Throughout the nineteenth century, many pilgrims passed by Magdala, then called Mejdel or el-Mejdel, but they did not see much more than a small village of very little interest.

The Swiss geographer Johann Ludwig Burckhard wrote in 1822: Next to Mount Arbel “stands the miserable village el-Mejdel.” Around the same time, the British journalist James S. Buckingham also mentions the “small village called Megdel, where a few Mohammedan families reside.” Buckingham also notes that, among the huts of the inhabitants, there were “the remains of an old square tower”: no doubt he is referring to the tower that can still be seen today and that the local Arabs used to call “Sitti Mariam”. Between 1850 and 1870, two distinguished Americans would pass by Magdala: the US Navy Captain William F. Lynch and the poet Bayard Taylor. The first one describes Mejdel as “a poor village of about forty families, all fellahin (peasants),” while the second calls Mejdel “a miserable little village of thatched mud huts, almost hidden by the undergrowth that grew around them.” But looking at the surrounding inspiring landscape, Taylor gives free rein to his poetic vein: “The crystal clear waters of the lake here wash a shore of the cleanest pebbles. The path winds through oleanders, nebbuks, hock patches, anise seeds, fennel, and other spicy plants, while, in the west, large barley fields are ripe for cutting.