PLAIN OF BUTTAUF-RIMMON. 123 lived, and where he commenced his ministry, and by his miracles "manifested forth his glory," were within the limits of Zebulon; but Capernaum, Chorazin, and Bethsaida were in Naphtali. It was this latter tribe that was "by the way of the sea beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles." Zebulon did not touch the sea of Galilee at any point, but the territories of these two tribes met at the northeast corner of the Buttauf, not far from Kânâ, and within these two tribes thus united our Lord passed nearly the whole of his wonderful life. To others there may not appear to be much in these remarks, and yet the facts, as they came out clear and distinct during my ride round the "plain of Zebulon,” seemed to me to add a beautiful corroboration of the ancient prophecy and promise. But let this pass. Crossing the plain of Tûr'an toward the northwest, we followed the stream which drains off the water into the Buttauf. It is called Jerrûban, and was on that day a boisterous brook, in consequence of the heavy rain that, in spite of Mackintoshes and umbrellas, was soaking us to the skin, from head to foot. In an hour from Kefr Kenna we came to Rummaneh, on the very edge of the Buttauf. This, no doubt, marks the site of the ancient Rimmon that belonged to Zebulon.2 Between it and Seffûrieh is a ruin called Rûm-the Ruma, I suppose, mentioned by Josephus as the birth-place of two of his heroes of Jotapata.3 The hills around the Buttauf, east, north, and west, are wild, picturesque, and crowded with ancient ruins, some of them with old columns, as at Em el 'Amûd and at Sûr, west and northwest of Huttîn. The day we crossed the Buttauf the eastern half of it was a lake, and the path from Rummaneh to Kânâ led through the oozy, spongy end of it. It was the most nervous ride I ever made. For two miles the horses waded through mud and water to the knees, along a path less than two feet wide, which had been tramped down to a consistency sufficient to arrest the sinking foot for a moment; but if the careless or jaded nag stepped elsewhere, he sank instantly into a quivering quagmire. After several adven Matt. iv. 15. 21 Chron. vi. 77. Wars, iii. 7, 21. tures of this sort, we "came to land" just at the foot of Kânâ. Leaving our tired animals to rest and crop the grass and shrubs, we ran eagerly up and down the hill on which the village was built. It faces the southeast, and rises boldly from the margin of the Buttauf. The hill itself is nearly isolated. Wady Jefât comes down to, and then along the southwestern base of it, and another deep ravine cuts it off from the general range on the north and northeast, and it is thus made to stand out like a huge tell. The houses were built of limestone, cut and laid up after the fashion still common in this region, and some of them may have been inhabited within the last fifty years. There are many ancient cisterns about it, and fragments of waterjars in abundance, and both reminded us of the "beginning of miracles." Some of my companions gathered bits of these water-jars as mementoes-witnesses they could hardly be, for those of the narrative were of stone, while these were baked earth. There is not now a habitable house in the humble village where our blessed Lord sanctioned, by his presence and miraculous assistance, the all-important and world-wide institution of marriage. This is a very curious fact, and might suggest a whole chapter of most instructive reflections. It is a sort of divine law of development to hide away the beginnings of things the most momentous in some almost undiscoverable point. This is an example. Innumerable millions in their happiest hours have had their thoughts and hearts directed to Kânâ. Poor little lonely thing! the proudest cities on earth might envy your lot. Nineveh, and Babylon, and a thousand other names may be forgotten, but not Cana of Galilee. It may even come to pass that Paris, London, and New York will be dropped out of mind, and their very sites be lost; but to the end of time, and to the end of the world, whenever and wherever there shall be the voice of the bride and the bridegroom, then and there will Cana of Galilee be remembered. Some names we 1 John ii. 1 11. MARRIAGE AT CANA-JEFAT-JOTAPATA. 125 pronounce with honor, some with shame and sorrow, many with cold indifference, but Cana will ever mingle in the song of the happy, to symbolize the peace and purity of domestic happiness-the bliss of wedded love. Kânâ is not only deserted itself, but, so wild is the immediate neighborhood, that it is the favorite hunting-ground of the Kefr Kennits. Ibrahim, our guide, had shot a large leopard among its broken houses only a week previous to our visit. He had been hunting wild boar in Wady Jefât; and up this wady we next proceeded in search of Jotapata. It took just half an hour to ride from Kânâ to the foot of the rock of Jefât, which Mr. Schultz first identified with the site of that far-famed castle. It is therefore about two miles west of Kânâ. The path is in the bed of Wady Jefât, and is easy enough for a single horseman, but it would be quite impracticable for an army, and this agrees well with the description of Josephus. The sides and lateral ravines, of which there are many, are covered with a thick jungle of oak coppice-the very best haunt for the wild boar, and wild Arabs too. We, however, saw nothing more formidable than a jackal. From the nature of the place and its surroundings, Jotapata could never have been any thing much more respectable than a retreat for robbers. Whatever appears greater than this in the account must be put down to the imagination or the necessity of the historian. The wadies about it are neither deeper nor more savage than scores of other wadies in Galilee, and Gamala was vastly more difficult to attack. The absence of fortifications on the top of Jefât can easily be explained. The original works were ephemeral, extemporized for the emergency, and built of the soft cretaceous rock of the place, and being demolished and deserted, they would crumble into just such rubbish as now cov ers the extreme edges of the rock. There are a few caves and old cisterns about it, quite sufficient for the story reduced, as this, above all others in Josephus, ought to be. He manifestly intended to rest his fame as a warrior upon the defense of Jotapata, and with this idea to stimulate his pen, there is scarcely any conceivable length of exaggeration to which he would not go.1 But there lies Nazareth in its pretty vale, and I leave you to walk or ride down these slippery paths as you prefer, and to enjoy in silence your own reflections, which must be far more impressive than any words of mine. See Wars, iii. 7 and 8. |