Arid and bare on the northern side, they sent out towards the south featureless monotonous ridges, furrowed here and there by short narrow valleys, hollowed out in places into basins or funnel-shaped ravines, which are widened year by year by the down-rush of torrents. These ridges, as they proceed southwards, become clothed with verdure and offer a more varied outline, the ravines being more thickly wooded, and the summits less uniform in contour and colouring. Lebanon becomes white and ice-crowned in winter, but none of its peaks rises to the altitude of perpetual snows: the highest of them, Mount Timarun, reaches 10,526 feet, while only three others exceed 9000.* Anti-Lebanon is, speaking generally, 1000 or 1300 feet lower than its neighbour: it becomes higher, however, towards the south, where the triple peak of Mount Hermon rises to a height of 9184 feet. The Orontes and the Litany drain the intermediate space. The Orontes rising on the west side of the Anti-Lebanon, near the ruins of Baalbek, rushes northwards in such a violent manner, that the dwellers on its banks call it the rebel--Nahr el-Asi.** About a third of the way towards its mouth it enters a depression, which ancient dykes help to transform into a lake; it flows thence, almost parallel to the sea-coast, as far as the 36th degree of latitude. There it meets the last spurs of the Amanos, but, failing to cut its way through them, it turns abruptly to the west, and then to the south, falling into the Mediterranean after having received an increase to its volume from the waters of the Afrin. * Bukton-Drake, Unexplored Syria, vol. i. p. 88, attributed to it an altitude of 9175 English feet; others estimate it at 10,539 feet. The mountains which exceed 3000 metres are Dahr el-Kozib, 3046 metres; Jebel-Mislriyah, 3080 metres; and Jebel-Makhmal or Makmal, 3040 metres. As a matter of fact, these heights are not yet determined with the accuracy desirable. ** The Egyptians knew it in early times by the name of Aunrati, or Araunti; it is mentioned in Assyrian inscriptions under the name of Arantu. All are agreed in acknowledging that this name is not Semitic, and an Aryan origin is attributed to it, but without convincing proof; according to Strabo (xvi. ii. Sec. 7, p. 750), it was originally called Typhon, and was only styled Orontes after a certain Orontes had built the first bridge across it. The name of Axios which it sometimes bears appears to have been given to it by Greek colonists, in memory of a river in Macedonia. This is probably the origin of the modern name of Asi, and the meaning, _rebellious river_, which Arab tradition attaches to the latter term, probably comes from a popular etymology which likened Axios to Asi, the identification was all the easier since it justifies the epithet by the violence of its current.