at Bethel, as Jacob did, and close their dim eyes, and dream, perchance, of angels descending out of heaven on a ladder.  It was very pretty.  But I have recognized the weary head and the dim eyes, finally.  They borrowed the idea—­and the words—­and the construction—­and the punctuation—­from Grimes.  The pilgrims will tell of Palestine, when they get home, not as it appeared to them, but as it appeared to Thompson and Robinson and Grimes—­with the tints varied to suit each pilgrim’s creed.

Pilgrims, sinners and Arabs are all abed, now, and the camp is still.  Labor in loneliness is irksome.  Since I made my last few notes, I have been sitting outside the tent for half an hour.  Night is the time to see Galilee.  Genessaret under these lustrous stars has nothing repulsive about it.  Genessaret with the glittering reflections of the constellations flecking its surface, almost makes me regret that I ever saw the rude glare of the day upon it.  Its history and its associations are its chiefest charm, in any eyes, and the spells they weave are feeble in the searching light of the sun.  Then, we scarcely feel the fetters.  Our thoughts wander constantly to the practical concerns of life, and refuse to dwell upon things that seem vague and unreal.  But when the day is done, even the most unimpressible must yield to the dreamy influences of this tranquil starlight.  The old traditions of the place steal upon his memory and haunt his reveries, and then his fancy clothes all sights and sounds with the supernatural.  In the lapping of the waves upon the beach, he hears the dip of ghostly oars; in the secret noises of the night he hears spirit voices; in the soft sweep of the breeze, the rush of invisible wings.  Phantom ships are on the sea, the dead of twenty centuries come forth from the tombs, and in the dirges of the night wind the songs of old forgotten ages find utterance again.

In the starlight, Galilee has no boundaries but the broad compass of the heavens, and is a theatre meet for great events; meet for the birth of a religion able to save a world; and meet for the stately Figure appointed to stand upon its stage and proclaim its high decrees.  But in the sunlight, one says:  Is it for the deeds which were done and the words which were spoken in this little acre of rocks and sand eighteen centuries gone, that the bells are ringing to-day in the remote islands of the sea and far and wide over continents that clasp the circumference of the huge globe?

One can comprehend it only when night has hidden all incongruities and created a theatre proper for so grand a drama.

CHAPTER XLIX.

We took another swim in the Sea of Galilee at twilight yesterday, and another at sunrise this morning.  We have not sailed, but three swims are equal to a sail, are they not?  There were plenty of fish visible in the water, but we have no outside aids in this pilgrimage but “Tent Life in the Holy Land,” “The Land and the Book,” and other literature of like description—­no fishing-tackle.  There were no fish to be had in the village of Tiberias.  True, we saw two or three vagabonds mending their nets, but never trying to catch any thing with them.