The Litany rises a short distance from the Orontes; it flows at first through a wide and fertile plain, which soon contracts, however, and forces it into a channel between the spurs of the Lebanon and the Galilaean hills. The water thence makes its way between two cliffs of perpendicular rock, the ravine being in several places so narrow that the branches of the trees on the opposite sides interlace, and an active man could readily leap across it. Near Yakhmur some detached rocks appear to have been arrested in their fall, and, leaning like flying buttresses against the mountain face, constitute a natural bridge over the torrent. The basins of the two rivers lie in one valley, extending eighty leagues in length, divided by an almost imperceptible watershed into two beds of unequal slope. The central part of the valley is given up to marshes. It is only towards the south that we find cornfields, vineyards, plantations of mulberry and olive trees, spread out over the plain, or disposed in terraces on the hillsides. Towards the north, the alluvial deposits of, the Orontes have gradually formed a black and fertile soil, upon which grow luxuriant crops of cereals and other produce. Cole-Syria, after having generously nourished the Oriental empires which had preyed upon her, became one of the granaries of the Roman world, under the capable rule of the Caesars. Syria is surrounded on all sides by countries of varying aspect and soil. That to the north, flanked by the Amanos, is a gloomy mountainous region, with its greatest elevation on the seaboard: it slopes gradually towards the interior, spreading out into chalky table-lands, dotted over with bare and rounded hills, and seamed with tortuous valleys which open out to the Euphrates, the Orontes, or the desert. Vast, slightly undulating plains succeed the table-lands: the soil is dry and stony, the streams are few in number and contain but little water. The Sajur flows into the Euphrates, the Afrin and the Karasu when united yield their tribute to the Orontes, while the others for the most part pour their waters into enclosed basins. The Khalus of the Greeks sluggishly pursues its course southward, and after reluctantly leaving the gardens of Aleppo, finally loses itself on the borders of the desert in a small salt lake full of islets: about halfway between the Khalus and the Euphrates a second salt lake receives the Nahr ed-Dahab, the "golden river." The climate is mild, and the temperature tolerably uniform. The sea-breeze which rises every afternoon tempers the summer heat: the cold in winter is never piercing, except when the south wind blows which comes from the mountains, and the snow rarely lies on the ground for more than twenty-four hours. It seldom rains during the autumn and winter months, but frequent showers fall in the early days of spring. Vegetation then awakes again, and the soil lends itself to cultivation in the hollows of the valleys and on the table-lands wherever