Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1885-04-03
rHE FOUNTAIN OF cAPERNAuM.

"
Interesting Account of q Remarkable Nat
Galilee.
IN olden time the great Damascus
high road ran just below the beetling
crags which line the shores of the
Galileean Sea, and the fort above doubt
less commanded the pass; but 1T has
become impossible, and the path now
follows the channel of an aqueduct
hewn out of the living rock. For about
two hundred yards we find ourselves
riding along the narrow floor of this
ancient watercourse. On Il left the
smooth rock rises preciritously, and on
our right it forms a wall from three to
four feet high, over which we could
drop a stone perpendicularly into the
waters of the lake. The way is about
three feet wide; emerging from it. after
we turn the angle of the rock. we find
ourselves overlooking a little bay, into
which rushes a brawling torrent, the
largest which enters the lake excepting
the Jordan, and which here turns a
mill. 1t is, however. only a few yards
long, as it bursts from the ground in
great force, in what is by far the most
powerful spring in Galilee, andis, with
out doubt, the celebrated Fountain Of
Capernaum mentioned by Josephus as
watering the plain of Genesareth. This
ii did by means of the aqueduct which
we had already traversed, the distance
from the fountain to the plain not being
above a mile. Besides the principal
fountain, which is estimated as being
more than half the size of the cele-
brated source of the Jordan at Banias.
there are four smaller fountains, all
more or less brackish, and varying in
temperature from s~eventy-three to
eighty-six degrees.
One of the special subjects of inter-
est connected with these fountains is
the presence in them of the remarkable
fish called the %coracinus. The only
known habitats of this fish in the
world are in the Nile, in a fountain
which [ have also visited in the plain
of Genesareth called Mudawara, and
in this spring. J%osephus accounts for
its existence here, as we'll as in the
Nile, by a hypothetical subterranean
water communication with the great
river of Egypt. Modern biologists
point to it as an evidence of the fact
that in some long bygone period Pales-
tine might have been included in a
great Ethiopian basin. However the
circumstance is to be accounted for. it
is most remarkable, and was doubted
until Canon Tristram verified it twenty
years ago by a somewhat singular ex-
perience. Crossing the little stream
which issues from the fountain of
Mudawara and flows into the lake, and
which happened tc be very low at tho
time, he was surprised to observe a
quantity of fish wriggling along in sim
gle file, and so close together that the
mouth of touched the tail of the
n before it. In places there was so
little water that they had to flop across
intervals of almost dry land. Here
he caught them easily with his hand,
and, as many averaged three feet
in length, he was not long in
making a good bag. What surprised
him most, however was to find that as
soon as he laid hold of one it began
screaming like a cat. Making a bag
out of his cloak, he carried them off in
triumph to the camp, which was three
hours distant, and could hear them
Kissing and caterwauling in it all the
way. He describes them as being a
most delicious fish to eat, something
like an eel in flavor, and possessed Of
extraordinary vitality, as some of them
were still living after they had been two
days out Of the water. The last vol
ume just issued by the Palestine Explo-
ration Fund contains u print of this
extraordinary creature, which has a
long slender body, apparently not
much thicker than that Of a good-sizcd
eel, with two long fins, one on the back
and n on the belly. The mouth,
with its long cartilaginous streamers
Il do not know the archaeological term
for them}, somewhat resembles that of
a catfish. I unfortunately had no
means of fishing for them on the oc-
casion of my visit, and they did not
happen to be migrating to their spawn
ing grounds, which they were evidently
doing when Tristram caught them, but
my late experiences on the shores of
the lake have been SO full of interest
that [ propose to make another visit in
the spring, when 1 hope to go supplied
with tackle, and to give you my own
piscatory experiences.-Palestine Cor.