being left alive but the priest himself, and, humanly
speaking, his preservation was owing to the arch above his head. All the
villages around shared the same fate, and the greater part of the towns
above mentioned. Much damage was sustained all over Palestine; and a
heart-rending description of the events has since been printed, though
little known in England, by a Christian Israelite, named Calman, who,
together with Thomson, the American missionary, hasted from Bayroot on
hearing of the calamity, and aided in saving many lives of persons buried
beneath the ruins of Safed and Tiberias, during several days after the
catastrophe.

This sad event serves for an era to date from; and the Jews there, when
referring to past occurrences, are accustomed to say, it was so many
years before (or after) the [Hebrew text] (the earthquake.)

Among the ruins of Jish are no remains of antiquity, except a fragment of
the thick shaft of a column and a small sarcophagus, only large enough
for a child, in a field half a mile distant. The Jews appropriate this
to Shemaiah Abtelin.

We passed between _Kadita_ and _Taitaba_, over land strewn with volcanic
stone, beginning near Jish and extending almost to those villages. The
crater, of very remote times, noticed by Robinson, is about one-third of
the distance from Jish to Safed; not very imposing in appearance.

The journey from Kadis to Safed is one of five hours' common travelling.
We reached the olive ground encampment shortly before noon. Being the
Jewish Sabbath, there was the _Eruv_ suspended at the exits of the
principal streets. This is an invention of the Talmudists, used in
unwalled towns, being a line extended from one post to another,
indicating to Jews what is the limit which they are to consider as the
town-wall, and certain ordinances of the Sabbath are regulated thereby.

A strong wind from the south blew up a mist that almost concealed the
huge dark ravine of _Jarmuk_, but the night became once more hot and
still.

3_d_.--"And rested the Sabbath-day, according to the
commandment,"--neither the principal prayer-day of the Mohammedans, which
is Friday, nor the Sabbath-day of the large population of Jews about me,
but that which the early Christians so beautifully named the Lord's-day,
while observing it as a Sabbath. I attended divine service in the
English language at the house of Mr Daniel, the missionary to the Jews:
we were six in number. The rest of the day