an older foundation of basalt, and how an earthquake had
twisted it and shaken down its pillars. It was undoubtedly a synagogue,
perhaps the very same which the rich Roman centurion built for the Jews
in Capernaum (Luke vii: 5), and where Jesus healed the man who had an
unclean spirit. (Luke iv: 31-37.) Of all the splendours of that proud
city of the lake, once spreading along a mile of the shore, nothing
remained but these tumbled ruins in a lonely, fragrant garden, where the
patient father was digging with his Arab workmen and getting ready to
write his book.

"_Weh dir, Capernaum_" I quoted. The _padre_ nodded his head gravely.
"_Ja, ja,_" said he, "_es ist buchstaeblich erfuellt!_"

* * * * *

I remember the cool bath in the lake, at a point between Bethsaida and
Capernaum, where a tangle of briony and honeysuckle made a shelter
around a shell-strewn beach, and the rosy oleanders bloomed beside an
inflowing stream. I swam out a little way and floated, looking up into
the deep sky, while the waves plashed gently and caressingly around my
face.

* * * * *

I remember the old Arab fisherman, who was camped with his family in a
black tent on a meadow where several lively brooks came in (one of them
large enough to turn a mill). I persuaded him by gestures to wade out
into the shallow part of the lake and cast his bell-net for fish. He
gathered the net in his hand, and whirled it around his head. The leaden
weights around the bottom spread out in a wide circle and splashed into
the water. He drew the net toward him by the cord, the ring of sinkers
sweeping the bottom, and lifted it slowly, carefully--but no fish!

Then I rigged up my pocket fly-rod with a gossamer leader and two tiny
trout-flies, a Royal Coach-man and a Queen of the Water, and began to
cast along the crystal pools and rapids of the larger stream. How
merrily the fish rose there, and in the ripples where the brooks ran out
into the lake. There were half a dozen different kinds of fish, but I
did not know the name of any of them. There was one that looked like a
black bass, and others like white perch and sunfish; and one kind was
very much like a grayling. But they were not really of the _salmo_
family, I knew, for none of them had the soft fin in front of the tail.
How surprised the old fisherman was when he saw the fish jumping at
those tiny hooks with feathers; and how round the eyes o