o, though pains have been taken, as in this instance,
to obliterate them.

The ground all about there is strewn with moulded stones and broken
columns.

We reached Safed, cold and wet, in the dark, having ridden but slowly, in
order to accommodate certain individuals of the party; but it was in the
month of November, at an altitude of above 2000 feet, with rain and gusts
of wind coming between dark mountains.

My evening reflections alone naturally ran upon the almost unknown
circumstance of Hebrew inscriptions existing upon remains of ancient and
decorated edifices in this part of the country, while nothing of the sort
is known elsewhere. Were the two buildings at Cuf'r Bera'am, and the
sepulchre in the field below Jish, really Jewish? and if so, when were
they erected?

The modern Jews, in their utter ignorance of chronology, declare these to
be synagogues of the time of the second temple in Jerusalem; and affirm
that, notwithstanding the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, this
province of Upper Galilee remained without its people being led into
captivity, and that many families (for instance, the Jewish
agriculturists still at Bokeea', between Safed and Acre) continue now,
just as they were then, in the same localities.

My good old friend Nicolayson, the late missionary to the Jews, was
willing to believe a good deal about this local stability of Jews in
Upper Galilee, and to give credit for a state of much prosperity among
the Jews in the East during the reigns of the Antonine emperors; and his
idea was the most probable one of any that I have heard advanced--namely,
that these edifices (corresponding in general character with those
remaining at Kadis) are really synagogues from the era of the Antonines,
and that the inscriptions are of the same date; meanwhile keeping in mind
that they are utterly wanting in the robust style of archaic Hebraism,
and that the embellishments indicate somewhat of a low period.

For myself, after two visits to the place, and many years of
consideration, I cannot bring myself to this belief; but rather conclude
that they were heathen temples of the Antonine epoch, and afterwards used
as synagogues by the Jews, long ago--probably during some interval of
tranquillity under the early Mohammedans,--and that the Hebrew
inscriptions were then put upon them.

There is some regularity and method in the writing upon the lonely portal
in the field, though even this is not so well e