Another feature of the plain is the depth of its wadys or torrent-beds. At the northern end of Sharon their banks are comparatively low and sedgj^, bordered by tracts of meadow, which, owing to their depression and the accumulation of sand along the coast, are overflowed during the rainy season, and thus converted into pools anel morasses, some of which do not entirely th\ up dur- ing the summer. In Philistia the wadys are deeply cut in the loamj' or sandy soil; their banks are dry, hard, and bare ; their beds too are dry, covered with dust, white pebbles, and flints.
The whole plain is bare and bleak. There are no trees, no bushes, and no fences of any kind, with the exception of one or two small remnants of pine and oak forests in the northern part of Sharon, and the orchards and olive-groves around a few of the principal villages, and the hedges of cactus that encircle them. One can ride on for days without let or hindcrancc. In summer all vegetation disappears. The plain stretches out, mile after mile, in easy undulations, like great waves, ev-erywhere of a brownish gray color, appearing as if scathed by lightning. In early spring, however, it is totalh' different. It does not look like the same coun- try. It is covered with green grass, and, where culti- vated, with luxuriant crops of green corn ; it is all spangled with flowers of the brightest colors, and in Sharon with forests of gigantic thistles. The coloring then far surpasses anything ever seen in Europe; but still the absence of houses, fields, and fences gives a dreary look. The villages are few, mostly very small and very poor, and at long intervals. In Sharon, and in the southern section of Philistia, there are stretches of twenty miles and more without a village. The plain is everywhere dotted, however, with low round- ed tells — a few of them, as Tell es-Safieh, Arak el-Men- shiyeh, and others, rising to a height of 200 feet and more — and these are covered with white debris, inter- mixed with hewn stones and fragments of columns, the remains of primaeval cities. The plain has no good quarries; the rock along the coast, and over a great part of the plain, is a soft friable sandstone, not fit for architectural purposes. The ordinary houses, therefore, were built of brick, and soon crumbled away, and are now heaps of dust and rubbish. The remains of a few temples, and of the churches and ramparts erected by the Crusaders at Gaza, Askelon, Lydda, Kamleh, and Ca3sarea, are almost the only relics of antiquity now standing on the maritime plain.
The eastern border of the plain is not very clearly defined. The hills melt into it gradually. In some places an elongated ridge shoots fiir down into the low- land, such as the ridge at Bethhoron, at Zorah, at Deir Dubban, etc. In other places broad valleys run far up among the mountains. These ridges and valleys were the border-land of the Israelites and Philistines, and were the scenes of many a wild foray and many a hard- foui^ht battle. The valleys are exceedingly fertile.
The only road by which the two great rivals of the ancient world could approach one another — by which alone Egypt could get to Assyria, and Assyria to Egypt — lay along this broad flat striji of coast which formed the maritime portion of the Holy Land, and thence by the plain of the Lebanon to the Euphrates. True, this road did not, as we shall see, lie actually through the country, but at the foot of the highlands which virtually composed the Holy Laud ; still the proximity was too
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close not to be full of danger ; and though the catas- trophe was postponed for many centuries, j'et, when it actually arrived, it came through this channel.
The breadth of this noble plain varies considerably. At C;esarea on the north it is not more than eight miles wide ; at Joppa it is about twelve ; while at Gaza, on the south, it is nearly twent}-. Its elevation above the level of the sea has not been ascertained by meas- urement, but from its general appearance it does not seem to have an average of more than 100 feet.
It is probable that the Jews never permanently occu- pied more than a small portion of this rich and favored region. Its principal towns were, it is true, allotted to the different tribes (Josh, xv, 45-47; xvi, 3, Gezer; xvii, 11, Dor, etc.); but this was in anticipation of the intended conipiest (xiii, 3-G). The five cities of the Philistines remained in their possession (1 Sam. v; xxi, 10; xxvii) ; and the district was regarded as one inde- pendent of and ajiart from Israel (xxvii, 2 ; 1 Kings ii, 39 ; 2 Kings viii, 2, 3). In like manner Dor remained in the hands of the Canaanites (Judg. i, 27), and Gezer in the hands of the Philistines till taken from them in Solomon's time by his father-in-law (1 Kings ix, 16). We find that towards the end of the monarchy the tribe of Benjamin was in possession of Lydd, Jimzu, Ono, and other places in the plain (Neh. xi, 34; 2 Chron. xxviii, 18) ; but it was only by a gradual proc- ess of extension from their native hills, in the rough ground of which they were safe from the attack of cavalry and chariots. Yet, though the Jews never had any hold on the region, it had its own popula- tion, and towns probabl^v not inferior to any in Syria. Both Gaza and Askelon had regular ports (inajinyias) ; and there is evidence to show that they were very im- portant and very large long before the fall of the Jew- ish monarchy (Kenrick, Phcenicia, p. 27-29). Ashdod, though on the open plain, resisted for twenty-nine years the attack of the whole Egyptian force : a similar at- tack to that which reduced Jerusalem Avithout a blow (2 Chron. xii), and was sufficient on another occasion to destroy it after a siege of a year and a half, even when fortified by the works of a score of successive monarchs (2 Kings XXV, 1-3).