The sun rose upon the Plains of Jericho after our first night’s slumber among the Arabs of the Ghôr, reflecting a pale yellow light through dense masses of mist which obscured from view the summits of the distant mountains. Ascending the loftiest spur of Quarantania, a landscape of extraordinary character lay before me. Stretching from the northern shore of the Lake of Tiberias to the southern coast of the Dead Sea, the valley of the Lower Jordan unfolded to the eye its manifold and marvelous features. A hundred and twenty miles in length, ten in breadth, and 1312 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, it is among the greatest geological wonders of the globe. From sea to sea lofty mountains bound this great chasm on either side. Rising thousands of feet above the river terrace, the Moab range forms the eastern wall of the great valley, while the Heights of Galilee, the Mountains of Samaria, and the Hills of Judea run along its western border. Broken and barren, the sides of these mountains are furrowed with deep ravines, the frequented passes to the plains below. As far as the eye can reach, the deep, tortuous bed of the Jordan is seen along its eastern side, the turbid waters of which remain unseen till viewed from the second terrace of the stream. The broadest portion of the Jordan valley, the Plain of Jericho is not unlike in form a vast semicircle. Not ten miles long, it is less than eight broad from the roots of the western mountains to the banks of the river. On the south is the Dead Sea, on the east the Jordan, on the north are the Hills of Judea dipping into the rushing river, and on the west is Quarantania rising 2000 feet above its base. Level in the centre, but gently undulating toward the north and south, it has a soil of inexhaustible fertility;and abundantly watered by its numerous fountains, its groves of zukkûm, its beautiful willows, its verdant meadows, its flowers and rank weeds growing luxuriantly, sustain the scriptural allusion to “Jericho, the city of palm-trees,”[275]and the prophetic blessing, the promise of perennial fruitfulness.[276]Such was its fertility in the “Middle Ages,” that the cultivation of the sugar-cane, with other products, yielded the nuns of Bethany an annual revenue of $25,000,[277]and by the application of scientific agriculture, would again become, in the language of Josephus, a “divine region.”[278]
PLAIN OF JERICHO AND VIEW OF THE DEAD SEA FROM THE NORTH.
Called Quarantania to indicate the forty days during which the Son of God endured the assaults of the Evil One upon its summit, the Mount of Temptation is sterile and gloomy. The rocks are white and naked; the sides are perforated with the cells of hermits, who, retiring from society, hope by the rigors of a solitary life to obtain a better world; and the summit is crowned with a small chapel, the only monument of the Redeemer’s triumph over the Prince of Darkness. In the lower caves some wild Bedouins, with their families, had taken refuge, and near them were shepherds keeping their scanty flocks.
The sun had mounted high above the thick mists, which at an earlier hour had veiled his brightness, when I returned to the encampment. Weary in waiting my return, the caravan had moved, and I was left alone among the “thieves of Jericho.” The sight of a revolver extorted from a skulking Arab the direction the party had taken, and applying whip and spur, I dashed through the jungle on the banks of the Cherith, and in half an hour rejoined it. On reaching Rîha we obtained an additional escort. Our military guard now consisted of six soldiers—five Bedouins and their sheikh. Though wild in their exterior, there was a rude grandeur in the soldiers of Rîha. Each wore a loose garment of camel’s hair, with openings in the side for the free play of the arms, a pair of rough sandals on his otherwise naked feet, and a bright-colored shawl of Broosa silk thrown carelessly on the head, and held firmly by an elastic cord, the ends of the shawl hanging loosely down. Each carried a brace of pistols and a pair of daggers in his girdle; over the shoulder was slung a long gun, by the side dangled a Damascus blade, and in the hand was borne a lance fifteen feet long. The saddle of each was large, with the bow terminating front and rear in a pommel. The stirrups were of sheet iron, fourteen inches long and seven wide, gently curving, the lateral edges turned upward. Each was mounted on a small but swift and spirited horse, and the captain of the band was followed by a pack of hounds used for hunting gazelles. Their speed was wonderful. Proud of their splendid horsemanship and willing to excite our admiration, these rude soldiers of the Desert gave proof of their marvelous skill and daring, darting forward with the suddenness and celerity of the thunderbolt over hill, through gully, over rocks, through briers,over streams, through thickets, tilting the spear as they rode, as if to plunge it into some advancing foe.
For half an hour our path lay through a jungle of thorny shrubs, beyond which was an open plain. The day was glorious; the air balmy; the sun shone through a gauze-like haze; the leafy songsters, from their sylvan coverts along the streamlets, “caroled the melody of their song.” Our horses were fleet, our spirits buoyant, and over that noble plain we rode with unbounded delight. Both in kind and richness the soil varied as we advanced. Now it was barren and covered with a thin, smooth, nitrous crust, through which we sank as in ashes; again it was rich, bearing groves of fruit-trees, tufts of the feathery tamarisk, and beautiful oleanders, with their finger-like leaves and tulip-shaped flowers. At ten A.M. we reached the first terrace, or highest bank of the Jordan, composed of irregular hills of clay, and measuring twenty feet deep. Here our soldiers sallied forth, plunging into the dense thickets and sweeping like lightning around the hills to discover the robbers and save us from surprise. In fifteen minutes more we had descended to the second terrace, and five minutes thereafter we stood on the banks of the most sacred and renowned river in the world. Other rivers are deeper, broader, longer, but the Jordan is unsurpassed in the peculiarities of its source, the sinuosities of its channel, the glories of its history. Springing from the heart of anti-Libanus, ten crystal fountains pour their eternal waters into its descending current. From the base of snow-capped Hermon three noble fountains send their united contributions southward, feeding the River Hasbâny. Situated forty miles to the north from the head of Lake Tiberias, the first is the Fountain Fuarr, at Hasbeîya, and is the remotest perennial source of the Jordan; the second is called Sareid, located south of Kefr Shubah; the third is Luisany, near El-Ghujar. Eighteen miles to the south from Hasbeîya is the largest permanent fountain in the world, known as El-Leddân. Its pure waters gush forth from the foot of the green hill of El-Kâdy, and, after forming a pool, they flow southward in a broad stream, increased in its course by many rills creeping from beneath noble oaks, and at length it joins the Hasbâny seven miles north of Lake Merom. Four miles to the east from El-Kâdy is the Fountain of Banias, next in size to that of El-Leddân, but which, unlike the latter, originates in manyrivulets, which, uniting, rush on to a confluence with the Leddân, and, a mile below the junction, join the Hasbâny. Farther to the south the fountains of Derdara, Ruahiny, and those of Belât, Blâta, and El-Mellâhah, unite with the same stream, which, after flowing southward for six miles over the lovely Plain of Hûleh, spreads out into Lake Merom,on whose shores Joshua achieved his final triumph over the banded kings of Canaan.[279] Four and a half miles in length and three and a half in breadth, this gem of the lakes is the first gathering together of the waters of the Jordan from their perennial springs. The lake having a triangular form, the river issues through the apex, and, after running nine miles with a fall of 650 feet, expands into the Sea of Galilee, which is thirteen miles long and six wide. The inlet to the sea is seventy feet broad, and the waters, flowing between alluvial banks, are lazy and turbid. Purified in their passage through this second reservoir of the Jordan, they find an outlet in the southwest corner of the sea. Here the river is more than ninety feet wide, the banks are high and round, and the contiguous mountains rugged and barren. Half unwilling to leave the parent waters to take the headlong leap over twenty-seven rapids to the Sea of Death, the Jordan turns back upon itself; but, forced at length to return by the unyielding rocks, it cuts a channel westward, then west by south, when, impelled by the unchanging law of gravitation, it rushes madly southward, foaming and leaping downward 700 feet in less than sixty miles. Though, between the seas as the crow flies, the actual distance is not more than sixty miles, yet, owing to the infinite multiplication of its windings, it is more than 200 miles in length. The tortuous glen through which it flows varies in breadth from 200 to 600 yards, and in depth from fifty to eighty below the surrounding plain. The sides of the glen are abrupt and broken, composed of marl and clay intermixed with limestone. Where it is widest, the bottom is mud covered with reeds; where it is narrowest, it is rock and sand. Along its banks grow in rich profusion the scarlet anemone, the yellow marigold, the water-lily, the feathery tamarisk, the pink oleander, the Syrian thistle with its gorgeous purple blossom, and cane-reeds, oaks, willows, and wild pistachios. Amid foliage so rich and rare are birds of exquisite plumage and variant song. Disporting in the waterare herons and ducks; dancing from bower to bower are sparrows, swallows, and nightingales; wheeling their tireless flight over stream and shrub are eagles, partridges, hawks, and snipes, while storks spread their vast wings along the banks, and
“The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.”
In the deep, impenetrable jungle, extending for miles in depth along either bank, is now, as formerly, the hiding-place of the leopard, the wild boar, and tiger.