Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and AdventureConder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
History
Tent Work in Palestine: A Record of Discovery and Adventure
Conder, C. R. (Claude Reignier)
Palestine -- Description and travel
After leaving the Beisân plain, the river passes through a narrow valley
twelve miles long and two to three miles wide, with a raised table-land
to the west, having a level averaging about 500 feet above the sea. The
Beisân plain is full of springs of fresh water, some of which are
thermal, but a large current of salt warm water flows down Wâdy Mâleh,
at the north extremity of this fifth district.
In the sixth district, the Dâmieh region, the valley again opens to a
width of about three miles on the west, and five on the east of Jordan.
The great block of the Kurn Sŭrtŭbeh here stands out like a
bastion, on the west, 2400 feet above the river. Passing this mountain
the seventh district is entered--a broad valley extending from near
Fusâil to ’Osh el Ghŭrâb, north of Jericho. In this region the Ghôr
itself is five miles broad, west of the river, and rather more on the
east; the lower trench or Zor is also wider here and more distinctly
separated from the Ghôr. A curious geographical feature of this region
was also discovered by the Survey party. The great affluents of the
Fâr’ah and ’Aujeh do not flow straight to Jordan, but turn south about a
mile west of it, and each runs, for about six miles, nearly parallel
with the river; thus the mouth of the Fâr’ah is actually to be found
just where that of the next valley is shown on most maps. This curious
feature was not discovered even by Captain Warren, and nothing more
surprised me, in surveying the district, than the unsuspected parallel
course of the streams. The whole of the valley in the seventh region is
full of salt springs and salt marshes, but the Fâr’ah, flowing from the
Ænon springs, is a perennial stream of fresh water.
The eighth and last district is that of the plain of Jericho, which with
the corresponding basin (Ghôr-es-Seisebân) east of Jordan, measures over
eight miles north and south, and more than fourteen across, with Jordan
about in the middle. The Zor is here about a mile wide, and some 200
feet below the broad plain of the Ghôr.
To sum up shortly the regions thus enumerated. First we have the Huleh
marshes; secondly, the basin of the Sea of Galilee; thirdly, the narrow
gorge of Kaukab; fourthly, the plain of Beisân; fifthly, the narrow
valley below the Bukei’a of Tûbâs; sixthly, the broader region of the
Fâr’ah; seventhly, the wide Fusâil Valley; eighthly, the great basin of
the Jericho plain; in short, four broad regions connected by two narrow
ones, with a marshy lake and valley highest of all, suggestive, as a
glance at the map will show, of a former chain of great lakes connected
by a river, which have gradually dwindled in area till three small
sheets of water alone remain, with the broad dry beds of two others,
represented by the Beisân and Jericho basins.
The question thus suggested of the original formation of this great
chasm, is not only interesting in itself, but it has a direct bearing on
that of the position of the Cities of the Plain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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