There are other perennial rivers in Syria, but their courses are short. The Litany (Leontes) rises between the Lebanons a short distance north of the highest springs of Jordan. For many miles the two flow in parallel courses, divided only by the little ridge of Jebel-es-Zoar. But before Jordan has passed its new springs at Banias, the Litany has swept to the west in a sharp right angle, to pour itself into the ocean north of Tyre. It is a fine stream, yellow with rich loam, but its bed is in the sharp angle of valleys whose sides remind one of the Screes of Wastwater. Its descent is so rapid that even if there were meadows in the bottoms of its gorges, it would hurry past them to pour its treasure of water and of soil alike into the thankless sea. The Abana, rising in the same region as the springs of the other two, has a course of only some fifty miles. Kishon, which waters the Plain of Esdraelon, is certainly the most generous in the matter of cultivated fields, but it is also the most treacherous. Its fords are never certain, for great masses of sand and mud are shifted to and fro in the most unaccountable manner. The rest of the perennial rivers are either tributaries of the Jordan, companions of the Abana in its eastern course, or streams from Carmel or the central mountain range, whose short course to the Mediterranean is of little account. As we think of these rivers flowing through a land which so sorely needs their help, we cannot but feel oppressed by a sense of waste that is almost tragic. There is no boat plying on any of them. Most are, indeed, far too rapid for that, but not everywhere. The guide-book speaks of a steamer plying on the lower reaches of Jordan; and the local story of oppression there--every district has its particular grievance--is of two boats that had been brought for the service of the monastery, and then confiscated by Government. The only boats of any kind we saw on fresh water between Hebron and Damascus were two on the Sea of Galilee, manned by Syrians in red jerseys, on which the magic letters were inscribed, “COOK.” In the old days it must have been very different. There is mention of a ferry-boat on the Jordan in 2 Sam. xix. 18, and in Christ’s time there must have been a considerable fishing fleet on the lake. The trireme on the coins of Gadara reminds us of Roman vessels which sailed there for warlike purposes, and here and there you find a valley dammed across its breadth for the construction of an artificial lake, on which a _naumachia_ or naval fight might add piquancy to the games. There is an island in the Dead Sea itself on which what are supposed to be ruins of a landing-stage are still visible, showing that long ago even these uncanny waters were not without their sailors. There used to be a wrecked boat in the Ateibeh marsh from which three men had been drowned. The wreck of another boat was still visible some years ago under the surface of Lake Huleh.