PALESTINE
501
PALKfSTlNE
The " highways lie waste, the earth mourneth and lan- guisheth." The bald mountains of Judah are far more densely peopled even yet than this liighland paradise.
The plain of Esdraelon (q. v.), as stated above, inter- sects the mountain-chain, and forms a connecting link between the maritime plain and the Jordan valley. In this respect it may be termed the gateway of Central Palestine; and histor}^ tells how fully, and often how fatally, hostile nations and marauding tribes availed themselves of it to enter and spoil the land. It joins the plain of Acre on the west at the base of Carmel; it is connected with Sharon by an easy pass at Megiddo ; and on the east two broad arms stretch do^vn from it in gentle slopes to the principal fords and passes of the Jordan. Its features and history have already been so fully given that it need not here be described.
The isolated ridges of Moreh (now called by natives Jebel ed-Duhy, by travellers Little Ilermon) and Gil- boa, which lie between the eastern arms of Esdraelon, present a marked contrast to Tabor and the mountains of Galilee. They show that the humid and fertile north is giving place to the parched and naked south. They are bare, white, and treeless ; and their declivities look in places as if they had been covered with flag-stones. They are isolated, broken links lying between the chains of Galilee and Samaria.
While Esdraelon intersects the mountain-chain, a portion of the chain, appearing as if displaced, shoots out from the mountains of Samaria in a north-western direction ; and, running to the Mediterranean, intersects the maritime plain. This is Carmel, which, though physically united to the southern, bears more resem- blance, in its luxuriant grass, green foliage, and bright flowers, to the northern ridge. Carmel and the north- ern end of the Samaria range present the appearance of a continuous transverse ridge, enclosing Esdraelon on the south.
Between Esdraelon and Bethel — the territory origi- nally allotted to the sons of Joseph, forty miles in length — the mountain-ridge presents some peculiar and strik- ing features. The summits arc more rounded and more rocky than those in Galilee ; and the sides, though in many places bare, are generally clothed with scraggy woods of dwarf oak, terebinth, and maple, or with shrub- beries of thorn-bushes. The fertile upland plains are still found here, though smaller than those in Galilee; the largest is the jilain of Mukhna, along the eastern base of Gerizim, measuring about six miles by one. The plains of Saniir, Kubatiyeh, and Dothan are much smaller. The hill-sides around them grow steeper and wider towards the south. The vallej-s running into Sharon are long, winding, mostly tillable, though dry and bare; while those on the east, running into the chasm of the Jordan, are deep and abrupt ; but being abundantly watered by numerous fountains, and being- planted with olive -groves and orchards, they have a rich and picturesque appearance (comp. Van de Velde, ii, 314). In fact, the eastern declivities of the moun- tains of Ephraim, wild an<l rugged though they are, contain some of the most lieautifid scenery and some of the most luxuriant orchards in Central Palestine (ibid. p. 335). Dr. Robinson writes of Telluzah, the ancient Tirzah (Cant, vi, 4), a few miles north of Nabulus, " The town is surrounded by immense groves of olive- trees, planted on all the hills around; mostly young and thrifty trees" (iii, 302) ; and of one of the great wadys east of it, "Nowhere in Palestine, not even at Nabulus, had I seen such noble brooks of water" (ibid. p. 303) ; and again of the whole district, " This tract of the Faria, from el-Kur:\wa in the Ghor to the round- ed hills which separate it from the plain of Sanvlr, is justly regarded as one of the most fertile and valuable regions of Palestine" (p. 304 sq.). The features of the mountains are diiferent from those of Galilee. Here there is more Avildness and ruggedness, the tracts of level ground are smaller, the valleys are narrower, and the banks steeper. AVhile the rich upland plains produce VII.— N N
abundant crops of grain, yet this is a region on the whole specially adapted for the cultivation of olives, fruits, and grapes. The more carefully its features, soil, and products are examined, the more evident does it become that Ephraim was indeed blessed with " the chief things of the ancient mountains" — vines, figs, olives, and corn, all growing luxuriantly amid the '• lasting hills." It was not in vain that the dying pa- triarch deliberately rested his right hand on the head of Joseph's younger son, saying, " In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make thee as Ephraim" (Gen. xlviii, 18-20 ; comp. Stanley, S. and P. p. 22G).
Passing southward from Samaria into Juda?a — from the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh into that of Benjamin and Judah — both the physical features and the scenery of the range undergo a great change. The change does not take i)lace rapidly — it is gradual. Im- mediatel}' south of-Shiloh the change begins. The lit- tle upland plains, which, with their green grass and green corn and smooth surface, so much relieve the monotony of the mountain-tops, almost disappear in Benjamin, and in Judah thej' are unknown. Those which do exist in Benjamin, as the plains of Gilteon and Eephaim, are small and rocky. The soil alike on plain, hill, and glen is poor and scanty ; and tlie gray limestone rock everj'where crops up over it, giving the landscape a barren and forbidding aspect. Natural wood disappears ; and a few small bushes, brambles, or aromatic shrubs alone appear upon the hill-sides. The hill-summits now assume that singular form which pre- vails in Judah, and which Stanley has well described : " Bounded hills, chiefly of a gray color — gray partly from the limestone of which they are formed, partly from the tufts of gray shrub with which their sides are thinly clothed — their sides formed into concentric rings of rock, that must have served in ancient times as supports to the terraces, of which there are still traces to the very summits; valleys, or rather the meetings of those gray slopes with the beds of dry water-courses at their feet — long sheets of bare rock laid like flagstones, side by side, along the soil — these are the chief features of the greater part of the scenery of the historical j^arts of Palestine. These rounded hills, occasionally stretch- ing into long undulating ranges, are for the most part bare of wood. Forest and large timber are not known. Cornfields and — in the neighborhood of Christian pop- ulations, as at Bethlehem — vineyards creep along the ancient terraces. In the spring the hiUs and valleys are covered with thin grass, and the aromatic shrubs which clothe more or less almost the whole of Syria and Arabia. But the}' also glow ^vith what is pecul- iar to Palestine, a profusion of wild flowers, daisies, the white flower called the star of Bethlehem, but especial- ly with a blaze of scarlet flowers of all kinds, chiefly anemones, wild tulips, and poppies" {S, and P. p. 130 sq.).