As regards position, it seems far more probable that Kenna, on the road to Tiberias, would be the place twice visited by Christ, than the remote Kânah, which is on no main line of travel. The objections also that the word Kefr has to be accounted for, and that no signs of antiquity are found at Kefr Kenna, were removed by the Survey, for we found an old ruin called Kenna near the beautiful spring west of the village of Kefr Kenna.
There is, however, another place which has never, I believe, been noticed, and which fits better than either with the early Christian site noticed by Willibald. The little village of Reineh is on the road north-east of Nazareth, and only a mile and a half away; from it a main road leads to Tabor, and by this road is a fine spring called 'Ain Kânah, spelt as the Greek leads us to suppose the Hebrew form of Cana must have been. In the absence of more definite indications, it seems to me that this third site may well rank with either of the others before mentioned.
The Crusaders, then, believed Cana to be north of the Buttauf Plain, the early Christians placed it south. In the seventeenth century both sites were known, but finally ecclesiastical sanction was given to Kefr Kenna; thus the northern site presents now only ruined walls and dry wells in the rock on the slope of the rugged mountain which is also named Kânah, whilst the southern place is a flourishing Christian village of flat-roofed huts standing above the beautiful gardens and orchards which surround its spring. Like many others of the New Testament towns, Ãnon, Bethabara, or Nazareth, there is nothing in the Gospel definitely to fix the position of the place; Josephus and the Talmud give us no aid, and the question appears to me destined to remain always unsettled from want of any evidence sufficiently conclusive.
The survey of the country round Cana and Nazareth, as far west as Kishon, and north to the beautiful valley called Wâdy el Malak, occupied seven weeks from the 20th of October to the 10th of December. It was a period of constantly recurring difficulties, caused partly by the fanaticism of the Moslems, partly by the unhealthy season. The adventures of the party were far from pleasant, and the anxiety was considerable; all, however, was in the end successfully carried through, and Christmas found us safely housed in Haifa.