CHAPTER XIV.

THE JORDAN VALLEY.

The Jordan Valley is not only the most remarkable feature of Palestine, but one of the most curious places in the world. It has no exact counterpart elsewhere, and the extraordinary phenomenon of clouds sweeping as a thick mist 500 feet below the level of the sea, is one which few European eyes have seen, but which we witnessed in the early storms of the spring of 1874.

The Jordan rises as a full-grown river, issuing from the cave at Baniâs, about 1000 feet above the level of the Mediterranean. In the short distance of twelve miles it falls not less than 1000 feet, passing through the papyrus-marshes, and reaching the Huleh Lake. This lake is four miles long, and from its southern extremity to the north end of the Sea of Galilee is ten and a half miles. The second lake has been determined, by our line of levels, as 682 feet below the Mediterranean; thus in twenty-six and a half miles there is a fall of 1682 feet, or more than sixty feet to the mile.

The Sea of Galilee is twelve miles and a half long, or about the length of Windermere, and thence the Jordan flows sixty-five miles measuring in a straight line (the bends make it a good deal more) to the Dead Sea, 1292 feet below the Mediterranean. The fall in this distance is, however, not regular. Above the Jisr Mujâmi’a it is over forty feet to the mile. From the south end of the Sea of Galilee to the Dâmieh ford is a distance of forty-two miles, and a fall of only 460 feet. From the Dâmieh to the mouth of Wâdy el ’Aujeh is thirteen miles, with sixty feet fall, and thence to the Dead Sea is ten miles, with ninety feet of fall.

It will be seen from above that the total direct length of Jordan is about 104 miles, or only half the length of the Thames; that the fall to the Sea of Galilee is over sixty feet to the mile; thence to the Dâmieh, at first forty feet, afterwards not quite eleven feet per mile; from the Dâmieh to the ’Aujeh not much over four and a half feet to the mile; and for the last ten miles, about nine feet per mile. The break down of the immense chasm may thus be said to commence immediately north of the Sea of Galilee.

The valley may be divided into eight sections. First the portion between Banîas and the Huleh, where it is some five miles broad, with steep cliffs some 2000 feet high on either side and a broad marsh between. Secondly, from the Huleh to the Sea of Galilee, where the stream runs close to the eastern hills, and about four miles from the base of those on the west, which rise towards the high Safed mountains, more than 3500 feet above the lake. Thirdly, for thirteen miles from the south end of the Sea of Galilee to the neighbourhood of Beisân, the valley is only one and a half miles broad west of the river, and about three on the east, the steep cliffs of the plateau of Kaukab el Hawa on the west reaching an altitude of 1800 feet above the stream.

South of Beisân is the fourth district, with a plain west of Jordan, twelve miles long and six miles broad, the line of hills on the east being straight, and the feet of the mountains on this side about two miles from the river. In the neighbourhood of Beisân the cross section of the plain shows three levels: that of the shelf on which Beisân stands, about 300 feet below sea-level; that of the Ghôr itself, some 400 feet lower, reached by an almost precipitous descent; and that of the Zor, or narrow trench, from half to a quarter of a mile wide, and about 150 feet lower still. The higher shelf extends westward to the foot of Gilboa; it dies away on the south, but on the north it gradually rises into the plateau of Kaukab and to the western table-land above the Sea of Galilee, 1800 feet above Jordan.

After leaving the Beisân plain, the river passes through a narrow valley twelve miles long and two to three miles wide, with a raised table-land to the west, having a level averaging about 500 feet above the sea. The Beisân plain is full of springs of fresh water, some of which are thermal, but a large current of salt warm water flows down Wâdy Mâleh, at the north extremity of this fifth district.

In the sixth district, the Dâmieh region, the valley again opens to a width of about three miles on the west, and five on the east of Jordan. The great block of the Kurn Sŭrtŭbeh here stands out like a bastion, on the west, 2400 feet above the river. Passing this mountain the seventh district is entered--a broad valley extending from near Fusâil to ’Osh el Ghŭrâb, north of Jericho. In this region the Ghôr itself is five miles broad, west of the river, and rather more on the east; the lower trench or Zor is also wider here and more distinctly separated from the Ghôr. A curious geographical feature of this region was also discovered by the Survey party. The great affluents of the Fâr’ah and ’Aujeh do not flow straight to Jordan, but turn south about a mile west of it, and each runs, for about six miles, nearly parallel with the river; thus the mouth of the Fâr’ah is actually to be found just where that of the next valley is shown on most maps. This curious feature was not discovered even by Captain Warren, and nothing more surprised me, in surveying the district, than the unsuspected parallel course of the streams. The whole of the valley in the seventh region is full of salt springs and salt marshes, but the Fâr’ah, flowing from the Ænon springs, is a perennial stream of fresh water.

The eighth and last district is that of the plain of Jericho, which with the corresponding basin (Ghôr-es-Seisebân) east of Jordan, measures over eight miles north and south, and more than fourteen across, with Jordan about in the middle. The Zor is here about a mile wide, and some 200 feet below the broad plain of the Ghôr.

To sum up shortly the regions thus enumerated. First we have the Huleh marshes; secondly, the basin of the Sea of Galilee; thirdly, the narrow gorge of Kaukab; fourthly, the plain of Beisân; fifthly, the narrow valley below the Bukei’a of Tûbâs; sixthly, the broader region of the Fâr’ah; seventhly, the wide Fusâil Valley; eighthly, the great basin of the Jericho plain; in short, four broad regions connected by two narrow ones, with a marshy lake and valley highest of all, suggestive, as a glance at the map will show, of a former chain of great lakes connected by a river, which have gradually dwindled in area till three small sheets of water alone remain, with the broad dry beds of two others, represented by the Beisân and Jericho basins.

The question thus suggested of the original formation of this great chasm, is not only interesting in itself, but it has a direct bearing on that of the position of the Cities of the Plain.

Various causes of the great depression of the valley have been suggested, among which the action of glaciers has been one of the latest. M. Lartet, the French geologist, was, I believe, the first to point out the clear indications of a great fault or crack, extending all along the valley, which has, in fact, slid down towards the centre of the earth. Special observations were, however, much wanted, and we were able to supply these all along the western side, where apparently they were the most necessary.

To enter into the details of these observations would be impossible in the present work. I propose to sum up the results which seem to me most important, and which I have submitted to geologists for criticism.

The main reason for conjecturing the existence of a fault, is that the formations on the east and west are not the same. On the west we have strata of the age of the English chalk, which dip down very suddenly towards the centre of the valley. On the east we have the Nubian sandstone, with hard limestone above it geologically coeval with our greensand. The section of the present bed of the Dead Sea tells the same story; the deepest part is towards the east, where there is more than ten times the depth of water found near the western shore, and here the mountains rise almost sheer from the lake, while on the west, a succession of steps occurs between the sea and the watershed.

The precise manner in which the slopes of the Palestine watershed fall towards the Ghôr differs in the different regions, but in principle it is the same throughout; there is everywhere a violent contortion of the strata, sometimes forming a fault or fissure running north and south, and sometimes a sharp dip down eastwards. We first studied the section above the Bukei’a, near Mar Saba, and here, as I have before noticed, there appears to be a well-defined fault. In the neighbourhood of Fusâil I found the rocks tilted up at an angle of 30°, and the same violent contortion has formed the great fissure of Wâdy el Hamâm, west of the Sea of Galilee. The Fâr’ah Valley is a great rent seemingly due to the same causes, and thus the whole of the geological evidence goes apparently to prove the occurrence of a violent and probably sudden collapse of the whole Jordan Valley commencing north of the Sea of Galilee.

This depression must have taken place at a comparatively late geological period; all the cretaceous rocks had been deposited before it occurred, for their strata all dip down east, on the west side of the valley. There are even the means of fixing the period pretty exactly, for there are marine formations deposited on the cretaceous rocks which seem to have no dip, namely, the coloured marls and bituminous limestones which occur at Neby Musa, and again at the edge of the plain of Beisân, in the first case 200 feet higher than the Mediterranean, in the latter, 200 feet below that level; these strata are, I believe, attributed to the Eocene period. It appears that even at an earlier epoch the region was bituminous: the latest of the cretaceous formations disturbed by the depression contain bitumen which seems to have been once liquid, and, near Masada, there are even black bituminous stalactites on the rock. The Eocene coloured marls contain innumerable fossils, and the formation appears to have been deposited under water. It is probable that in Eocene times the Dead Sea reached up nearly to Hermon, and to the Red Sea, with which the Mediterranean must have been then in full connection, as the Isthmus of Suez had not then been formed.

A further change was wrought still later, for the convulsions which were accompanied by the great outflow of lava which has covered so large a district west and north of the Sea of Galilee, and in the Lejja country, are, I believe, dated by geologists as of the Tertiary period, and in one place the lava appeared to me to overlie the coloured marls. The chain of Gilboa, Little Hermon, and Tabor, with the Galilean hills, have all been more or less affected by this volcanic disturbance, and perhaps the depression of the valley may then have increased still more.

The valley having sunk to its present depression, the melting snows of Hermon probably began to pour into it, and as the chasm had now no outlet (the watershed of the ’Arabah on the south having been raised about 800 feet above sea-level), a large salt lake must have formed at its southern end; the history of the sheets of water then occupying the distance of 150 miles, appears to be recorded in the formations now found in the valley.

The present north shore of the Dead Sea is a shingly beach, with a ridge of pebbles at the top of a somewhat steep slope. Some thirty feet above the high-water mark a second similar beach may be seen inland; and about a hundred feet above the water is a third. There can be little doubt that we see in these raised beaches former limits of the lake. Above the beaches, some 300 feet higher than the water, there are flat shelves of marl with steep slopes much worn by water-action. These marls are deposited against the high Dolomitic cliffs, the tops of which are about the level of the Mediterranean. The shelves (the “Sidd” of the Arabs) have also been recognised as former shores of the sea, and this level may be called the Siddim level.

When the marl beds are closely investigated they are found to consist of very thin strata of various materials, mud, small pebbles, and shingle, in layer above layer, strongly impregnated with salt and bitumen. They have the appearance of being deposited in still, deep water, and the present bottom of the Dead Sea must be of much the same character. The whole area over which they occur, reaching up the Jordan Valley for about four miles, is so salt that no vegetation will grow upon it; thus there is every reason to regard these formations as once forming the bottom of a lake resembling the present Dead Sea.

But our observations were carried still farther. North of Jericho is a curious terrace, in form not unlike a croquet-ground on a large scale, called Meidân el ’Abd, “the open place of the slave” (or perhaps better “the barren plateau”). The study of the Dead Sea beaches shows, by comparison, that this is another old shore-line of a former sea, and, a little south of it, there is a cliff of conglomerate, which has also the appearance of a shore formation. The line of this former beach runs south, to the marl deposits which have been formed at the foot of Kŭrŭntŭl; thus we find yet another level some 600 or 700 feet below the Mediterranean, forming the shore at a time when the plains of Jericho were under water, and when the Dead Sea must have reached to the foot of the Sŭrtŭbeh, or eighteen miles farther north than at present. The shelf on which Beisân stands looks like another similar shore-line, and thus, perhaps, the Beisân plain was also, at this period, under water.

From these observations we infer the gradual desiccation of the Jordan Valley; the Beisân Lake and the Jericho end of the Dead Sea having disappeared. Thus the present lake may be compared to one of the little pools on its own banks, left by the waves in the hollow of a rock, and gradually evaporating, surrounded by a crust of dry white salt. Into its thick oily waters--more than one-fourth part solid salt--the winter rains, and the streams from the salt springs, bring down all the chlorides which were once spread over the larger basin of the former great lake, and which are now accumulating in the smaller area, so that the sea seems to be almost in process of evaporating into a salt-marsh.

There is, however, a curious indication still to be noticed. Hitherto evaporation has been on the increase. Is this still the case? The fords near the Lisân, which used to be passable by donkeys, are said now to be much deeper than formerly, and Sheikh Jemîl, the most intelligent of the Arabs near Jericho, told me that in his father’s days the sea did not generally reach farther inland than the Rujm el Bahr, whereas now the connecting causeway is always under water. This represents a rise of some ten feet in the water-level. In fact, according to this statement, the sea has now more water in it than it used to have half a century ago.

If the theory of desiccation be correct, the idea that the Dead Sea was first formed at the time when the Cities of the Plain were overthrown is a fallacy. Geologists hold that the lake had reached its present condition before man was created, and thus the vale of Siddim is, no doubt, still represented by the district of the Sidds round the northern shores of the sea; for the four successive Dead Seas, which we have traced above, had all dried up before the days of Abraham.

Turning from the question of the probable formation of the valley, we may next notice the most remarkable of its antiquities, namely, the Tellûl or Tells there found.

The word Tell (meaning a “heap”) is used for many different things; for a conical mountain, for a little sand-hillock, for an artificial mound, or for a heap of ruins. The Jordan Valley has Tells of all these kinds in it, but the class of artificial mounds is the one more peculiarly interesting. Of these there are seven at Jericho, twenty-four at Beisân, several others between, and others again east of Jordan. They have been described as ruined sites of cities or fortresses, commanding the passes; the following peculiarities seem to be invariably recognisable.

The Tell is a mound with steep slopes, from two or three to twenty or thirty feet high; a large Tell is often surrounded by smaller ones irregularly scattered; they are of no particular shape, and they show no signs of stone masonry, being outwardly earthen mounds, whilst inwardly, Captain Warren’s excavations proved them in some cases to consist of sun-dried bricks.

The Tells all occur in alluvial soil, and I believe there is scarcely an instance in which water--a spring or a stream--is not found close by. It is true that Tells exist near the passes of the hills and by the Jordan fords, but this is, I think, no proof that they were fortresses, for half the number are placed in positions of no strategical value, and those which are so placed will be found also to stand by water either springing from the hills or flowing into Jordan.

Brick mounds in clay land by water are suggestive of brick-making. Travellers from India and from Egypt have recognised a similarity between the Jordan Valley Tells and the great mounds of refuse bricks, found in both those countries, on which other bricks are laid out to dry in the sun. This seems to me the most probable origin of the Tells.

The preceding observations are intended to give a general idea of the physical features of the Jordan Valley, and of their relation to its probable origin, as well as of the most striking archæological features. We may now return to the history of the second Jordan Valley campaign, and to the principal Biblical discoveries which rewarded us for months of most severe exertion.

The Survey was interrupted from the 4th of December 1873 to the 24th of February 1874, in consequence of the severe attacks of fever from which the whole party suffered at Jericho, and afterwards while wintering in Jerusalem; but on the 24th of February we marched down into the valley, and by the 20th of April we had completed the work to within three miles of the Sea of Galilee; the rate obtained was nearly 300 square miles per month, being treble that which had been possible with the smaller, and inexperienced party, which I had conducted through the Samaritan mountains.

Descending by the familiar pass of Wâdy Kelt, we found the valley completely changed in appearance. It was no longer all white and glaring chalk, but a broad expanse of deep pasture; the Kelt was a rapid stream running with a loud murmur in its rocky chasm.

As a precaution, we now encamped on the top of the fatal Tell by Elisha’s Fountain, beneath which we had suffered so much three months before. It was no longer a mound of dust, but a hillock, hidden deep in luxuriant mallows with immense round leaves.

We visited the Dead Sea once more, to fix up poles for observing the water-levels; these poles had been carefully made in Jerusalem, and were marked with figures. The first we drove, without difficulty, at the water’s edge, but the second it was almost impossible to fix. Floating on my back, I held it upright in the water with my feet, while Drake swam and drove it with a mallet. There was a strong current, which made the operation most difficult, but at length it was so far fixed that I was able to climb on to it, and to drive it down farther with the mallet from above. We were nearly an hour in the water, and Drake suffered from the over-exertion. Within a week the Arabs pulled up the poles, for the sake of the iron, in spite of the reiterated assurances of the Sheikhs that they should be respected.

We next visited the spring encampment of Sheikh Jemîl, and, after the coffee, we were treated to a repast consisting of a sort of omelette and a dish of sweet rice, both very good, as was also the thin wafer-like bread just baked. From the tent-door we looked out on the flowery slopes and the gleaming lake, on the children, camels and donkeys, goats and kids, and lambs with speckled fleeces, such as Jacob chose from Laban’s flocks. Here and there a female figure stole out, robed in the dark green and indigo-coloured sweeping garments peculiar to the Bedawîn women; and inside the black camel’s-hair tent, on bright cushions and carpets, our friends sat round--Jemîl, the educated chief, who could read and write; Jedû’a, his brother, the great hunter of the ibex; the young flaxen-haired Sheikh who had been one of our principal guides; and many others with faces then quite familiar to me.

On Tuesday the 26th of February we struck camp, and marched north to Fusâil, the ancient Phasaelis founded by Herod. Our procession was spread over a quarter of a mile as I reviewed it from a hillock beside the road. Five Englishmen on horseback came first, eight mules, and eight camels followed, we had four Bedawîn guides, seven muleteers, six servants, and a Bashi-Bazouk, three donkeys, and Sheikh Jemîl’s dromedary--in all, twenty-seven individuals and thirty-four animals, including six dogs.

The new camp was not in the territory of Sheikh Jemîl, and I had procured letters to the Emir of the Mes’aid Arabs. Our old friends left us, and Jemîl seemed disappointed by the present I gave him, though it was worth five pounds, but was radiant on the receipt of another five shillings.

About two p.m., on the 28th, the Emîr was announced; he was seen coming across the plain, with ten horsemen armed with long lances, and swords, and with guns which they kept firing off. They dismounted with much ceremony, and coffee was served; the Emîr was rather a handsome man, with delicate features and very small hands and feet. He left his son and nephew with us, but was very anxious we should come on to the Fâr’ah Valley where his camp was pitched. We had intended to give him a dinner, but the provisions did not arrive, and he intimated, through the servants, that money would be more acceptable, so I had two half-sovereigns wrapped up in paper, and slipped one into his hand and one into that of his cousin; I also sent out to him a black abba, and the great prince rode off happily. I suppose that had I offered such a present during the troublous year 1877, when Fendi-el-Faiz took £300 from Tiberias, the Emir would not have been so contented with the amount.

We found it very difficult to keep any Arabs at Fusâil; some said it was not their country, others that the fever was always bad there, others again that they were afraid of a ghoul in the ruins. In reality the country here belongs to the Fellahîn, and I imagine no Arabs had a right to camp there. We were much hindered by weather; rain and snow fell, and though the latter never came into the valley it lay thick on the hills; and on the summit of the Kurn Sûrtûbeh we were caught in a fall of sleet. Corporal Brophy had to ride up 3000 feet every morning before he got to his work, and the transitions of temperature were far from improving our health.

We were now almost at the foot of the Sûrtûbeh block, one of the finest features of the valley; and I surveyed the detail on the mountain myself; for ever since 1873 I had been in the habit of taking part in the survey of detail. In addition to this I had my duties as commander, and the writing of notes and reports, studies of archæological and antiquarian questions, plan-making, hill-shading, accounts, and general provisioning, all of which duties fell upon me personally.

The Sŭrtŭbeh is a block of chalk which has slid down the face of the tilted dolomitic limestone of the watershed hills. Its summit, two thousand four hundred feet above the valley, is capped by a cone two hundred and seventy feet high, with steep smooth sides like those of the so-called Frank Mountain (Herodium) near Bethlehem. The building on the top appears to be the foundation of a Crusading fort with large drafted stones; beneath are caves all round the hill, and lower still a sort of terrace like a garden. An aqueduct follows the contour of the mountain, collecting surface-drainage and leading to some large reservoirs cut in rock. A wall, enclosing a space some thirty yards by ninety, surrounds the foundations of the tower, which are about eighteen feet in height.

This mountain, under which we lived for just a month, has so remarkable an appearance, and yet so slight a history, that one could not help imagining a mystery about it. We asked the Arabs, but they said that Sŭrtŭbeh was a king who built a castle on the top. It has by some been supposed to be the Tower of Alexandrium near Corea, noticed more than once by Josephus; but Corea was on the boundary of the lands of Judea and Samaria, and near the watershed, as Josephus expressly tells us.

The name Surtuba occurs in the Talmud, as that of a beacon-station on the way from Jerusalem to the Hauran, which was lighted when the new moon appeared. This fact is, no doubt, connected with the title Dalûk, applied, not to the conical summit, but to one close to it on the chain, and meaning “burning” in Hebrew; and also perhaps with the name “Mother of the New Moon” applied to a prominent point on the mountain. Sŭrtŭbeh means, as Dr. Chaplin pointed out to me, neither more nor less than “Bellevue,” and is certainly a title very appropriate to this fine point. I have only been able to find one later reference to the place, Marino Sanuto speaking of it as the fortress of Docus where Simon the Hasmonean was murdered; but this is a mistake, and other mediæval writers point out the true site near ’Ain Dûk.

In 1874 I proposed to identify the Kurn with the place where the great monumental altar of Ed was erected, by the children of Gad, Reuben and Manasseh. The site seems wonderfully appropriate for a monument intended to show that the trans-Jordanic tribes were not cast out from their participation in the religious rites of the western tribes. The place stands above the great ford, by which they perhaps crossed in going from Shiloh to the land of Gilead, and the name Ed is perhaps recognisable in the Tal’at Abu ’Aid on the side of the mountain. There are, however, objections to the theory; first that the tribes crossed by the “passage of the children of Israel” (Josh. xxii. 11) after leaving Shiloh, and this seems to point, not to the Dâmieh, but to the Jericho ford; secondly, Josephus says that the altar was east of Jordan; thirdly, Abu ’Aid, “father of the feast,” may be (as it sometimes is) a proper name of a person born on a feast-day. The idea is therefore merely a conjecture, and far from being an identification.

The Jordan Valley was now one blaze of beautiful flowers, growing in a profusion not often to be found, even in more fertile lands. The ground was literally covered with blossoms: the great red anemone, like a poppy, grew in long tracts on the stony soil: on the soft marls patches of delicate lavender colour were made by the wild stocks; the Retem or white broom (the juniper of Scripture) was in full blossom, and the rich purple nettles contrasted with fields of the Kutufy or yellow St. John’s wort. There were also quantities of orange-coloured marigolds, and long fields of white and purple clover, tall spires of asphodel and clubs of snapdragon, purple salvias and white garlic, pink geraniums and cistus, tall white umbelliferous plants, and large camomile daisies, all set in a border of deep green herbage which reached the shoulders of the horses. Even the Zor was green, and Jordan’s banks covered with flowers, while the brown Turfah or tamarisks and the canebrake hid the rushing stream, and the white marl banks stood out in striding contrast.

Rain, and Bedawîn unpunctuality, delayed our move for several days, but on Tuesday the 10th of March we got to Wâdy Fâr’ah--the open plain north of the Sŭrtŭbeh, which Vandevelde marks as “beautiful” on his map. Drake and the men went on before, and I sat on a box waiting for the camels. Six Arabs appeared, at last, on horseback, escorting a drove of about fifteen camels, ranging from a patriarch with a pendent lower lip to a little woolly thing not as high as a pony, who came along making constant attempts to get refreshment from his mother. Very picturesque no doubt! but they had no proper saddles. The owners proposed to put our boxes in sacks, as they put their own camp-furniture. We bound the things on somehow, and various little negro boys mounted the humps of the camels. They had no bridles, and took seven hours to go as many miles, stopping to crop the grass at intervals; but we were thankful to get any beasts at all in this wild region.

We commenced the triangulation from the new camp at once, and rode out on the 11th to a hill north of it, whence a fine view of the Ghôr could be obtained. On the south was the wide valley, flanked by steep ranges, with the Sŭrtŭbeh in the foreground, and the gleaming Dead Sea in the far distance. On the north the valley became narrower, and its surface was broken into mud-islands, and marl mounds scored with hundreds of intricate watercourses--a region well called by the Arabs “the Mother of Steps.” In the middle of it the snaky Jordan wriggled along, with brown tamarisk swamps on either bank; far away were black volcanic ranges and the white dome of snowy Hermon, with the long white line of Anti-Libanus to the west Eastward was the rugged Mount Gilead, crowned by a Crusading castle (Kŭl’at er Rubud) and on the west the shapeless hills north of Nablus, the mediæval land of Tampne.

On Wednesday the 25th, we at length got a fine morning, and spite of the very boggy nature of the ground, we set out for Wâdy Mâleh, the only place at a suitable distance where water was reported. It was not a change for the better by any means. The Fâr’ah Valley is a most delightful place in early spring, when it does not rain, but Wâdy Mâleh was quite the worst camp we ever went into. Down the Fâr’ah a perennial stream flows from near Tullûza, in which stream we may perhaps recognise the “much water” between Salem and Ænon. Part of the course is through a narrow gorge, between low precipitous cliffs of dark limestone, with iron-coloured bands of flint and many natural caverns. Lower down it broadens into an open vale a mile across, the whole of which was now knee-deep in beautiful flowers. The canes in the stream had been swept down, and piled in heaps, covered with mud, in consequence of the late floods. The oleander bushes grow all along the bed of the river in great luxuriance, and they were now in full flower.

Leaving this charming valley hidden among its rolling hills, we ascended northwards on to the Bukei’a, or plateau, on which the ruin ’Ainûn (Ænon) stands. Here the flowers were also abundant; the pheasant’s-eye was as large almost as an anemone; two beautiful species of bugloss formed patches of sky-blue, and the pink cistus (comparatively rare in Palestine) grew between the rocks; the veronicas, blue and red, with here and there a bunch of the dark iris (the “lily of the field”), were interspersed with large maroon-coloured velvety arums. The plain is good corn-land, but seems to have a bad natural drainage; and our mules floundered in deep bogs, sometimes up to the girths.

Still farther north, we began to descend a long valley, and came on a different kind of country. A basaltic outbreak appeared, and cliffs tilted in every direction. The valley-bed was strewn with fragments of hard basalt. Passing over a bare ridge, where the beautiful white Retem broom (Elijah’s juniper) abounded, we descended into a most desolate valley, where, between green rolling hills like those of the Judean desert, a muddy stream was flowing. We had ridden fifteen miles, and it now began to rain again. We found, to our dismay, that this was where we had to camp, as no other supply of water existed in a position central to the new work.

The valley comes down from a narrow gorge, dominated by a Crusading castle, and beneath this is a great outbreak of basalt. We rode up the gorge, hoping to find a better place; but the pass was too rugged to expect to get camels up it in the then state of the road, so we resigned ourselves to a camp in the lower ground by the stream.

We soon made a still more unpleasant discovery. The valley was full of clear springs, but they were all tepid and salt. The head spring has a temperature of 100° F., and the stream from it is about 80° F. If the Survey was to be done at all, it appeared that we should have to drink brackish water for ten days or more. Here, then, we sat down on the wet grass, in a driving drizzle of rain, by the brackish stream; not a soul was to be seen, either Bedawî or peasant, and it was evident that food would have to be brought from a distance.

The mules soon arrived with our tents and beds, which, though soaked with rain, we set up on the bare ground.

News of the camels reached us after dark; they had been unable to struggle any farther, and one had sprained its leg slipping on the rocks; they had, therefore, halted a few miles farther south.

Next morning things looked a little better, and we went out to choose points for the theodolite; we also discovered a spring of cold fresh water about a mile away, and found a peasant, from whom we bought an aged goat.

The Emîr and his party left us, having been thoroughly disgusted with the journey and with the rain.

The morning of the 27th promised well, and Sergeant Armstrong and I set out to ascend a hill called Râs Jâdir, six miles from camp, and 2500 feet above it. We again floundered through deep bogs, and had the greatest difficulty in making any progress. As we got to the summit, we experienced a wind so cutting and strong that we had to dismount, being nearly blown off our horses; and the theodolite was scarcely adjusted before a pelting hail-storm followed. Wrapped in our waterproofs, we waited under a tree, when suddenly the sun burst out, and a very clear view was obtained. Half the observations were taken, when a second hail-storm came on; and a third broke over us before we had finished. It was piercing cold, and the wind at times almost a hurricane; but it was clear between the squalls, and we obtained very good observations, though my hands were so cold that I could scarcely write them down.

Such were the difficulties which attended our third Jordan Valley camp in 1874. Against them we may count the exploration of Ænon, Abel-Meholah, and Tirzah, the plotting of a region scarcely known before, and the discovery of an important volcanic centre and of hot springs. Perhaps no European will again be obliged to linger so long in this inhospitable region.

East of camp, Wâdy Mâleh ran out into the south part of the Beisân plain--a broad open valley, gay with flowers, dotted with Tells all hidden by dark mallows, and frequented by the solemn white storks, called “fathers of good luck,” or “little pilgrims,” by the Arabs. On the north-west the heights of Gilboa closed the view, with Tabor and Neby Duhy peeping over them. A black mound represented the ruins of Beisân, and the high plateau rose behind, crowned by the Crusading castle of Belvoir overlooking Jordan. A silver thread seen through the gap below was the Sea of Galilee; the hills of Safed were pale and blue beyond; and farther yet was Hermon, in the full glory of his fresh winter robe of snow, his rounded bulk dwarfing the lower ranges and closing the scene.

From the banks of the Ghôr we looked down also on Jordan, a turbid coffee-coloured stream, breaking in one place over stones down a small rapid, and varying from some forty to seventy yards in width, being now very full. Little islands covered with tamarisks occurred at intervals, and the river wound like a snake, looking wild and desolate, and flowing, as Josephus says, “through a desert.” The Zor is here not continuous, and in places there are cliffs a hundred feet high immediately over the stream. The low ground was covered with barley, already very high.

The only places of interest in this part of the Beisân plain were ’Ain Helweh, a spring with ruins, at the distance from Beisân at which Jerome places Abel Meholah; and Sâkût, which has been thought by some to be Succoth. The name is, however, radically different, and Succoth has been recovered under its later name Tarala at Tell Dar’ala, north-east of the Dâmieh ford; but Sâkût is probably a Crusading site, for Marino Sanuto seems to mark it on his map as Succoth, though Jerome places this Biblical site east of Jordan.

On the 4th of April, after having endured our camp for ten days, we were able once more to march north to Beisân (the Biblical Bethshean), one of the best-watered places in Palestine, and at that time literally streaming with rivulets from some fifty springs. Here, then, we rested, for Easter Sunday, surrounded by interesting ruins, and near a fine pool in the Jalûd river in which we could swim. We had a boar’s head, pigeons, quail, and fish from Jordan for dinner, and enjoyed the change from the succession of patriarchal goats which we had devoured in Wâdy Mâleh.

The fords of Jordan were collected and marked in the natural course of the Survey, the names carefully obtained, and every precaution taken to ensure their being applied to the right places. It was not, however, until the next winter that I became aware how valuable a result had been obtained. Looking over the nomenclature for the purpose of making an index, I was struck with the name ’Abârah applying to a ford. The word means “passage,” or “ferry,” and is radically the same word found in the name Bethabara. I looked ’Abârah out at once on the map, and found that it is one of the main fords, just above the place where the Jalûd river, flowing down the valley of Jezreel and by Beisân, debouches into Jordan.

One cannot but look on this as one of the most valuable discoveries resulting from the Survey; and I have not, as yet, seen any argument directed against the identification which seems to shake it. It may be said that the name ’Abârah is merely descriptive, and perhaps applies to several fords. That it is descriptive may be granted; so is the name Bethabara, or Bethel, or Gibeah, or Ramah. That it is a common name may be safely denied. We have collected the names of over forty fords, and no other is called ’Abârah; nor does the word occur again in all the 9000 names collected by the Survey party.

Nor do we depend on the name alone. An identification may be defined as the recovery of a site unknown to Europeans, but known to the natives of the country. Evidently places can only be known by their names, unless we have measured distances by which to fix them. If in England we endeavoured to recover an ancient site, and knew the district in which it should occur, we should be satisfied if we found the ancient name applying to one place, and one only, in that district. Without the name, we should still be in doubt. Does not this apply to Palestine? It is true that name alone will not be sufficient; position must be suitable also. No one would try to identify Yarmouth in Norfolk with Yarmouth in the Isle of Wight. But, on the other hand, without the name it is merely conjecture, not identification, that is possible.

Here at ’Abârah we have the name, and nowhere else, as yet, has the name been found; the question then arises, is the position suitable?

We speak commonly of Bethabara as the place of Our Lord’s baptism. Possibly it was so, but the Gospel does not say as much. It is only once mentioned as a place where John was baptising, and where certain events happened on consecutive days. These events are placed in the Gospel harmonies immediately after the Temptation, when Christ would appear to have been returning from the desert (perhaps east of Jordan) to Galilee. Bethabara, “the house of the ferry,” was “beyond Jordan;” but the place of baptism was no doubt at the ford or ferry itself; hence the ford ’Abârah is the place of interest. It cannot be Christian tradition which originates this site, for Christian tradition has pointed, from the fourth century down to the present day, to the fords of Jericho as the place of baptism by St. John.

“And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee” (John ii. 1). Here is the controlling passage. The hostile critics of the fourth Gospel have taken hold of it; they have supposed the traditional site to be undoubtedly the true one, and have thence argued the impossibility that in one day Christ could have travelled eighty miles to Cana. To the fourth-century inquirer the difficulty would never have occurred; he would have answered at once that Our Lord was miraculously carried from one place to the other; but the Gospel does not say so, and we should therefore look naturally for Bethabara within a day’s journey of Cana. The ford ’Abârah is about twenty-two miles in a line from Kefr Kenna, and no place can be found, on Jordan, much nearer or more easily accessible to the neighbourhood of Cana.

I leave these facts to the reader, asking him to choose, between the difficulties attendant on the traditional site, and the suitability of the new site, where alone as yet the name of Bethabara has been recovered.

There is, however, another point with regard to Bethabara which must not be overlooked. The oldest MSS. read, not Bethabara, but Bethany, beyond Jordan. Origen observed this, yet chose the present reading, and we can hardly suppose that the early fathers of the Church made such an alteration without some good reason; perhaps the original text contained both names, “Bethabara in Bethany” beyond Jordan being a possible reading.

The author of “Supernatural Religion” has made a point of this reading in arguing against the authenticity of the fourth Gospel. He supposes that Bethany beyond Jordan has been confused in the Evangelist’s mind with Bethany near Jerusalem, forgetting that this very Gospel speaks of the latter place as “nigh unto Jerusalem, about fifteen furlongs off” (John xi. 18). The assumption of the confusion is quite gratuitous. Bathania, meaning “soft soil,” was the well-known form used in the time of Christ, of the old name Bashan, which district was in Peræa, or the country beyond Jordan.

If Bethabara be a true reading, the place should thus most probably be sought in Bathania, and the ford should therefore lead over to Bashan. This again strengthens the case for the ’Abârah ford, which is near the hills of Bashan, whereas the Jericho fords are far away, leading over towards Gilead and Moab.

A second site of primary interest may here be noticed in its proper place, namely that of Megiddo.

In a former chapter we have seen, that the identification proposed by Robinson rests on a wholly insufficient basis. Here again it is a question of recovering the name. The position of Megiddo is not fixed very definitely in the Biblical narrative, though the town is noticed in connection with Taanach, west of the Great Plain, and with Jezreel, Bethshan, and other places near the Jordan Valley. A broad valley was named from the city, and the “waters of Megiddo” are also noticed in Scripture. All these requisites are met by the large ruined site of Mujedd’a at the foot of Gilboa--a mound from which fine springs burst out, with the broad valley of the Jalûd river to the north. It is the only place, as yet discovered, at which any name like the Hebrew Megiddon exists, and the position seems to suit also with the march of Thothmes III. towards the Sea of Galilee, through Aaruna (perhaps ’Arrâneh), and Kalna (possibly Kâ’aûn), to the plains of Megiddo.

A remarkable confirmation of this identification is moreover found in the translation which Brugsch gives of a passage in the historic papyrus of the time of Rameses II., called “Travels of a Mohar,” which runs thus:

“Describe Bethsheal (Beisân) Tarkaal (Taricheæ, or Kerak), the ford of Jirduna (Jordan, or perhaps better Wâdy Jalud near Beisân, as the Egyptian word may also be read Jelduna). Teach me to know the passage in order to enter the city of Megiddo which lies in front of it.”

This passage seems clearly to place Megiddo in the vicinity of Beisân, where the important ruin of Mujedd’a is now found. The term Bikath Megiddon, which is rendered “Valley of Megiddon” (Zech. xii. 11), and has generally been supposed to refer to the plain of Esdraelon, may very properly be applied to the broad basin of the Jordan Valley in the vicinity of Mujedd’a, just as the word Bikath is applied in another passage (Deut. xxxiv. 3) to the plains of Jericho. No name at all approaching to that of Megiddo was found by the Survey party in any other suitable position.

A third place of importance is the Spring of Harod, where Gideon divided his troops. This appears, according to Josephus, to have been near Jordan, while from the Bible we gather it to have been in the neighbourhood of Gilboa, being towards the south of the Valley of Jezreel, and opposite the Midianite host (Judg. vi. 33; vii. 1). The Mount Gilead of the passage is very possibly the name of part of the chain above the river now called Jalûd (see Judg. vii. 3). It is very striking to find in this position a large spring with the name ’Ain el Jem’aîn, or “fountain of the two troops,” and there seems no valid objection to the view that this is the Spring of Harod.

Beisân itself, where we were now encamped, is a miserable hamlet of mud hovels, amid the ruins of the important town of Scythopolis, which was a bishopric, from the fifth century, until the change of the see to Nazareth, in the twelfth century. In the Bible it is famous as the place where the body of Saul was fastened to the wall (1 Sam. xxxi. 10), but the remains of a theatre, hippodrome, and temple, of fine structural tombs, and baths, with a Crusading fortress and bridge, are among the best preserved antiquities of western Palestine. Christian martyrs, in the fourth century, here fought wild beasts in the theatre, and the cages with the sockets of the iron bars, and the narrow passages from the outside, are still intact in the ruined theatre of black basalt.

On the 14th of April Sergeant Black accompanied me on a flying expedition, to carry the work farther north, camping in the old Crusading castle of Belvoir, six miles nearer the Sea of Galilee.

The black basalt fortress, beside the ditch of which our tent stood, had cost the lives of numbers of Saracens when attacked by Saladin in 1182, more of the assailants perishing from heat and sunstroke than by the sword. Jordan wound along, 1800 feet beneath us, spanned by two bridges, and joined by the tortuous Yermûk. The heat had already withered the flowers, but green patches of corn on the plateau contrasted with the dry grass. The round Lake of Galilee lay among its hills, and mirrored in its glassy surface the dome of Hermon; the Horns of Hattin, the rugged range of Safed, and the low Nazareth hills, were all visible, Nazareth itself gleaming white among the latter, while Tabor, like a gigantic molehill, dotted with oaks, was backed by the blue Carmel range, visible from the peak of sacrifice, right away to the monastery at the sea end. The whole breadth of the land was thus seen--some thirty miles across, from Jordan to the promontory above Haifa. South of Tabor rose the Neby Duhy cone, with the black tents of the Sukr, coming up, like the Philistines and Midianites of old, by the highway of the Jezreel Valley, to levy black-mail from the villagers of the Great Plain, and unopposed by any modern Saul or Gideon. Farther south the tower of Jezreel was visible above the valley, and the peak of Sheikh Iskander behind it. Gilboa hid the Great Plain; but, behind the Beisân Valley and the hills of Wâdy Mâleh, the cone of the Sŭrtŭbeh stood up like a great inverted funnel; and the Moab mountains could be seen almost as far as the Dead Sea. The length of the land, as well as the breadth, was included in this magnificent panorama from the castle of Belvoir.

We moved up, on the 17th, to Shunem, and on the next night we experienced an adventure. Our party was so small--consisting of only three persons--that the Sukr Arabs were tempted to try and steal our horses. A short, sharp bark from our big dog warned my servant, and the thieves, creeping through the long grass, were seen and fired on just as they reached the tethering-rope. Half an hour later, just as we were dropping asleep, we heard a distant Bedawîn war-song coming nearer and nearer, and several shots were fired. Our guards from the village shouted lustily for help, and I got up, put on my boots, and loaded my gun, while the Sergeant prepared his pistol. The noise grew louder as the enemy approached, when suddenly the village woke up. It was pitch dark, but we could hear the shouts of the peasants as they ran out to meet the Arabs. The dark outline of the mountain could just be distinguished, with the twinkling stars above, and soon there were flashes on every side; but the guns seemed only to go off about once in four times. The war-song grew fainter, and the Arabs appeared to be easily driven back. They never came to our tents, but they got hold of a cow from the village, and so retreated.

On the 20th we marched to the pleasant gardens of Jenin, and felt as if returning to civilisation. The horses were shod, and the party became wonderfully high-spirited, relieved from the abnormal pressure of the air below sea-level, and looking forward to rest and better food.

Such is the history of the Survey of the Jordan Valley. The results were more important than could have been hoped. The cost was the complete exhaustion of Drake and myself. Being ordered home by medical advice, I left Drake with many apprehensions about his health. We clasped hands and parted, never to meet again, for almost the first news I got, on reaching England, was that he had been again attacked with the horrible typhoid fever of Jericho. After reaching Jerusalem the exposure and malaria proved too much for his constitution, and we paid a heavy price for our success, for he died at his post in the summer. It is a sad consolation to remember that we had been cordial and entirely of one mind, during the two years we had spent together, and that not a single unkind or hasty word had passed between us. In the gallant gentleman who had been my only companion for so long, I lost a friend whose fine qualities I had learned to appreciate, and whose tact and courtesy had lightened the burden of the command which I held.