The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4: Babylon: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.Rawlinson, George
History
The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4: Babylon: The History, Geography, And Antiquities Of Chaldaea, Assyria, Babylon, Media, Persia, Parthia, And Sassanian or New Persian Empire; With Maps and Illustrations.
The Jordan is commonly regarded as flowing from two sources in the
Huleh or plain immediately above Lake Merom, one at Banias (the ancient
Paneas), the other at Tel-el-Kady, which marks the site of Laish or
Dan. But the true highest present source of the river is the spring near
Hasbeiya, called Nebaes-Hasbany, or Eas-en-Neba. This spring rises in
the torrent-course known as the Wady-el-Teim, which descends from the
north-western flank of Hermon, and runs nearly parallel with the great
gorge of the Litany, having a direction from north-east to south-west.
The water wells forth in abundance from the foot of a volcanic
bluff, called Eas-el-Anjah, lying directly north of Hasbeiya, and is
immediately used to turn a mill. The course of the streamlet is very
slightly west of south down the Wady to the Huleh plain, where it
is joined, and multiplied sevenfold, by the streams from Banais and
Tel-el-Kady, becoming at once worthy of the name of river. Hence it
runs almost due south to the Merom lake, which it enters in lat. 33°
7’, through a reedy and marshy tract which it is difficult to penetrate.
Issuing from Merom in lat. 33° 3’, the Jordan flows at first sluggishly
southward to “Jacob’s Bridge,” passing which, it proceeds in the same
direction, with a much swifter current down the depressed and narrow
cleft between Merom and Tiberias, descending at the rate of fifty
feet in a mile, and becoming (as has been said) a sort of “continuous
waterfall.” Before reaching Tiberias its course bends slightly to the
west of south for about two miles, and it pours itself into that “sea”
in about lat. 32° 53’. Quitting the sea in lat. 32° 42’, it finally
enters the track called the Ghor, the still lower chasm or cleft which
intervenes between Tiberias and the upper end of the Dead Sea. Here the
descent of the stream becomes comparatively gentle, not much exceeding
three feet per mile; for though the direct distance between the two
lakes is less than seventy miles, and the entire fall above 600 feet,
which would seem to give a descent of nine or ten feet a mile, yet, as
the course of the river throughout this part of its career is tortuous
in the extreme, the fall is really not greater than above indicated.
Still it is sufficient to produce as many as twenty-seven rapids, or
at the rate of one to every seven miles. In this part of its course
the Jordan receives two important tributaries, each of which seems to
deserve a few words.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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