According to the opinion of the best informed among the inhabitants, the population of Tiberias (or Tabareeah, as they pronounce it) does not exceed two thousand. Of these about one-half are Jews, many of whom are from Europe, particularly from Germany, Russia, and Poland; the rest are Mohammedans, with the exception of twenty or thirty Christian families who profess the tenets of the Latin church. The warm baths, which have given celebrity to that neighbourhood, are still found at the distance of between two and three miles southward from the town. The building erected on the spring is small and mean, and altogether the work of the present rulers of Palestine. The bath itself is a square room of eighteen or twenty feet, covered with a low dome, and having seats or benches on each side. The cistern for containing the hot water is in the centre of this room, and sunk below the pavement. It is a square of eight or nine feet only, and the spring rises to supply it through a small head of some animal but this is so badly executed that it is difficult to know for what it was intended. Mr. Buckingham states, that his thermometer, when immersed in the water, instantly rose to 130°, which was the utmost limit of the instrument. He is satisfied, however, that the heat was much greater, because is was painful to the hand as it issued from the spout, and could only be borne by those who had bathed in the cistern.[148] Tiberias makes a conspicuous figure in the Jewish annals, and was the scene of some of the most remarkable events which are recorded by Josephus. After the downfall of Jerusalem, it continued until the fifth century to be the residence of Jewish patriarchs, rabbis, and learned men. A university was established within its boundaries; and as the patriarchate was allowed to be hereditary, the remnant of the Hebrew people enjoyed a certain degree of weight and consequence during the greater part of four centuries. In the sixth age, if we may confide in the accuracy of Procopius, the Emperor Justinian rebuilt the walls; but in the following century, the seventh of the Christian era, the city was taken by the Saracens, under Calif Omar, who stripped it of its privileges, and demolished some of its finest edifices. It must not be concealed, however, that in the Itinerary of Willibald, who performed his journey into the Holy Land towards the close of the eighth century, mention is made of many churches and synagogues which the conquerors had either not destroyed or allowed to be repaired.[149]