The water supply of Palestine is fairly abund- ant, except in the deserts and in the Negeb, and it includes lakes, rivers, brooks, and springs. The waters of the Dead Sea are intensely bitter, con- taining 25 per cent. of chlorides washed down from the valley ; but those of the Sea of Gulilee and of Merom are sweet. The most important river is the Jordan, the geographical source of which is on the west side of Hermon near Hasbeya, 1700 ft. above sea-level; but its most important supply issues as a foaming stream, 1000 ft. above sea-level, from under the cave of Banifis at the foot of Hermon, by the snows of which it is fed. Rushing down through a thick copse, by rows of poplars, it joins several other streams, which flow over the t slopes into the plain of Tell el-Kadi (the site of Dan) from the north-west ; and the river is then lost in Le a i marshes of Merom, but gathers as the valley narrows, and descends rapidly to the Sea of Galilee, where a delta about a mile long has been formed, during the last nineteen centuries, at its junction with the lake. On issuing into the southern valley the course becomes narrow and tortuous, a deep channel about half a mile to a mile wide having been worn in the valley bed. The stream is here. shallow, and crossed by about twenty fords, of which the most important on the main road is called ‘Abarah, and may be the Bethabara (?) of the NT (Jn 1%): there is a cataract in the stream farther south, but the slope of the river- bed gradually becomes flatter after passing the Damieh ferry (Adam, Jos 316), the river having, however, acquired a rapid flow, which continues to its mouth. Opposite Jericho it is fordable for horses in the dry season, and is here about thirty yards wide. In early spring, however (see Jos 3"), when the Hermon snows begin to melt, and after the winter rains, the Jordan will sometimes overflow its banks, and fill the whole channel, nearly a mile wide. The banks are formed by hillocks of white soft marl, which are at times undermined, and fall into the river. An Arab writer asserts that the river was known to have been thus blocked for a time (cf. Jos 3'*) in A.D 1267. Sultan Beybars was then building a bridge at the Damieh ford, and the western bank of the
PALESTINE
river fell inon 8th December, damming the stream for four hours (Nowairi, see Pal. Expl. Fund Quarterly Statement, July 1895, p. 257). The river is often quite hidden by groves of tamarisk and cane brakes, The plains on either side are much cut up by tributary channels, but are covered in spring with rich grass; towards the south, how- ever, the bushes and acacia trees (shittim) cease, and a muddy saline flat grows only the alkali plant. The shores of the Dead Sea are strewn with gravel and salt-covered tree trunks brought down by the river in flood, and a swampy delta is also formed where the Jordan enters this lake. The name of the river Jordan (‘ the descender’) is thought to be due to its rapid fall of 2000 ft. in a course of 100 miles. There are several important
rennial affiuents on both sides of the river. On he west the streams of Wddy el-Hamdm flow by the small plain of Gennesaret into the Sea of Galilee. Farther south the perennial stream from Jezreel, and the waters of many springs under the Tabor plateau and Mount Gilboa, join the river. In Samaria the brook of Wdady Far‘ah (probably the waters of Anon, Jn 3%) is an important affluent north-east of Shechem, and near Jericho the ravine of the Kelt is a winter torrent of great velonity, identified without reason with the Brook Cherith (1 K 17 8:5), which was ‘east’ of Jordan, probably in Gilead, East of the river several perennial brooks flow in, and the most important of these are the Yarmik, south of the Sea of Galilee, and the Jabbok, which is fed by springs at and north-east of Rabbath-ammon. It flows north at first, and south of Gerasa turns to the west. Its bed is fringed with canes in the lower part of its course, and it is easily passable in summer. The springs of Nimrah (Nu 32°) also flow with other perennial brooks through the Shittim plains, and others which rise high up on the Moab plateau flow direct into the Dead Sea.
In Western Palestine there are other perennial streams flowing into the Mediterranean. The Leontes (or Kasimiyeh), which rises in the southern Lebanon, reaches the sea north of Tyre. The Belus, which gathers the waters of the low hills to the east, is a swampy stream south of Acre, and seems to be the Shihor-libnath, Jos 19% (but see Dillm. ad loc.). It is fordable at its mouth. The Kishon, which debouches on the south side of the Bay of Acre, is more important, and is perennial, though in a very dry summer its bed shows only a chain of pools, and its mouth is choked by sand dunes. It flows north-west under Carmel trom a narrow pass leading out of the Esdraelon plain, where it is formed by two branches, of which the eastern is the true Kishon of the OT (see Jg 4°-7), springing from swampy pools west of Tabor. The western stream is formed by springs from the downs south of Carmel, and its chief source is at Lejjin (the Legio of Roman times) near Taanach, west of the plain of Esdraelon. The waters of the south slopes of Carmel drain into the marshy Zerka or Crocodile River, remarkable from the 2nd cent. downwards as the only place where crocodiles were found in Palestine. They still inhabit its swamps. Sharon, farther south, is drained by several streams, unnoticed except in the 12th century; and north of Jaffa is one more important (the ‘Aujeh), which carries a turbid sandy flood from the springs of Rds el- Ain (Antipatris) to the sea, It erreate to be the Me-jarkon, or ‘yellow water,’ of Jos 19 (but see Dillm. ad loc.). The only perennial stream in Philistia is the Nahr Rudin, or ‘river of Reuben,’ named from a Moslem shrine, and flowing under the cliff of e/-Mughdr (probably Makkedah) to the shore near Jamnia, A great valley, south of Gaza, collects the waters of the Negeb hills, and