It is distinctly marked, and forms a curious record of some natural change having occurred on a large scale.
Dr Wilson, in his “Lands of the Bible,” contends that an earthquake capable of depressing a straight line of the length of the Ghôr and ’Arabah, must have convulsed all the lands of Canaan, Moab, Ammon, Edom, and the Desert, with their inhabitants; but that no such convulsion took place, for Zoar on the east, and Hebron on the west, are known to have remained.
Does it, however, necessarily follow that seismal devastation spreads in every direction? On the contrary, earthquakes act in oscillations from east to west, returning from west to east; or from north to south, returning from south to north: but not in the manner of a flood of water spreading in every direction at once. If so, a mighty earthquake, extending along the whole Ghôr and ’Arabah, would be exactly such a cause as might spare a city on each side of its progress.
The whole subject still admits of much careful investigation on sundry points; but, meanwhile, until geologists have given us more data from which to form conclusions, I must take my stand upon the distinct record of Genesis; that what was the Salt Sea when Moses wrote, had been the Vale or Plain (Emek) of Siddim, containing cities with kings, who fought and were subdued by Chedarlaomer upon that plain in the time of Abraham; and that those cities were the same as those that were penally destroyed soon after.
XII. ACROSS THE LEBANON.
I have traversed the Lebanon eastwards and southwards of Bayroot several times; once in 1849; again in 1853; and also in 1855: but it seems advisable to narrate the incidents separately, and although on two occasions I passed over nearly the same ground, it will be curious to compare or contrast those journeys, inasmuch as the circumstances were dissimilar.
PART I.—1849.
The course of the first journey was as follows:—From Sidon on the sea-coast we gradually climbed the Lebanon range eastward; then descending by tortuous roads, and turning somewhat to the south, we crossed to where Hhasbeya lies at the foot of Anti-Lebanon; after which we followed the general direction of the streams southwards, and uniting above the waters of Merom form the Jordan. Holding on at the western side of the plain we arrived at Safed in Galilee.
Oct. 25th.—We left Saida for Joon, which had been for many years the residence of Lady Hester Stanhope, and the vice-consul furnished us with a kawwâs who had been a servant of her ladyship.
Turned off from the high road of the sea-coast, at the river Awali, which is believed by the native Christians to have been the limit of our Lord’s ministry on earth, when it is said that He went into “the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.”