fill them for you.”  Thereupon they put the pitchers down, but remained watching us very complacently while we sank the vessels to the bottom of the lake, and let them fill from the colder and purer tide of the springs.  In bringing them back through the water to the gate, the one I propelled before me happened to strike against a stone, and its fair owner, on receiving it, immediately pointed to a crack in the side, which she declared I had made, and went off lamenting.  After we had resumed our garments, and were enjoying the pipe of indolence and the coffee of contentment, she returned and made such an outcry, that I was fain to purchase peace by the price of a new pitcher.  I passed the first hours of-the night in looking out of my tent-door, as I lay, on the stars sparkling in the bosom of Galilee, like the sheen of Assyrian spears, and the glare of the great fires kindled on the opposite shore.

The next day, we travelled northward along the lake, passing through continuous thickets of oleander, fragrant with its heavy pink blossoms.  The thistles were more abundant and beautiful than ever.  I noticed, in particular, one with a superb globular flower of a bright blue color, which would make a choice ornament for our gardens at home.  At the north-western head of the lake, the mountains fall back and leave a large tract of the richest meadow-land, which narrows away into a deep dell, overhung by high mountain headlands, faced with naked cliffs of red rock.  The features of the landscape are magnificent.  Up the dell, I saw plainly the Mount of Beatitude, beyond which lies the village of Cana of Galilee.  In coming up the meadow, we passed a miserable little village of thatched mud huts, almost hidden by the rank weeds which grew around them.  A withered old crone sat at one of the doors, sunning herself.  “What is the name of this village?” I asked.  “It is Mejdel,” was her reply.  This was the ancient Magdala, the home of that beautiful but sinful Magdalene, whose repentance has made her one of the brightest of the Saints.  The crystal waters of the lake here lave a shore of the cleanest pebbles.  The path goes winding through oleanders, nebbuks, patches of hollyhock, anise-seed, fennel, and other spicy plants, while, on the west, great fields of barley stand ripe for the cutting.  In some places, the Fellahs, men and women, were at work, reaping and binding the sheaves.  After crossing this tract, we came to the hill, at the foot of which was a ruined khan, and on the summit, other undistinguishable ruins, supposed by some to be those of Capernaum.  The site of that exalted town, however, is still a matter of discussion.