[p.318] ground is for the greater part uncultivated and without trees. At two hours and a quarter is Khan Djob Yousef (Arabic), or the Khan of Joseph’s Well, situated in a narrow plain. The Khan is falling rapidly into ruin; near it is a large Birket. Here is shewn the well into which Joseph was let down by his brothers; it is in a small court-yard by the side of the Khan, is about three feet in diameter, and at least thirty feet deep. I was told that the bottom is hewn in the rock: its sides were well lined with masonry as far as I could see into it, and the water never dries up, a circumstance which makes it difficult to believe that this was the well into which Joseph was thrown. The whole of the mountain in the vicinity is covered with large pieces of black stone; but the main body of the rock is calcareous. The country people relate that the tears of Jacob dropping upon the ground while he was in search of his son turned the white stones black, and they in consequence call these stones Jacob’s tears (Arabic). Joseph’s well is held in veneration by Turks as well as Christians; the former have a small chapel just by it, and caravan travellers seldom pass here without saying a few prayers in honour of Yousef. The Khan is on the great road from Akka to Damascus. It is inhabited by a dozen Moggrebyn soldiers, with their families, who cultivate the fields near it. We continued to descend from Djob Yousef; the district is here called Koua el Kerd (Arabic), and a little lower down Redjel el Kaa (Arabic). At one hour and a half from the Djob Yousef we came to the borders of the lake of Tiberias. At a short distance to the E. of the spot where we reached the plain, is a spring near the border of the lake, called Ain Tabegha (Arabic), with a few houses and a mill; but the water is so strongly impregnated with salt as not to be drinkable. The few inhabitants of this miserable place live by fishing. To the N.E. of Tabegha, HOTTEIN