Jerusalem, highest point of the city 25S5
Mount of Olives 2665
Bethlehem 2704
Pools of Solomon (in a valley) 2513
Ruins of Raniah, three miles north of Hebron 2800
Hebron (in a valley, with higher ridges rouud it) 3029
Carmel, eight miles south of Hebron 2238
Ed-Dhoheriyeh, tifteeu miles south-west of Hebron. . 2174
Beersheba 1100
Beyond the Sotithern Border. El-Khulasa, in the desert of Tih 704
From these measurements it will appear how singularlj' uniform the elevation of the range is from Esdraelon to Hebron. This gives it the appearance of a vast wall as seen from the sea. Its aspect from the Jordan valley is different ; it seems to have a much greater elevation on the south, owing to the depression of the Dead Sea and the adjoining plain.
The transverse valleys that intersect this central mountain region have already been referred to, but they constitute so important a feature tliat we dwell upon them more iu detail. This grand watershed of the country sends off" on either hand — to the Jordan val- ley on the east and the Mediterranean on tlie west, and be it remembered (with one or two exceptions) east and west only — tlie long tortuous arms of its many tor- rent-beds. But though keeping north and south as its general direction, the line of tlie watershed is, as might be ex])ected from the prevalent equality of level of these highlands, and the absence of anything like ridge or saddle, very irregular, the heads of the vallej's on the one side often passing and "overlapping" those of the other. Thus in the territory of the ancient Benja- min the heads of the great wadys Fuwar (or Suweinit) and Mutyah (or Kelt) — the two main channels by which the torrents of the winter rains hurry down from the bald hills of this district into the valley of the Jor- dan— are at Bireh and Beitin respectively, while the great wady Belat, which enters the Mediterranean at Nahr Aujeh a few miles above Jaffa, stretches its long arms as far as, and even farther than, Taiyiljeh, nearly four miles to the east of either Bireh or Beitin. So also in the more northern district of Mount Ephraim around Nabulus, the ramifications of that extensive sys- tem of valleys which combine to form the Wady Fer- rah — one of the main feeders of the central Jordan — interlace and cross by many miles those of the Wady Shair, whose principal arm is the valley of NabuliLS, and which pours its waters into the Mediterranean at Nahr Falaik.
Tlie valleys on the two sides of the watershed, as al- ready noted, differ considerably in character. Those on the east— owing to tlie extraordinary depth of the Jordan valley into which they plunge, and also to the fact already mentioned that the watershed lies rather on that side of the highlands, thus making the fall more abrupt— are extremely steep and rugged. This is the case during the whole length of the southern and middle portions of the countrj'. The precipitous descent
between Olivet and Jericho, with which all travellers in the Holy Land are acquainted, is a type, and by no means an unfair type, of the eastern passes, from Zu- weirah and Ain-Jidi on the south to Wady Bidjlu on the north. It is only when the junction between the plain of Esdraelon and the Jordan valley is reached that the slopes become gradual, and the ground fit for the manojuvres of anything but detached bodies of foot- soldiers. But, rugged and difficult as they are, they form the only access to the upper country from this side, and every man or body of men who reached the territory of Judah, Benjamin, or Ephraim from the Jor- dan valley must have climbed one or other of them. The Ammonites and Moabites, who at some remote date left such lasting traces of their presence iu the names of Chephar ha-Ammonai and Michmash, and the Israelites pressing forward to the relief of Gibeon and the slaughter of Beth-horon, doubtless entered alike through the great Wady Fuwar already spoken of. The Moabites, Edomites, and Mehunim swarmed up to their attack on Judah through the crevices of Ain-Jidi (2 Chron. xx, 12, 16). The pass of Adummira was in the days of our Lord — what it still is — the regu- lar route between Jericho and Jerusalem. By it Pom- pey advanced with his army when he took the city.
The western valleys are more gradual in their slope. The level of the external plain on this side is higher, and therefore the fall less, while at the same time the distance to be traversed is much greater. Thus the length of the Wady Belat, already mentioned, from its remotest head at Taiyibeh to the point at which it emerges on the plain of Sharon, may be taken as twenty to twenty-five miles, with a total difference of level during that distance of perhaps 1800 feet, while the Wady el-Aujeh, which falls from the other side of Tai- yibeh into the Jordan, has a distance of barely ten miles to reach the Jordan valley, at the same time fall- ing not less than 2800 feet. Here again the vallej's are the only means of communication between the low- land and the highland. From Jaffa and the central part of the plain there are two of these roads "going up to Jerusalem :" the one to the right by Ramleh and the W^ady Aly ; the other to the left by Lydda, and thence by the Beth-horons, or the Wady Suleiman, and Gibeon. The former of these is modern, but the latter is the scene of many a famous incident in the ancient history. Over its long acclivities the Canaanites were driven by Joshua to their native plains; the Philistines ascended to ]Michmash and Geba, and tied back past Ajalon ; the Syrian force was stopped and hurled back by Judas; the Roman legions of Cestius Gallus were chased pell- mell to their strongholds at Antipatris.