and more nebulous as the
day declines, and the outlines of the hills fade away from the dim,
silent, forsaken plain through which we move.

We are crossing the battlefield where the soldiers of Napoleon, under
the brave Junot, fought desperately against the overwhelming forces of
the Turks. Yonder, away to the left, in the mysterious haze, the double
"Horns of Hattin" rise like a shadowy exhalation.

That is said to be the mountain where Jesus gathered the multitude
around Him and spoke His new beatitudes on the meek, the merciful, the
peacemakers, the pure in heart. It is certainly the place where the
hosts of the Crusaders met the army of Saladin, in the fierce heat of a
July day, seven hundred years ago, and while the burning grass and weeds
and brush flamed around them, were cut to pieces and trampled and
utterly consumed. There the new Kingdom of Jerusalem,--the last that was
won with the sword,--went down in ruin around the relics of "the true
cross," which its soldiers carried as their talisman; and Guy de
Lusignan, their King, was captured. The noble prisoners were invited by
Saladin to his tent, and he offered them sherbets, cooled with snow from
Hermon, to slake their feverish thirst. When they were refreshed, the
conqueror ordered them to be led out and put to the sword,--just yonder
at the foot of the Mount of Beatitudes.

From terrace to terrace of the falling moor we roll along the winding
road through the brumous twilight, until we come within sight of the
black, ruined walls, the gloomy towers, the huddled houses of the
worn-out city of Tiberias. She is like an ancient beggar sitting on a
rocky cape beside the lake and bathing her feet in the invisible water.
The gathering dusk lends a sullen and forlorn aspect to the place.
Behind us rise the shattered volcanic crags and cliffs of basalt; before
us glimmer pallid and ghostly touches of light from the hidden waves; a
few lamps twinkle here and there in the dormant town.

This was the city which Herod Antipas built for the capital of his
Province of Galilee. He laid its foundations in an ancient graveyard,
and stretched its walls three miles along the lake, adorning it with a
palace, a forum, a race-course, and a large synagogue. But to strict
Jews the place was unclean, because it was defiled with Roman idols, and
because its builders had polluted themselves by digging up the bones of
the dead. Herod could get few Jews to live in his city, and it beca