In all these countries he was in the midst of Paganism.[5] At Caesarea, he saw the celebrated grotto of _Panium_, thought to be the source of the Jordan, and with which the popular belief had associated strange legends;[6] he could admire the marble temple which Herod had erected near there in honor of Augustus;[7] he probably stopped before the numerous votive statues to Pan, to the Nymphs, to the Echo of the Grotto, which piety had already begun to accumulate in this beautiful place.[8] [Footnote 1: Jos., _Ant._, XVIII.ii.

3; _Vita_, 12, 13, 64.] [Footnote 2: I adopt the opinion of Dr.Thomson (_The Land and the Book_, ii.

34, and following), according to which the Gergesa of Matthew viii.

28, identical with the Canaanite town of _Girgash_ (_Gen._ x.

16, xv.