No soldier reading Josephus’ account can fail to see that it was penned by one who had experienced war, and in whose memory certain awful incidents were for ever imprinted. He remembers the terrible fire from the catapults, the gleam of the Roman spears in the sunlight, the darts of the Arab and Syrian auxiliary archers, the thud “which the dead bodies made when they were dashed against the wall” (III. Wars, vii. 23). He delights in recalling his own stratagems and inventions, and has no scruple in telling how he feared and despaired. Banks were raised in due form by the Romans, and screens of raw hide by the defenders to catch the stones and arrows. The spies sent by Josephus crept out in the dusk among the woods towards the west, covered with sheep-skins, so as to be taken when seen for straying beasts. At one time the Jewish general meant to desert his post, but he was overcome by the entreaties of the poor peasants, who wept and kissed his feet. The heavy armour of the Romans proved a disadvantage against the sudden attacks of the Jews, who sallied out even as far as their camp. The silent valleys re-echoed the cries of the women and of the combatants. “Nor was there anything of terror wanting.” When, on the fortieth day of the siege, the trumpets of the legions sounded a general assault, the enemy were met with streams of boiling oil, which flowed inside the armour, and made the scaling ladders slippery, Josephus held out yet another week, and Gotapata was finally surprised at night by Titus himself. The caves, in one of which Josephus hid, are still to be seen in the rock, recalling his curious account of many hairbreadth escapes; for those who sought refuge in the caves cast lots to kill each other, and the lot left Josephus and one other to the last. These two alone surrendered to Nicanor, a Roman friend of the historian’s, and but for the throw of a die (if we may trust his account) we should never have possessed that stirring story of the wars against Rome which Josephus lived to write, and should have depended solely on the curt and cynical chronicles of the Jew-hating Tacitus.
The survey of Upper Galilee was interrupted in the autumn of 1875 by an attack on the party at Safed. This was our only serious collision with natives, and it was due to the fanatical intolerance of the Algerine Moslems, who formed a foreign colony in the town, and held the unfortunate Jewish population in daily terror.