CHAPTER XVI

THE SEA OF GALILEE

AT night the Sea of Galilee is very beautiful. The crescent moon sinking to the horizon, the myriad stars reflected from the breast of the water, the soft distant line of the opposing hills—where of old dwelt the Gergezenes the hush of the heavy air, the brooding calm broken only by barking pariah dogs; all these compose a picture and leave impressions that the mind cannot easily forget.

Even now

Tiberias is a hot town, so hot that, as the German hotel-keeper told me, it is impossible for many months of the year to sleep except upon the roof. in the spring the thermometer must have stood at nearly eighty degrees in the shade, and the sun was so powerful that I was glad to wear a bath-towel as a puggaree. Also on the first night that we passed

there we were favoured with another evidence of the genial nature of the climate. My bed was protected with gauze curtains, which I thought were drawn with care, but about two in the morning I awoke to find myself the centre of a kind of hive of mosquitoes. The next hour we employed in somewhat ineffective hunting and in doctoring the lumps with native brandy. If, as science has demonstrated of late, the bite of a common swamp mosquito conveys malarial fever, what disease ought to follow that of those members of the family which have been nurtured on the filth-heaps of Tiberias? I confess that having recently read a good deal about the subject, the problem quite alarmed me.

Leaving these possibilities aside, however, I never remember meeting mosquitoes more venomous, or that left larger lumps with a keener itch, than those of Tiberias, except, perhaps, some with which I made acquaintance on the rivers of Chiapas, in Central America.

When we rose on the following morning I was dismayed to find that although the wind was not really strong, the sea upon the lake was so considerable that it seemed doubtful whether we should be able to sail to the mouth of the Jordan. This is a voyage which the Tiberias boatmen absolutely refuse to make in bad or squally weather, knowing that now, as in the time of our Lord, it is easy to be drowned on the Lake of Galilee, where a very violent and dangerous sea gets up with extraordinary swiftness. However, at last our men made up their minds to try it, and off we started to that Greek monastery which we had visited on the previous afternoon, where the boat awaited us.

I was not quite prepared for what followed. Arriving at the landing-place we saw our boat pitching and rolling furiously about twenty yards from the beach, while between us and it, breakers, large enough to constitute a respectable sea upon the Norfolk coast, rushed shorewards in quick succession.

"Might I ask how" I began, but before I got any further two stalwart Arabs, their garments tucked beneath their armpits, amid a chorus of frantic yells and objurgations from every one concerned, seized me, and, hoisting me most insecurely on to their shoulders, plunged into the foam. The moment was ill-chosen, for just then arrived a series of bigger waves than any that had gone before. We were brought to a standstill; we shook, we bowed, we rocked to and fro, while now my legs and now other portions of my frame dipped. gently in the deep. I was certain that all was lost, and that presently, in company with those infernal boatmen, I should be wallowing at the bottom of the Sea of Galilee,

spoiling my watch and my temper. Suddenly they made a last despairing rush, however, the waves surging round their very necks, and reached the boat, into which I scrambled and rolled I know not how. Afterwards, profiting by my experience, which taught them how to sit and what to sit on, also by the fact that they were lighter weights, my nephew and David followed me on board, I regret to state without the ducking their loudvoiced mockery of my woes deserved. However, before another hour was gone by I had the laugh of both of them.

When all were aboard we began our journey, heading for the mouth of Jordan, which, at a guess, lies eight or nine miles away. As there was no wind that would serve us, furling the sail, we depended on our oars. The sea was very rough, quite as rough as I cared for in this small boat, although she was staunch and good, having been brought here from Beyrout for the especial comfort of the Emperor of Germany, who, as it chanced, never visited the place. The continual tossing soon proved too much for David, who collapsed into the bottom of the boat, and lay there a very dilapidated dragoman. My nephew, who had been an oar at college, volunteered to assist in the arduous and continual labour of rowing, but, to the joy of the boatmen, about whose style he had been sarcastic, did not get on quite so well as he expected in those unaccustomed waters. The voyage was lonesome, for on all that great expanse of sea, once the home of fleets, I could see no other craft. Indeed, we were not sorry when at length the weather began to moderate, and occasional gusts of favouring wind enabled us to use our sail at times.

Still, the experience was interesting, for ploughing thus through the stormy waves it seemed easy to enter into the feelings of the Apostles-who also were heading for Capernaum-when about this spot they were struck at the fall of night by the squall that nearly swamped