ts 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