The Rabbin of
Tiberias is under the great Rabbin of Szaffad, who pronounces final
judgment on all contested points of law and religion.
I found amongst the Polish Jews, one from Bohemia, an honest
[p.328] German, who was overjoyed on hearing me speak his own language,
and who carried me through the quarter, introducing me to all his
acquaintance. In every house I was offered brandy, and the women
appeared to be much less shy than they are in other parts of Syria. It
may easily be supposed that many of these Jews are discontented with
their lot. Led by the stories of the missionaries to conceive the most
exalted ideas of the land of promise, as they still call it, several of
them have absconded from their parents, to beg their way to Palestine,
but no sooner do they arrive in one or other of the four holy cities,
than they find by the aspect of all around them, that they have been
deceived. A few find their way back to their native country, but the
greater number remain, and look forward to the inestimable advantage of
having their bones laid in the holy land. The cemetery of the Jews of
Tiberias is on the declivity of the mountain, about half an hour from
the town; where the tombs of their most renowed persons are visited much
in the same manner as are the sepulchres of Mussulman saints. I was
informed that a great Rabbin lay buried there, with fourteen thousand of
his scholars around him.
The ancient town of Tiberias does not seem to have occupied any part of
the present limits of Tabaria, but was probably situated at a short
distance farther to the south, near the borders of the lake. Its ruins
begin at about five minutes walk from the wall of the present town, on
the road to the hot-wells. The only remains of antiquity are a few
columns, heaps of stones, and some half ruined walls and foundations of
houses. On the sea-side, close to the water, are the ruins of a long
thick wall or mole, with a few columns of gray granite, lying in the
sea. About mid-way between the town and the hot-wells, in the midst of
the plain, I saw seven columns, of which two only are standing upright;
and there may probably be more lying on the ground, hid among the high
[p.329] grass with which the plain is covered; they are of gray granite,
about twelve or fourteen feet long, and fifteen inches in diameter; at a
short distance from them is the fragment of a beautiful column of red
Egyptian granite, of more than two feet in diameter. These ruins stretch
along the sea-shore, as far as the hot springs, and extend to about
three hundred yards inland. The springs are at thirty-five minutes from
the modern town, and twenty paces from the water’s edge; they were
probably very near the gate of the ancient town. No vestiges of
buildings of any size are visible here; nothing being seen but the ruins
of small arched buildings, and heaps of stone.
There are some other remains of ancient habitations on the north side of
the town, upon a hill close to the sea, which is connected with the
mountain; here are also some thick walls which indicate that this point,
which commands the town, was anciently fortified. None of the ruined
buildings in Tiberias or the neighbourhood are constructed with large
stones, denoting a remote age; all the walls, of which any fragments yet
remain, being of small black stones cemented together by a very thick
cement. Upon a low hill on the S.W. side of the town stands a well built
mosque, and the chapel of a female saint.
The present hot-bath is built over the spring nearest the town, and
consists of two double rooms, the men’s apartment being separated from
that of the women. The former is a square vaulted chamber, with a large
stone basin in the centre, surrounded by broad stone benches; the spring
issues from the wall, and flows into the basin or bath. After remaining
in the water for about ten minutes, the bathers seat themselves naked
upon the stone benches, where they remain for an hour. With this chamber
a coffee room cummunicates, in which a waiter lives during the bathing
season, and where visitors from a distance may lodge. The spring
[p.330] which has thus been appropriated to bathing, is the largest of
four hot sources; the volume of its water is very considerable, and
would be sufficient to turn a mill. Continuing along the shore for about
two hundred paces, the three other hot-springs are met with, or four, if
we count separately two small ones close together. The most southern
spring seems to be the hottest of all; the hand cannot be held in it.
The water deposits upon the stones over which it flows in its way
towards the sea, a thick crust, but the colour of the deposit is not the
same from all the springs; in some it is white, in the others it is of a
red yellowish hue, a circumstance which seems to indicate that the
nature of the water is not the same in all the sources. There are no
remains whatever of ancient buildings near the hottest spring.
People from all parts of Syria resort to these baths, which are reckoned
most efficacious in July; they are recommended principally for rheumatic
complaints, and cases of premature debility. Two patients only were
present when I visited them.
