April and early in May, the barley preceding the wheat-harvest by two or three weeks. Then, as now, there was a slight annual rise of the river, which caused it to flow at this season with full banks, and sometimes to spread its waters even over the immediate banks of its channel, where they are lowest, so as in some places to fill the low tract covered with trees and vegetation along its sides.' Further than this there is no evidence, that its inundations have ever extended; indeed the very fact of their having done so, would in this soil and climate necessarily have carried back the line of vegetation to a greater distance from the channel. Did the Jordan, like the Nile, spread out its waters over a wide region, they would no doubt everywhere produce the same lavish fertility.

Although therefore the Jordan probably never pours its floods, in any case, beyond the limits of its green border, yet it is natural to suppose, that the amount of its rise must vary in different years, according to the variable quantity of rain which may annually fall. This consideration will account in a great measure for the various reports and estimates of travellers. It may also appear singular, that this annual increase should (so far as we yet know) take place near the close of the rainy season, or even after it, rather than at an earlier period, when the rains are heaviest. This is sometimes referred to the late melting of the snows on Jebel esh-Sheikh or Hermon;2 but at this season these snows have usually long been melted, and only the mighty head of Hermon is decked with an icy crown. The fact however may be easily explained, I apprehend, upon ordinary principles.

1) Burckhardt says loosely that the Jordan in winter, (meaning generally the rainy season,) "inundates the plain in the bottom of the narrow valley." But this whole

lower plain, where he saw it, was "covered with high trees and a luxuriant verdure." Travels, etc. pp. 344, 345.

2) Bachiene I. p. 141.

In the first place, the heavy rains of November and December find the earth in a parched and thirsty state; and among the loose limestone rocks and caverns of Palestine, a far greater proportion of the water is under the circumstances absorbed, than is usual in occidental countries, where rains are frequent. Then too the course of the Jordan below the lake of Tiberias is comparatively short; no living streams enter it from the mountains, except the Yarmûk and the Zurka from the East; and the smaller torrents from the hills would naturally, at the most, produce but a sudden and temporary rise. Whether such an effect does actually take place, we are not informed; as no traveller has yet seen the Jordan during the months of November and December. Late in January and early in March 1818, as we have seen, nothing of the kind was perceptible.'

But a more important, and perhaps the chief cause of the phenomenon, lies (I apprehend) in the general conformation of the region through which the Jordan flows. The rains which descend upon Anti-Lebanon and the mountains around the upper part of the Jordan, and which might be expected to produce sudden and violent inundations, are received into the basins of the Hûleh and the lake of Tiberias, and there spread out over a broad surface; so that all violence is destroyed; and the stream that issues from them, can only flow with a regulated current, varying in depth according to the elevation of the lower lake. These lakes indeed may be compared to great regulators, which control the violence of the Jordan, and prevent its inundations. The principle is precisely the same, (though on a far inferior scale,) as that which prevents the sudden rise and overflow of the magnificent streams connecting the great lakes of North America. 1) See pp. 260, 261, above.

-As now the lake of Tiberias reaches its highest level at the close of the rainy season, the Jordan naturally flows with its fullest current for some time after that period; and as the rise of the lake naturally varies (like that of the Dead Sea) in different years, so also the fulness of the Jordan.

All these circumstances, the low bed of the river, the absence of inundation and of tributary streams, combine to leave the greater portion of the Ghôr a solitary desert. Such it is described in antiquity, and such we find it at the present day. Josephus speaks of the Jordan as flowing "through a desert;" and of this plain as in summer scorched by heat, insalubrious, and watered by no stream except the Jordan.' The portion of it which we had thus far crossed has already been described; and we afterwards had opportunity to overlook it for a great distance towards the North, where it retained the same character. Near the ford five or six miles above Jericho, the plain is described as "generally unfertile, the soil being in many places encrusted with salt, and having small heaps of a white powder, like sulphur, scattered at short intervals over its surface;" here too the bottom of the lower valley is generally barren. In the northern part of the Ghôr, according to Burckhardt, "the great number of rivulets which descend from the mountains on both sides, and form numerous pools of stagnant water, produce in many places a pleasing verdure, and a luxuriant growth of wild herbage and grass; but the greater part of the ground is a parched desert, of which a few

1) Joseph. B. J. III. 10. 7, Διεκτέμνει την Γεννησὰρ μέσην, ἔπει τα πολλὴν ἀναμετρούμενος ἐρημίαν, εἰς τὴν Ασφαλτίτιν ἔξεισι λίμνην. Ibid. IV. 8. 2, 'Exлvoоvται de woa θέρους τὸ Πεδίον, καὶ δι ̓ ὑπερβολὴν αὐχμοῦ περιέχει νοσώδη τὸν ἀέρα· πᾶν γὰρ ἄνυδρον πλὴν τοῦ Ἰορδάνου. VOL. II.

34

—In a similar sense Jerome, Comm. in Zech. xi. 3, "Sic Jordani fluvio . . . fremitum junxit leonum propter ardorem sitis, et ob deserti viciniam et latitudinem vastae solitudinis, et arundineta et carecta.”

314.

2) Buckingham I. c. pp. 313,

spots only are cultivated by the Bedawîn."

So too

in the southern part, where similar rivulets or fountains exist, as around Jericho, there is an exuberant fertility; but these seldom reach the Jordan, and have no effect upon the middle of the Ghôr. Nor are the mountains upon each side less rugged and desolate than they have been described along the Dead Sea. The western cliffs overhang the valley at an elevation of a thousand or twelve hundred feet; while the eastern mountains are indeed at first less lofty and precipitous, but rise further back into ranges from two thousand to twenty-five hundred feet in height.

Such is the Jordan and its valley; that venerated stream, celebrated on almost every page of the Old Testament as the border of the Promised Land, whose floods were miraculously “driven back," to afford a passage for the Israelites. In the New Testament it is still more remarkable for the baptism of our Saviour; when the heavens were opened, and the Spirit of God descended upon him, "and lo, a voice from heaven saying, This is my beloved Son !" We now stood upon its shores, and had bathed in its waters, and felt ourselves surrounded by hallowed associations. The exact places of these and other events connected with this part of the Jordan, it is in vain to seek after; nor is this necessary, in order to awaken and fully to enjoy all the emotions, which the region around is adapted to inspire.

As to the passage of the Israelites, the pilgrims of course regard it as having occurred near the places where they bathe, or not far below. Mistaken piety seems early to have fixed upon the spot, and erected a church and set up the twelve stones near to the supposed site of Gilgal, five miles from the Jordan. This is described by Arculfus at the close of the sev1) Travels, etc. p. 344. 2) Matt. iii. 13, seq.

enth, and by St. Willibald in the eighth century; and the twelve stones are still mentioned by Rudolph de Suchem in the fourteenth. In later times, Irby and Mangles remark, that "it would be interesting to search for the twelve stones" near the ford where they crossed, some distance above Jericho.2 But the circumstances of the scriptural narrative, I apprehend, do not permit us to look so high up; nor indeed for any particular ford or point, unless for the passage of the ark. "The waters that came down from above, stood, and rose up upon a heap....and those that came down toward the sea.... failed and were cut off; and the people passed over right against Jericho." That is, the waters above being held back, those below flowed off and left the channel towards the Dead Sea dry; so that the people, amounting to more than two millions of souls, were not confined to a single point, but could pass over any part of the empty channel directly from the plains of Moab towards Jericho.

We quitted the banks of the Jordan at 2h 35' on a course N. W. N. for Jericho, intending to visit a fountain on the way, and also the ruin which the Arabs called Kusr Hajla. Some of our younger Arabs had affected great fear in remaining so long at the river, as wandering robbers sometimes lie in wait there for travellers. But the Khatîb, who seemed not to know fear, rebuked them, exclaiming: "Let come who will, we will all die together." He was indeed a fine specimen of a spirited Arab chief.

Crossing the desert tract for half an hour or more, we came upon a broad shallow water-bed extending

1) Adamnanus ex Arculfo II. 14, 15. St. Willibaldi Hodoep. 18. Rud. de Suchem in Reissb. des h. Landes p. 849.

2) Travels, p. 326. So too Buckingham, p. 315.

3) Josh. iii. 16.