Reland, the learned geographer of the last century, was the first to invent the second Bethsaida on the western side, which is not mentioned by either Josephus or Pliny, the latter of whom distinctly puts it on the eastern side; and I have not been able exactly to discover upon what authority Reland hit upon this easy solution of the problem. The only historical Bethsaida of which we have any certain record was a place at the northeastern extremity, originally a village, but rebuilt and adorned by Philip the Tetrarch, and raised to the dignity of a town under the name of Julias, after the daughter of the emperor. Here, in a magnificent tomb, Philip was himself buried. On the other hand, we have indications of the existence of another Bethsaida in the mention of a Bethsaida which was the birthplace of Peter and Andrew and Philip, which Mark tells us was “in the land of Genesareth,” and therefore on the west shore of the lake. Supposing Tell Hum to be Capernaum, and the western Bethsaida to be on the site usually assigned to it, this hypothesis would give us two Bethsaidas only six miles apart, not a very probable supposition; or else we have to suppose that the land of Genesareth extended across the Jordan to the east side, which we know to have had another name, and to have been in another province; or to suppose, as Dr. Thomson—who resolutely refuses to have two Bethsaidas—does, that half the town was on one side of the Jordan and half on the other, and that the half on the west side was called Bethsaida in the land of Genesareth, though the plain of that name is five miles distant. Moreover, there are no ruins conveniently placed to support the presumption, which is very strained. Altogether the subject is one which has puzzled every Biblical geographer hitherto, and, after a careful examination of all their arguments, I find myself just as much in the dark about it as when I entered upon the investigation. As, therefore, after visiting all the disputed localities, I do not feel any the more competent to enlighten your readers, I will confine myself to describing the different places which have been suggested as the sites of these cities, as well as of others which I visited in the section of country to the east of the Jordan, some of which I was the first to discover, and none of which have been positively identified.