indentings in front of the rows of seats
which had held the [Greek text] or brazen saucers, which indentings are
stated to have been seen by Irby and Mangles; but we know that the [Greek
text] were so placed in ancient theatres for increasing the power of
voice uttered upon the stage.

The front blocks of the stage are white, and these are brought from a
distance. They measure eight feet by four each. But the peculiarity of
the general building lies in its being built of the black stone of the
country adjacent. I afterwards saw Roman theatres at Amman and Umm Kais,
as already mentioned in the journey "Over the Jordan," but they were
white; and another at Petra, but that was of rosy red. All the
three--the black, the white, and the red--were each of its own one
colour, without intermixture of others, except that here the stage was of
another colour from the rest of the building.

I then prepared to mount to the acropolis or Hhus'n. The hill is shaped
as an oblong square, sloping downwards, and rounded at the four edges.
Steps have been cut into it for ascending from below.

Arriving at what appears from below to be the summit, but is not, I found
a large platform, improved by art, with remains of houses and cisterns,
and surrounded at the edge by a parapet wall five feet thick,--except at
the eastern end, opposite to the present town, where one-third of the
hill has been left rising considerably higher, and therefore a wall is
not required.

In this wall, at the N.W. side, I found remains of a very massive
gateway, with fragments of older columns and friezes built up into the
side work. At this spot the rising hill above is particularly
precipitous. I climbed to the extreme summit, but found there no remains
of human labour. The view, however, as may be supposed, amply repaid the
exertion. In one direction the prolonged Ghor of the Jordan; and in
another appeared the opening of the plain of Esdraelon and Tabor, with
the Mediterranean far away, and Carmel almost hull down, as one might say
of a ship. In the nearer distance were lines of black Arab tents, an old
khan, ruins of water-mills, and rushing rivulets in abundance, the
sources of which lie so high in the adjacent hills of Gilboa, that the
town and the irrigation of the district are supplied from them copiously.

I picked up some tesserae about the acropolis hill, but I saw none
elsewhere near Beisan,--discovered no inscriptions, and heard of no
coin