The History of Antiquity (Vol. 1-6). Duncker Max

      CHAPTER V.

      THE CANAANITES.

       Table of Contents

Between the basin of the Euphrates and Tigris and the Mediterranean rise the mountains of Syria, an elevated plateau which ascends gradually from the right bank of the Euphrates and descends steeply on the sea-coast. A peculiar depression, known as Hollow Syria,[477] divides this region in its entire length from north to south—from the Taurus to the N.E. point of the Red Sea, and separates the plateau into an eastern and a western half. The bed of the narrow valley reaches its greatest elevation in the neighbourhood of the city of Baalbec (Heliopolis). From this point the Orontes flows towards the north and irrigates the green gardens of Emesa and Hamath, till it turns westward and finds a way toward the sea at Antioch; the Leontes and the Jordan flow towards the south. Between steep walls of rock the Jordan hurries down the gorge, and passes in a rapid course through the lakes of Merom and Kinneroth (Gennesareth), which are formed by the streams from the mountains on either side. The deeper the bed of the valley the more valuable are the fruits growing in the tropic atmosphere. The country round Jericho, the city of palms, sheltered from the winds of the table-land and heated by the rays refracted from the walls of rock, produces grapes and figs for ten months in the year; its wealth in dates and balsam was rated high in antiquity.[478] The course of the Jordan ends in the Dead Sea, the surface of which is about 1,300 feet below the level of the Mediterranean.

Out of Hollow Syria rises on the east like a wall of rock the plateau of Aram,[479] in naked, wild, and broken ridges, which, in Antilibanus, the highest point, reaches 9,000 feet. On the back of the mountains we find at first green pastures overshadowed by forests of oak, but further towards the east the heights become bald and desolate, until the land, as it sinks towards the Euphrates, gradually assumes the character of the deserts, which are broken only by the fruitful depressions of Damascus, Hieropolis (Membidsh), and Tadmor (Palmyra).

On the west of the fissure the land is differently shaped. The coast is a narrow strip of land, which only extends into small plains at the mouths of the mountain streams; it is hot, moist, and unhealthy, but of great fertility. Soon the white and yellow limestone rocks of the mountains begin to rise. On these heights the air is purer and cooler, and terraces planted with myrtles and oleanders, with pines, fig-trees, and mulberries, alternate with vineyards. On the broad slopes of the loftier mountain ridges rise splendid forests of tamarisks, planes, cypresses and nut-trees, and above all magnificent cedars. Even now some trees are found here forty feet in girth and ninety feet in height.[480] Just in front of the highest ridges of rock lie green slopes, on which feed numerous flocks of black goats, disturbed by jackals, bears, and lions, dwelling in the desolate gorges. Between the mouth of the Orontes and the promontory of Carmel, which runs out far into the sea, this mountain wall, which stretches out to the sea, reaches its greatest height in the peaks of Libanus (over 10,000 feet) of which Tacitus remarks with astonishment that they retained the snow even in that hot climate.[481] Rising above the green pastures and forests, the cultivated and watered fields, this ridge with its white mantle of snow gives the appearance of a winter landscape above perpetual spring. Southward of Carmel the mountains become lower, and at the same time less precipitous and picturesque. The coast is broader and more sandy, flatter, and with fewer harbours. In the place of the steep ridges is a grassy depression (Esdraelon, Galilee), overtopped by one or two peaks only, like Tabor (1,700 feet). Then parallel ridges again form valleys, broad and fruitful and overshadowed by forests (Samaria), until the land between the Dead Sea and the coast assumes a severer and wilder character. There the table-land is rough and bare, the valleys are narrow and deep clefts, the soil is stony. From Libanus the eye looks out on the most various groups of wooded promontories and a smiling coast, but in Judæa the landscape exhibits none but severe and simple outlines. On the wide expanses only a few bushes of pale olives arise, or transparent groups of a few palm-trees. The grassy plains have made way for steppes or downs, and even the bed of the valleys is covered with fresh green only in the brief rainy season. The region round the Dead Sea is wholly desolate. Springs of sulphur and beds of bitumen point to a volcanic origin; the large proportion of salt contained in the water makes it impossible