Thence we mounted up to the village of _Jish_, the place of _John of Giscala_, the antagonist of Josephus. This seems to have been the centre-point of the dreadful earthquake in 1837, from which Safed and Tiberias suffered so much. It occurred on the New Year's day, while the people of the village were all in church; and just as the priest held the sacramental cup in his hand, the whole village was in a moment destroyed, not one soul being left alive but the priest himself, and, humanly speaking, his preservation was owing to the arch above his head. All the villages around shared the same fate, and the greater part of the towns above mentioned. Much damage was sustained all over Palestine; and a heart-rending description of the events has since been printed, though little known in England, by a Christian Israelite, named Calman, who, together with Thomson, the American missionary, hasted from Bayroot on hearing of the calamity, and aided in saving many lives of persons buried beneath the ruins of Safed and Tiberias, during several days after the catastrophe. This sad event serves for an era to date from; and the Jews there, when referring to past occurrences, are accustomed to say, it was so many years before (or after) the [Hebrew text] (the earthquake.) Among the ruins of Jish are no remains of antiquity, except a fragment of the thick shaft of a column and a small sarcophagus, only large enough for a child, in a field half a mile distant. The Jews appropriate this to Shemaiah Abtelin. We passed between _Kadita_ and _Taitaba_, over land strewn with volcanic stone, beginning near Jish and extending almost to those villages. The crater, of very remote times, noticed by Robinson, is about one-third of the distance from Jish to Safed; not very imposing in appearance. The journey from Kadis to Safed is one of five hours' common travelling. We reached the olive ground encampment shortly before noon. Being the Jewish Sabbath, there was the _Eruv_ suspended at the exits of the principal streets. This is an invention of the Talmudists, used in unwalled towns, being a line extended from one post to another, indicating to Jews what is the limit which they are to consider as the town-wall, and certain ordinances of the Sabbath are regulated thereby. A strong wind from the south blew up a mist that almost concealed the huge dark ravine of _Jarmuk_, but the night became once more hot and still.