The former greatness of Tiberias is indicated by the extent of the walls, 12 feet in thickness, which have been traced by Dr Selah Merrill and by Herr Schumacher for a distance of 3 miles, on the south side. In the course of the wall is an old castle on the summit of a hill, 1000 feet above the town. An aqueduct, 9 miles long, brought pure water from a distance, whereas the present inhabitants are content to drink of the waters of the lake. Looking about in the town we notice some traces of its former grandeur; here a magnificent block of polished granite from Upper Egypt, there a hunting scene carved on the surface of a hard black lintel of basalt, besides old buildings, and broken shafts and columns half buried in rubbish.
From Tiberias we go north, and after a ride of 3 miles reach Medjel, which represents the Magdala of Christ’s time, and is known wherever the New Testament is read as the home of Mary Magdalene. The village is insignificant, being only a collection of huts and hovels; the people are poor and degraded, and their children half naked. Travellers approaching the place are greeted by the howling of dogs, which rush out as though they would devour them.
Tiberias and Medjel are the only places now inhabited about the lake, and the visitor is impressed with a sense of deadness and desolation. Yet the lake is beautiful, and upon its shores there were in Christ’s time no less than nine cities, while numerous villages dotted the plains and hills around. All the surrounding region was highly cultivated, and the lake itself was covered with fishing boats. There are no more than half a dozen boats now--made at Beyrout, or some other seaport town, and brought hither on the backs of camels--but the lake still swarms with fish. When a revolver was fired into the water at random several fishes were killed and floated on the surface.
The lake is surrounded by hills, except at the south end, where it touches the Jordan Valley. These hills are at such a distance from the water as to leave a belt of land, generally level, all round it, which at some points broadens out into large plains, such as those of Gennesaret and Bathia. Medjel, already mentioned, is at the southern end of the charming Plain of Gennesaret, about which Josephus goes into ecstasies on account of its exceeding great fertility. He speaks of the palms and figs, olives and grapes that flourished there, and the fish for which its streams were far-famed. The plain is but 3 miles long by 1 mile wide, and it now looks neglected; but it might be made a little paradise again, for the soil is as fertile as ever. “As we journey towards the northern end” (says Dr Merrill) “we observe on our left a strange sight. The mountain appears to have parted asunder and left a great chasm, the walls of which are perpendicular, and full of caves, which, not long before the birth of Christ, were occupied by robbers, whom Herod the Great had much difficulty in subduing. Along the bottom of that chasm, ran, in Christ’s time, the main road from Cana of Galilee, Nazareth, Tabor, and the region of the south-west, to the north end of the lake, and thence to Damascus. Christ would pass along this road in going down from Nazareth to Capernaum.”