The lake, the horizon, the shrubs, the flowers, are all that remain of the little canton, three or four leagues in extent, where Jesus founded his Divine work.  The trees have totally disappeared.  In this country, in which the vegetation was formerly so brilliant that Josephus saw in it a kind of miracle—­Nature, according to him, being pleased to bring hither side by side the plants of cold countries, the productions of the torrid zone, and the trees of temperate climates, laden all the year with flowers and fruits[1]—­in this country travellers are obliged now to calculate a day beforehand the place where they will the next day find a shady resting-place.  The lake has become deserted.  A single boat in the most miserable condition now ploughs the waves once so rich in life and joy.  But the waters are always clear and transparent.[2] The shore, composed of rocks and pebbles, is that of a little sea, not that of a pond, like the shores of Lake Huleh.  It is clean, neat, free from mud, and always beaten in the same place by the light movement of the waves.  Small promontories, covered with rose laurels, tamarisks, and thorny caper bushes, are seen there; at two places, especially at the mouth of the Jordan, near Tarichea, and at the boundary of the plain of Gennesareth, there are enchanting parterres, where the waves ebb and flow over masses of turf and flowers.  The rivulet of Ain-Tabiga makes a little estuary, full of pretty shells.  Clouds of aquatic birds hover over the lake.  The horizon is dazzling with light.  The waters, of an empyrean blue, deeply imbedded amid burning rocks, seem, when viewed from the height of the mountains of Safed, to lie at the bottom of a cup of gold.  On the north, the snowy ravines of Hermon are traced in white lines upon the sky; on the west, the high, undulating plateaux of Gaulonitis and Perea, absolutely arid, and clothed by the sun with a sort of velvety atmosphere, form one compact mountain, or rather a long and very elevated terrace, which from Caesarea Philippi runs indefinitely toward the south.

[Footnote 1:  B.J., III. x. 8.]

[Footnote 2:  B.J., III. x. 7; Jac. de Vitri, in the Gesta Dei per Francos, i. 1075.]

The heat on the shore is now very oppressive.  The lake lies in a hollow six hundred and fifty feet below the level of the Mediterranean,[1] and thus participates in the torrid conditions of the Dead Sea.[2] An abundant vegetation formerly tempered these excessive heats; it would be difficult to understand that a furnace, such as the whole basin of the lake now is, commencing from the month of May, had ever been the scene of great activity.  Josephus, moreover, considered the country very temperate.[3] No doubt there has been here, as in the campagna of Rome, a change of climate introduced by historical causes.  It is Islamism, and especially the Mussulman reaction against the Crusades, which has withered as with a blast of death the district preferred by Jesus.  The beautiful country of Gennesareth never suspected that beneath the brow of this peaceful wayfarer its highest destinies lay hidden.