=Its Shores.= On the east rise the steep, now barren but probably once tree-clad, limestone hills of the Jaulan, capped by vast layers of black basalt, towering in the distance like huge battlements. They stand back, however, from the lake, leaving a shore averaging one-half mile in width. On the north the Jordan has worn down the hills, which here descend gradually in wild, stony moorlands, covered with thorns and rough grasses. To the northwest opens the fertile plain of Gennesaret,^{(33)} four miles wide, watered by dashing mountain brooks and flanked by the high hills of upper Galilee. The industry of German colonists is again beginning to demonstrate the marvellous fertility of this fair plain, where the fruits and grains of tropical and temperate climes grow side by side. On the western side of the lake the hills descend in terraces, leaving a narrow strip of shore, connected with the uplands by one or two shallow valleys. To the south the shore broadens and the hills recede until they are four miles apart at the southern end,^{(34)} where the Jordan leaves the Sea of Galilee. =From the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea.= The distance from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea in a straight line is only sixty-five miles, but, owing to its constant turnings, the actual course of the river measures nearly two hundred miles. In this last plunge the river descends more than one thousand feet. Its descent is more rapid in the upper part of its course. A little below the Sea of Galilee it receives its largest confluent, the River Yarmuk, which breaks through the heights of the Hauran to the east. The volume of the water thus poured in nearly equals that of the Jordan itself at this point. Further south the Brook Jalûd comes down on the west from the Plain of Jezreel past Bethshean. About twenty miles from its mouth, the Jordan receives the waters from the Jabbok, which descends from the heights of Gilead on the east, and from the Wady Farah, which comes from the vicinity of Shechem on the west.