The lake is five or six leagues long and three or four broad; although it presents the appearance of an almost perfect oval, it forms, commencing from Tiberias up to the entrance of the Jordan, a sort of gulf, the curve of which measures about three leagues.

Such is the field in which the seed sown by Jesus found at last a well-prepared soil.

Let us run over it step by step, and endeavor to raise the mantle of aridity and mourning with which it has been covered by the demon of Islamism.
On leaving Tiberias, we find at first steep rocks, like a mountain which seems to roll into the sea.

Then the mountains gradually recede; a plain (_El Ghoueir_) opens almost at the level of the lake.

It is a delightful copse of rich verdure, furrowed by abundant streams which proceed partly from a great round basin of ancient construction (_Ain-Medawara_).