(1.) The Maritime Plain.— ¥rom the bank of the Lita- ny on the north, for a distance of some twenty miles, the plain is a mere strip, nowhere more than two miles wide, and generally much less. The surface is undulating, and intersected by ridges of whitish limestone, which shoot out from Lebanon, and break off in cliffs on the shore. Two of them — Ras el Abiad, " The ^^'hite Cape," and Has en-Nakiira, together constituting the ancient
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" Scala Tyriorum," " Ladder of Tyre"— rise to a height of from "ioO to 300 feet, and drop into the deep sea, splendid cliffs of naked rock. Thoiigli the plain is here broken, and is now dreary and desolate, its soil, between the rocks, is deep and of wonderful fertility. It is abun- dantly watered also by copious fountains, and by streams from Lebanon. At the widest and best part of it, on a low promontory and an adjoining island, stood Tyre, a double cit_v.
South of the Ladder of Tyre the features of the plain and the coast undergo a total change. Ttiis promon- tory, in fact, is the real commencement of the maritime plain, and the natural boundary of Palestine and Phoe- nicia (q. v.). The white cliffs and bold headlands now disappear ; the shore is low and sandy ; the plain Hat, rich, and loamy, and only a few feet above the sea-level. It spreads out in far reaches of cornfields and pasture-lands several miles inland, the mountains making a bold sweep to the east. On a low bank, projecting into the Mediterra- nean from the centre of this plain, stands Acre, the modern as well as the mediieval stronghold of Palestine. Across the plain, a few miles southward, flows the river Belus; and on its banks may still be seen that vitreous sand from which glass is said to have been first made (Strabo, xvi, p. 758 ; Pliny, xxxvi, 65). Still farther south, the Kishon, a sluggish stream with soft, sedgy banks, falls in from the plains of Esdraelon. There is more water and more moisture in this part of the plain than in any other part of Palestine ; it is consequently among the most fertile sections of the country.
The course of the Kishon breaks what might be called the natural conformation of Palestine. It inter- sects the central mountain-range ; and a branch or arm of the range, as if displaced by the river, shoots out in a north-westerly direction, and, projecting into the Med- iterranean, forms a bold headland — the only prominent feature along the shore of Palestine. Tliis is Carmel (q. v.). Its elevation is about 1800 feet ; its sides are steep and rugged, deeply furrowed by ravines, and par- tially clothed with forests of dwarf oaks. There is little cultivation on the ridge ; but its pastures are rich, and its flowers in earl}- spring are bright and beautiful. The promontory- of Carmel is bluff, but, as it does not dip into the sea, room is left for a good road round its base.
Immediately south of Carmel the plain again opens up, and continues without interruption to Gaza. Nar- row at first, and broken by a low ridge of rocky tells running parallel to the coast, it gradually expands into the undulating pasture-lands of Sharon. Tiie plain is not so fiat here as at Acre, nor is it so well watered, though there are still streams and large fountains, with fringes of reeds and broad belts of green meadows. Here and there are clumps of trees and scraggy copse, the remnants of ancient forests; but most of the plain is bare and parched. There is scarcely any culti\-ation. Farther south the surface becomes flatter, the average elevation less, and vegetation more scanty, owing to the lighter soil and lack of moisture. Around Joppa, Lydda, and Kamleh are pleasant orchards and large olive-groves, surrounded bj' wastes of drift sand. Here Sharon unites with Philistia, which, after an interval of naked downs, extends in widespreading cornfields and vast expanses of rich, loamy soil southward almost to the valley of (ierar. This is the Shephdah — the " low country" of the Bible : the home of the Philistines, over which they drove their iron war-chariots, and on which they bade defiance to the light mountain-troops of Is- rael. See Philistia.
The maritime plain south of Carmel has some gen- eral features worthy of note. Along the whole seaboard runs a broad belt of drift sand, generally Hat and wavy, but in places raised up into mounds varying from fifty to two hundred feet in height. The mounds and drifts are mostly bare and of a ruddy gray color ; though here and there they are covered with long Aviry grass and bent. The sand is most destructive, and nothing can staj- its progress. It has encircled the ruins of Caesarea
with a barren desert ; it is slowly advancing on the or- chards of Joppa, threatening them with destruction ; it has drifted far inland to Kamleh and Lydda; it has almost entirely covered up the city of Askelon, and is now invading the fields, vineyards, and olive-groves of Mejdel, Hamameh, and other neighboring villages. From Askelon southward the hills are higher than else- where ; and at Gaza the sand-belt is not less than three miles wide. The aspect of these bare hills and long reaches of naked drift is that of utter, terrible desola- tion.