CHAPTER XVI

OF TIBERIAS, CAPARNAUM, NAZARETH, AND THE HOLY PLACES IN THOSE PARTS

THE place in which our Lord blessed the loaves and fishes on this side of the Sea of Galilee, to the north of the city of Tiberias, is a plain, grassy and level, which has never been ploughed since those times, nor has ever been built upon: but there is the same fountain there from which those persons drank. Those who go from Ælia to Caparnaum, pass through Tiberias, and from thence along the Sea of Galilee to the place where the loaves were blessed, from which it is no great distance to Caparnaum on the borders of Zebulon and Naphtali. The town has no walls, and lies on a narrow piece of ground between a mountain and lake. On the sea-coast towards the east it extends a long way, having the mountain on the north, and lake on the south. Nazareth has no walls, but large houses, and two great churches. One of these is in the midst of the city, built on two arches, where formerly was a house, in which our Lord was nursed when an infant. This church is built on two eminences, with arches connecting them, and has under it between the eminences a clear fountain, from which all the citizens draw water in vessels with pulleys for the use of the church. In the other church was the house in which the Angel came to the blessed Mary.