PALESTINE.

General features.-The four rivers of Syria; the Orontes, the Leontes, the Barada, the JORDAN.--General aspect of Palestine.-I. Seclusion of Palestine. II. Smallness and narrowness of its territory. III. Central situation. IV. Land of ruins. V. "Land of milk and honey." VI. Earthquakes and Volcanic phenomena. VII. Variety of climate and structure. VIII. Mountainous character. IX. Scenery hills and valleys; flowers; trees: cedars, oaks, palins, sycamores. X. Geological features: 1. Springs and wells; 2. Sepulchres 3. Caves; 4. Natural curiosities. XI. General conclusion.

BETWEEN the great plains of Assyria and the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, a high mountain tract is The High interposed, reaching from the Bay of Issus to the Land of Desert of Arabia. Of this the northern part, which Syria. consists of the ranges known in ancient geography under the names of Amanus and Casius, and which includes rather more than half the tract in question, is not within the limits of the Holy Land; and, though belonging to the same general elevavation, is distinguished from the southern division by strongly marked peculiarities, and only enters into the sacred history at a later time, when its connection with any local scenes was too slight to be worth dwelling upon in detail. It is with the southern division that we are now concerned.

The range divides itself twice over into two parallel chains. There is first, the main chain divided into two by Lebanon. the broad valley commonly called Cole-Syria; the western mountain of Lebanon reaching its highest termination in the northern point above the cedars; the eastern of AntiLebanon, in the southern point known by the name of Hermon. This last summit again breaks into two ranges, of which the

western, with the exception of one broad depression, extends as far as the Desert of Sinai; the eastern, as far as the mountains of Arabia Petræa. From this double chain' flow four The Four Rivers. rivers of unequal magnitude, on which, at different times, have sprung up the four ruling powers of that portion of Asia. Lebanon is, in this respect, a likeness of that primeval Paradise, to which its local traditions have always endeavoured The to attach themselves. The Northern River, rising Orontes, from the fork of the two ranges of Lebanon and AntiLebanon, and forming the channel of life and civilisation in that northern division of which we have just spoken, is the Orontes, the river of the Greek kingdom of Antioch and Seleucia. The Western, is the Litâny or Leontes', rising from the same watershed between the two ranges, near Baalbec, and forcing its way through Lebanon into the Mediterranean, close to Tyre,-the River of Phoenicia. The Eastern, rising from the centre of Anti-Lebanon and

the Litâny,

the joined by one or two lesser streams, is the modern Barada; Barada, the Abana or Pharpar of the Old Testament -the river of the Syrian kingdom of Damascus. The kingdoms which have risen in the neighbourhood or on the banks of these rivers, have flourished, not simultaneously, but successively. The northern kingdom was the latest, and is only brought into connection with the Sacred History, as being thatfrom which the "Kings of the North" made their descent upon Palestine, and in which were afterwards founded the first Gentile churches. It was, as it were, the halting-place of Christianity, before it finally left its Asiatic home-beyond the limits of the Holy Land, yet not in another country or climate; naturally resting on the banks of the Orontes, on the way from the valley of the Jordan, before (to use the Roman poet's expression in another and a better sense) it joined "the flow of the Orontes into the Tiber." The eastern kingdom of Damascus on one side, the western kingdom of Phoenicia on the other, claim a nearer connection with the history of the chosen people from first to last; the one, as the great opening of communi

1 For the sketch of the Four Rivers, see the instructive note on Syria in Napoleon's Mémoires, vol. ii. 297, 298. The detailed characteristics of

each will be given in Chapters VII. and XII.

2 See note on the name Leontes, Chapter XII.

cation with the distant Eastern deserts, the other with the Mediterranean coasts. The Fourth and Southern river, which rises at the point where Hermon splits into its two parallel ranges, is the River of Palestine-the JORDAN.

The Jordan, with its manifold peculiarities, must be reserved for the time when we come to speak of it in detail. THE Yet it must be remembered throughout, that this JORDAN. river, the artery of the whole country, is unique on the surface of the globe. The ranges of the Lebanon are remarkable; the courses of the Orontes, the Leontes, and the Barada, are curious; but the deep depression of the Jordan has absolutely no parallel. No other valley in the world presents such extraordinary physical features, none has been the subject of such various theories as to its origin and character. How far this strange conformation of the Holy Land has had any extensive influence on its history may be doubtful. But it is worth observing at the outset, that we are in a country, of which the geography and the history each claims to be singular of its kind: the history, by its own records, unconscious, if one may so say, of the physical peculiarity; the geography, by the discoveries of modern science, wholly without regard, perhaps even indifferent or hostile, to the claims of the history. Such a coincidence may be accidental; but, at least, it serves to awaken the curiosity, and strike the imagination; at least it lends dignity to the country, where the Earth and the Man are thus alike objects of wonder and investigation.

PALESTINE.

It is around and along this deep fissure that the hills of western and eastern Palestine spring up, forming the link between the high group of Lebanon on the north, and the high group of Sinai on the south; forming the mountain-bridge, or isthmus, between the ocean of the Assyrian Desert, and the ocean (as it seemed to the ancient world) of the Mediterranean, or "Great Sea" on the west. On the one side of the Jordan these hills present a mass of green pastures and forests melting away, on the east, into the red plains and blue hills of the Haurân. On the other side they form a mass of gray rock rising above the yellow Desert on the south, bounded on the west by the long green strip of the maritime plain; cut asunder on the north by the rich plain of Esdraelon; rising

again beyond Esdraelon into the wild scenery of mountain and forest in the roots of Lebanon.

Each of these divisions has a name, a character, and, to a certain extent, a history of its own, which will best appear as we proceed. But there are features more or less common to the whole country, especially to that portion of it which has been the chief seat of the national life; and these, so far as they illustrate the general history, must be now considered. "The Vine" was "brought out of 'Egypt:" what was the land in which God "prepared room before it, and caused it to take deep root," and "cover the 'mountains' with its shadow?"

Seclusion from the rest of the ancient world.

I. The peculiar characteristic of the Israelite people, whether as contemplated from their own sacred records, or as viewed by their Gentile neighbours, was that they were a nation secluded, set apart, from the rest of the world; "haters," it was said, "of the human race," and hated by it in return. Is there anything in the physical structure and situation of their country which agrees with this 'peculiarity? Look at its boundaries. The most important in this respect will be that on the east. For in that early time, when Palestine first fell to the lot of the chosen people, the East was still the world. The great empires which rose on the plains of Mesopotamia, the cities of the Euphrates and the Tigris, were literally then, what Babylon is metaphorically in the Apocalypse, the rulers and corrupters of all the kingdoms of the earth. Between these great empires and the people of Israel, two obstacles were interposed. The first was the eastern Desert, which formed a barrier in front even of the outposts of Israel-the nomadic tribes on the east of the Jordan; the second, the vast fissure of the Jordan valley, which must always have acted as a deep trench within the exterior rampart of the Desert and the eastern hills of the Trans-Jordanic tribes.

Next to the Assyrian empire in strength and power, superior to it in arts and civilisation, was Egypt. What was there on the southern boundary of Palestine, to secure that "the Egyptians whom they saw on the shores of the Red Sea, they should

1 Psalm 1xxx. 8-10.

2 See Ritter; Jordan, pp. 1-22.

see no more again?" Up to the very frontier of their own land stretched that "great and terrible wilderness," which rolled like a sea between the valley of the Nile and the valley of the Jordan. This wilderness itself-the platform of the Tîh-could be only reached on its eastern side by the tremendous pass of 'Akaba at the southern, of Sâfeh at the northern end of the 'Arabah, or of the no less formidable ascents' from the shores of the Dead Sea.

On these, the two most important frontiers, the separation was most complete. The two accessible sides were the west and the north. But the west was only accessible by sea, and when Israel first settled in Palestine, the Mediterranean was not yet the thoroughfare-it was rather the boundary and the terror of the eastern nations. From the north-western coast, indeed, of Syria, the Phoenician cities sent forth their fleets. But they were the exception of the world, the discoverers, the first explorers of the unknown depths; and in their enterprises Israel never joined. In strong contrast, too, with the coast of Europe, and especially of Greece, Palestine has no indentations, no winding creeks, no deep havens, such as in ancient, even more than in modern times, were necessary for the invitation and protection of commercial enterprise. One long line, broken only by the bay of Acre, containing only three bad harbours, Joppa, Acre, and Caipha-the last unknown in ancient times-is the inhospitable front that Palestine opposed to the western world. On the northern frontier the ranges of Lebanon formed two not insignificant ramparts. But the gate between them was open, and through the long valley of ColeSyria, the hosts of Syrian and Assyrian conquerors accordingly poured. These were the natural fortifications of that vineyard which was "hedged round about" with tower and trench, sea and desert, against the "boars of the wood," and "the beast of the field."

II. In Palestine, as in Greece, every traveller is struck with the smallness of the territory. He is surprised, even after all

1 See Chapter I. Part ii. pp. 83, 98. 2 One of these must have been the 'Ascent of Scorpions' (Maaleh-Acrabbim so often mentioned on the southern

frontier of Judah (Numb. xxxiv. 4; Josh. xv. 3, &c.) De Saulcy (i. 528) suggests the Wady Zouara, and testifies to the scorpions there found under every pebble.