What renders this excavation interesting is, that as Sepphoris was, at the time of Christ, the principal Roman city and fortress of Galilee, some relics of a date anterior to that of the church itself may very likely be discovered. The former importance of the town may be fairly estimated by the extent of its ancient rock cemetery, which lies about a mile to the eastward, and which I visited. Here abound caves with loculi for the dead, sarcophagi, either cut into the living rock, with their stone lids still upon them, or else detached and strewn like huge water-troughs over the rocky area, immense cisterns, and rock-cut steps, and a quarter of a mile distant is a wonderful work of Roman engineering skill in the shape of an aqueduct many miles long, which supplied the citadel with water, which it is supposed continues to Sheik Abreik, a distance of ten miles, and which here tunnels through the hill for a quarter of a mile. The roof has in places fallen in, and exposes to view the canal itself, which is about twenty feet deep, with sides beautifully cemented. This subterranean aqueduct has only been recently discovered by the Palestine Exploration Fund Survey, and is quite unknown to tourists, though the whole place is well worth visiting.
Leaving it with regret, for it required a longer examination than I was able to give it, I struck off past the lovely springs of Sefurieh, where a copious stream gushes out full-blown from its source, to fertilize a valley rich with olive and fig gardens—a spot celebrated in crusading annals as the scene of many skirmishes, in some of which Richard Cœur de Lion distinguished himself so much that his name is still handed down in tradition among the natives. Crossing wooded hills, we find that every step opens new surprises upon us of scenery and of discovery, for these wild forest recesses have never been thoroughly explored. First we came upon a group of prostrate columns on which we found inscriptions, so worn, however, that we were unable to decipher them, but the native who was with us told us that the clump of old trees which overhung them bore the name of “Trees of the Bridegroom,” suggestive of Baal-worship and a holy place of antiquity. Then we examined two hill-tops covered with cave tombs, and strewn with massive and overgrown remains hitherto undiscovered. One of these was called Jissy and the other Hamitz. The largest of the caves contained three chambers with loculi. The entrances were carved. Not far from them I found another group of columns, and on them managed to trace the letters IMP. AVR., evidently standing for Imperator Aurelian, which would make them date from the third century after Christ. So, winding through rocky, wooded dells, we reached Bethlehem of Galilee, the modern Beit Lahm, where there were the remains of an ancient subterranean aqueduct or sarcophagus and the fragment of a column, and on through more glassy glades, finding our way by instinct, for we were without a guide; but we had a better chance of stumbling upon undiscovered ruins this way, and whatever path we followed was sure in the end to lead us somewhere; moreover, the view guided us from the hill-tops, and our compass when we were in the valleys. I quite regretted when at last we suddenly emerged from these old oak woods—alas! so rapidly being destroyed by the charcoal burners—and found ourselves on the edge of a hill overlooking the plain of the Kishon, across which a rapid ride of three hours brought us to our journey's end, and completed one of the most delightful rides it has ever been my fortune to make in this country.