance invests it with a special interest in our eyes. Unfortunately, a violent contest rages between Palestinologists, if I may beallowed to coin the word, as to the exact site of Capernaum. The two places which claim this honour are now called Khan Minieh and fell Hum respectively. Until lately the weight of opinion was in favour of the former site ; latterly the researches of Sir Charles Wilson, on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund, have convinced that accomplished archaeologist and cr.reful explorer that the true site of this celebrated city is to be found at Tell Hum, It would weary your readers if I were to quote all the texts relied upon by the disputants to maintain each hypothesis, supported by cal-

culations of distance, the accounts of Josephus, and of early pilgrim or > Arab travellers. The Bubject has been pretty well thrashed out, but I doubt whether it is even yet exhausted. I incline strongly to the Tell Hum theory, but aa Khan Minieh comes first on our way as wo glide from Tiberias to the head of ie lake, as it is unquestionably the site of what was once a city, and as it is a highly picturesque spot, and one, moreover, full of Biblical interest as being, if not Capernaum itself, within there miles of that city, and therefore a spot which must have been the scene of some of Christ's labours, I will begin by describing it. The plain of Gennesereth, the unrivalled fertility and luxuriance of which, though it is now uncultivated, I described in a former letter, when I crossed it eighteen months ago on my way to Safed, is terminated at its northern extiemity by a moun-r tain range, which projects in a lofty and precipitous crag into the lake, and renders any passage round it by land impossible. This projection forms a little bay, or rather rush-grown lagoon, running back into the head of the plain. Into its falls a small stream, powerful enough, however, to turn a mill. It is this building and the ruins of an ancient khan near it which was iteelf constructed from the remains of an ancient city about three hundred yards distant, which is now called Khan Minieh. The truo site of the old city is not, however, where the khan now stands, but not far from a fountain, shaded by an old tig tree, from which the fountain takes its. name — Am el Tin, or the Fountain of the Fig Tree, which suggests the idea that either the name is very new or the .fig tree very old. A plentiful supply of water flows from it, slightly brackish, with a temperature of 82' Fahrenheit. The water is crowded with fish and surrounded with green turf. It appears to be one of the seven fountains mcn'ioned by Theodorus, 530 a,d. as being two miles from Magdala, the city of Mary Magdalene, in the direction of Capernaum. Near this fountain are some old founda tions and traces of ruins, but these for the most part cover a series of mounds where a few walls are visible, but no traces of columns, capitals, or handsome blocks of stone, and much smaller in extent than those of Tell Hum. Indeed, the whole area is not more than 200 yardu long by 100 broad, and this is one reason for supposing that it cannot be the site of that important city. The khan itself is at least as old as the twelfth centurj, being mentioned by Bohaeddln in his life of Saladin. A road from hereleada no the steep hillside to Safed The a iew from it as we ascend to some •levation above the plain is very beautiful. That fertile expanse which Jcsephus calls " the ambition of nature " lies stretched at our feet, with the waters ot the lake rippling upon its pebbly beach, while we look right up the gorge of Hamman, its beetling cliffs on both sides towering in rugged caveperforated precipices to a height of 1,200 feet above the tiny stream which, compressed between these lofty walls of limestone and basalt, wends its way to the lake. But it is not up the wild mountain side that our present way lies ; so, taking our 1 ist look at the crumbling walls of the old khan, at the picturesque water mill, the ruin-strewn mounds, and the grassy lagoon, we prepare to skirt the rocky flank of the leQge which here dips into the waters of the Sea of Gennesareth, and by which we hope to reach the ruins of Bethsaida.—Correspondent of " New Ycrk Sun."