Farther south the communication between the moun- tains of Judah and the lowland of Philistia are hitherto comparatively unexplored. They were doubtless the scene of many a foray and repulse during the lifetime of Samson and the struggles of the Danites, but there is no record of their having been used for the passage of any important force in ancient or modern times. North of Jaffa the passes are few. One of them, by the Wady Belat, led from Antipatris to Gophna. By this route St. Paul was probably conveyed away from Jeru- salem. Another leads from the ancient sanctuary of Gilgal, near Kefr-Saba, to Nabulus. These western val- leys, though easier than those on the eastern side, are of such a nature as to present great difficulties to the passage of any large force encumbered by baggage. In fact these mountain passes really formed the security of Israel, and if she had been wise enough to settle her own intestinal quarrels without reference to foreigners, the nation miglit, humanly speaking, have stood to the present hour. The height, and consequent strength, which was the frequent boast of the prophets and psalmists in regard to Jeru.salem, was no less true of the whole country, rising as it does on all sides from plains so much below it in level. The armies of Egypt and Assyria, as they traced and retraced their path between
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Pelusium and Carchemish, must have looked at the long wall of heights which closed in the broad level roadway they were pursuing, as belonging to a country with which they had no concern. It was to them a natural mountain fastness, the approach to which was beset with difficulties, while its bare and soilless hills were hardly worth the trouble of conquering, in com- parison with the rich green plains of the Euphrates and the Nile, or even with the boundless cornfield through which they were marching. This may fairly be in- ferred from various notices in Scripture and in contem- porary history. The Egyptian kings, from Rameses II and Thothmes III to Pharaoh Necho, were in the con- stant habit of pursuing this route during their expedi- tions against the Chatti, or Hittites, in the north of Syria ; and the two last-named monarchs fought battles at Megiddo, without, as far as we know, having taken the trouble to penetrate into the interior of the country. The Pharaoh who was Solomon's contemporary came up the Philistine plain as far as Gezer (not far from Ramleh), and besieged and destroyed it, without leav- ing any impression of uneasiness in the annals of Israel. Later in the monarchy Psammetichus besieged Ashdod in the Philistine plain for the extraordinary period of twenty-nine years (Herod, ii, 157); during a portion of that time an Assyrian arm}' probably occupied part of the same district, endeavoring to relieve the town. The battles must have been frequent; and yet the only reference to these events in the Bible is the mention of the Assyrian general by Isaiah (xx, 1), in so casual a manner as to lead irresistibly to the conclusion that neither Egyptians nor Assyrians had come up into the highland. This is illustrated by Napoleon's campaign in Palestine. He entered it from Egypt by El-Arish, and after overrunning the whole of the lowland, and taking Gaza, Jaffa, Ramleh, and the other places on the plain, he wrote to the sheik^ of Nabulus and Jerusalem, announcing that he had no intention of making war against them {Corresp. de Nap. No. 4020, " 19 Ventose, 1799"). To use his own words, the highland country " did not lie within his base of operations ;'' and it would have been a waste of time, or worse, to ascend thither. In the later days of the Jewish nation, and during the Crusades, Jerusalem became the great object of contest ; and then the battle-field of the country, which had orig- inally been Esdraelon, was transferred to the maritime plain at the foot of the passes communicating most directly with the capital. Here Judas Maccabteus achieved some of his greatest triumphs, and here some of Herod's most decisive actions were fought; and Blanchegarde, Askelon, Jaffa, and Beitnuba (the Bette- nuble of the Crusading historian) still shine with the brightest ravs of the valor of Richard I.
through the country from north to south. From Dan, on the northern border, to the southern angle of the Dead Sea, its length is 150 English miles. Its breadth at the northern end is about six ; at the Sea of Galilee it is nine ; and at Jericho, where it is widest, it is about thirteen. There are places between these points where it is much narrower. Immediately south of Lake Me- rom it is a high terrace — an offshoot from the culmi- nating peaks at Safed — which has an elevation of about 900 feet, and breaks down to the Jordan on the east in steep banks, and to the shores of the Sea of Galilee on the south in long terraced declivities. From the west- ern side of the terrace the mountains rise steeply ; so that the terrace itself may be considered as a higher section of the valley. Along the south-west shore of the Sea of Galilee a dark ridge shoots out eastward and descends to the banks of the Jordan in frowning cliffs, narrowing the valley to a width of about four miles. The next point where the western ridge projects is at Kurn Surtabeh, east of Shiloh. This peak resembles the horn of a rhinoceros, and hence its name ; from it a rocky ridge of white limestone runs across the valley almost to the banks of the river in its centre. The peak of Surtabeh is remarkable as one of the signal-sta- tions of the ancient Israelites, on which beacons were lighted to announce the appearance of the new moon (Talmud, Rosh Ha-Shana, ii; Reland, p. 346; Robin- son, Biblical Researches, iii, 293).