The Zaherany repeats on a smaller scale the course of the Bostrenus. It
rises near Jerjû’a from the western flank of Jebel Rihan, the southern
extremity of the Lebanon range, and flows at first to the south-west.
The source is “a fine large fountain bursting forth with violence, and
with water enough for a mill race.”[157] From this the river flows in
a deep valley, brawling and foaming along its course, through tracts of
green grass shaded by black walnut-trees for a distance of about five
miles, after which, just opposite Jerjû’a, it breaks through one of the
spurs from Rihan by a magnificent chasm. The gorge is one “than which
there are few deeper or more savage in Lebanon. The mountains on each
side rise up almost precipitously to the height of two or three thousand
feet above the stream, that on the northern bank being considerably the
higher. The steep sides of the southern mountain are dotted with shrub,
oak, and other dwarf trees.”[158] The river descends in its chasm still
in a south-west direction until, just opposite Arab Salim, it “turns
round the precipitous corner or bastion of the southern Rihan into a
straight valley,” and proceeds to run due south for a short distance.
Meeting, however, a slight swell of ground, which blocks what would seem
to have been its natural course, the river “suddenly turns west,” and
breaking through a low ridge by a narrow ravine, pursues its way by
a course a little north of west to the Mediterranean, which it enters
about midway between Sidon and Sarepta.[159] The length of the stream,
including main windings, is probably not more than thirty-five miles.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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