CHAPTER II. PALESTINE. Numbers xiii. 17-20. "And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said unto them, Get you up this way southward, and go up into the mountain and see the land, what it is; and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many; and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad; and what cities they be that they dwell in, whether in tents, or in strongholds; and what the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether there be wood therein, or not. And be ye of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land." Deut. i. 7. "Turn you, and take your journey, and go to the mount of the Amorites, and unto all the places nigh thereunto, in the desert,' in the mountains,' and in the low country,' and in the south, and by the sea side, to the land of the Canaanites, and unto Lebanon, unto the great river, the river Euphrates." PALESTINE. General features.-The four Rivers of Syria; the Orontes, the Leontes, the Barada, the JORDAN.-General aspect of Palestine.-I. Seclusion of Palestine. II. Smallness and narrowness of its territory. III. Central situation. IV. Land of ruins. V. "Land of milk and honey." VI. Earthquakes and Volcanic phenomena. VII. Variety of climate and structure. VIII. Mountainous character. IX. Scenery hills and valleys; flowers; trees: cedars, oaks, palms, sycamores. X. Geological features; 1. Springs and wells; 2. Sepulchres; 3. Caves; 4. Natural curiosities. XI. General conclusion. The High Syria. BETWEEN the great plains of Assyria and the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, a high mountain tract is interposed, reaching from the Bay of Issus to the Desert of Arabia. Of this the northern part, which consists of the ranges known in ancient geography under the names of Amanus and Casius, and which includes rather more than half the tract in question, is not within the limits of the Holy Land; and, though belonging to the same general elevation, is distinguished from the southern division by strongly marked peculiarities, and only enters into the sacred history at a later time, when its connection with any local scenes was too slight to be worth dwelling upon in detail. It is with the southern division that we are now concerned. The range divides itself twice over into two parallel chains. There is first, the main chain of Lebanon, separated by the broad valley commonly called Cole-Syria; the western mountain reaching its highest termination in the northern point of Lebanon; the eastern, in the southern point of Hermon. This last point-itself the loftiest summit of the Lebanon. The Four The Orontes, the Litâny, whole range-again breaks into two ranges, of which the western, with the exception of one broad depression, extends as far as the Desert of Sinai; the eastern, as far as the mountains of Arabia Petræa. From this chain' flow four rivers of unequal magnitude, on which, at different times, have sprung up the four ruling powers of that portion of Asia. Lebanon is, in this respect, a likeness of that primeval Paradise, to which its local traditions have always endeavoured to attach themselves. The Northern River, rising from the fork of the two ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and forming the channel of life and civilisation in that northern division of which we have just spoken, is the Orontes,-the river of the Greek kingdom of Antioch and Seleucia. The Western, is the Litâny or Leontes, rising from the same watershed between the two ranges, near Baalbec, and falling into the Mediterranean, close to Tyre,the river of Phoenicia. The Eastern, rising from Anti-Lebanon the and joined by one or two lesser streams, is the modern Barada; Barada, the Abana or Pharpar of the Old Testament -the river of the Syrian kingdom of Damascus. The kingdoms which have risen in the neighbourhood or on the banks of these rivers, have flourished not simultaneously, but successively. The northern kingdom was the latest, and is only brought into connection with the Sacred History, as being that from which the "Kings of the North" made their descent upon Palestine, and in which were afterwards founded the first Gentile churches. It was, as it were, the halting-place of Christianity, before it finally left its Asiatic home-beyond the limits of the Holy Land, yet not in another country or climate; naturally resting on the banks of the Orontes, on the way from the valley of the Jordan, before (to use the Roman poet's expression in another and a better sense) it joined "the flow of the Orontes into the Tiber." The eastern kingdom of Damascus on one side, the western kingdom of Phoenicia on the other, claim a nearer connection with the history of the chosen people from first to last; the one, as the great opening of communi 1 For the sketch of the Four Rivers, see the instructive note on Syria in Napoleon's Mémoires, vol. ii. 297, 298. The detailed characteristics of each will be given in Chapters VII. and XII. 2 See note on the name Leontes, Chapter XII. |