sublime and majestic, Hermon looks down on the sea, lifting his

white crown to heaven with the pride of a hill that has seen the

departing footsteps of a hundred generations. On the north-east

shore of the sea was a single tree, and this is the only tree of any

size visible from the water of the lake, except a few lonely palms

in the city of Tiberias, and by its solitary position attracts more

attention than would a forest. The whole appearance of the scene is

precisely what we would expect and desire the scenery of Genessaret

to be, grand beauty, but quiet calm. The very mountains are calm."

It is an ingeniously written description, and well calculated to deceive.

But if the paint and the ribbons and the flowers be stripped from it, a

skeleton will be found beneath.

So stripped, there remains a lake six miles wide and neutral in color;

with steep green banks, unrelieved by shrubbery; at one end bare,

unsightly rocks, with (almost invisible) holes in them of no consequence

to the picture; eastward, "wild and desolate mountains;" (low, desolate

hills, he should have said;) in the north, a mountain called Hermon, with

snow on it; peculiarity of the picture, "calmness;" its prominent

feature, one tree.

No ingenuity could make such a picture beautiful--to one's actual vision.

I claim the right to correct misstatements, and have so corrected the

color of the water in the above recapitulation. The waters of Genessaret

577

The Innocents Abroad