After crossing the Jordan we meet with another plain — el-Batiha — corresponding to the one on the west, but somewhat more extensive. It is covered with green grass (Mk 6^^ Jn 6^") at nearly all seasons of the year. With a breadth of 1 to 1^ miles, it extends 3 miles along the coast, and then narrows, extending nearly 3 miles more to Kersa, a short distance to the south of which we meet with the only steep place (Mt 8^^) on the eastern side of the Lake. At this point there is practically no shore, but immediately the eastern rampart of hills — 2000 ft. high, now bleak and bare, but showing streaks of green -vA'here the springs trickle out between the white sandstone and the black superimposed lava — begins to recede, leaving a plain i to ^ mile broad, and this to the south of Kid at el-Husn -widens out into the Ghor or Jordan Valley. At the village of Semakh, the southern end of the Lake forms a beautiful circular bay, Avhich is enclosed by earth walls 16 to 32 ft. in height. There is deep water close in to the shore, and the currents manifestly wear away the rich alluvial soil. In so far as physical changes have taken place, we should expect that the land has suffered losses here, while there may have been slight gains by deposits on the shore of the plains of el-Batiha and el-GJmiveir (Gennesaret). What used to be the western outlet of the Jordan has also become silted up, for it must be remembered that in former times the Jordan flowed out from the two sides of a triangular island, now occupied by the ruins of Kerak — without doubt the remains of the once famous Taricheae [BJ III. x. 1).
Compared with other lakes, the Sea of Galilee cannot be said to be deej). The maximum depth is from north to south along the course of the Jordan, and here it is 130 to 148 ft. according to the season [greater recorded depths have been proved to be in error], and except along the shores of the Plain of Gennesaret, deep water is reached all round the Lake within a few yards of the shore. The steep place at Kersa slopes down at once to a depth of 49 ft. , and a short distance farther out the sounding gives 102 ft. A mile to the south- east of Tell Ijam the depth is 78 ft. , and midway between Tiberias and Kersa it is 114.
One more notable feature of the Lake valley is to be found in the hot springs with which it abounds. The best known of these are at Ham- mam {ci. Jos. Vita, 16), south of Tiberias (132° to 144°), 'Ain Bdrideh (80°), 'Ain Mudauwarah (73°), 'Ain et-Tin (82°), and 'Ain et-Tdbigha (73° to 86°). Others certainly exist in the Lake itself. A brackish taste can be jjerceived at different places, and especially at a point § across between Tiberias and Kersa, where in the warmer water great shoals of fish are wont to congregate. It was l^robably the drinking from a spot of this kind that led Strabo (Geog. xvi. 45) to express so bad an opinion of the waters of the Lake (v8wp fj.oxOripov Xi/xvaiov). These springs are all more or less sul- phurous, and in all the centuries they have been used for medicinal purposes — especially those at Tiberias (BJ 11. xxi. 6). A reference to these in the Talmud shows us the relationship of the Rabbis to the Sabbath, and throws some liglit on their attacks on Jesus (Lk 13'"' etc.). The use of the
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SEA OF GALILEE
means of healing was forbidden on the Sabbath ; but these baths, tiiough medicinal, were permitted, because in addition they ministered to indulgence in pleasure and luxury, and that was permitted. (Pesach. 8b).
Complaint has been made by some of the tame- ness of the scenery around the Lake, and of the want of picturesqueness of the hills ; while, on the other hand, Seetzen {Eeiseti, in loc.) has declared that ' in tlie whole land of Palestine there is no district whose natural charms could compare with those of this.' There can be no doubt that much depends upon the season of the year when the district is first visited, as well as upon the expectations formed. In the present unwooded state, with its uncultivated fields and barren hills often, as at the north end of the Lake, washed do^vn to the bare rock by the rains of centuries, there may be little to attract, especially when the a\ hole country has been blackened by the summer suns and the burn- ing siroccos. But even now the earliest rains change the whole aspect of nature. The hills and the valleys on both shores become clothed in a luxuriant greenness, while, as the season ad- vances, the fresh bursting buds of the olive, the fig, the vine, and the pomegranate, A^■ith here and there a palm tree, add variety and pleasantness to the landscape. Very soon, too, the fields are covered wdth great patches of anemones of varied coloui-s— white, red, purple, and deep dark-blue, interspersed with various species of the lily family and stretches of the dark green-leaved and yellow - flowered mustard, Avhile the watercourses and shores of the Lake are marked out by the red blooms of the oleander with its dark-green and silvery-backed leaves ; and on the western shore variety is added by the gigantic reeds of the papyrus, topped by their reddish-brown waving jilumes ; on the higher grounds, too, every crevice of the rock is shaded by the blossoms of the cycla- men and many another flower of the field. But what must it have been in the year A. D. 27-28 ? It had been passing through, was indeed still in the period of transition after, the desolations of war, famine, and pestilence ; but the worst was now long past, and 20 years of uninterrupted peace and prosperity had made it blossom like tlie rose. There was nothing in the rule of the tetrarchs Antipas and Philip to discourage perseverance, so that the land Avas coming more and more under cultivation. It must have been beautiful, indeed, when human industry was developing all its re- sources and changing the whole scene into a bloom- ing paradise. Nothing can give a better idea of wdiat the whole district was becoming, than the classic passage in which Josephus (jB J III. x. 8) describes the Plain of Gennesaret in his own day (see art. Gennesaket [Land of] in vol. i. ).