4. The Eastern Desert. — East of the inner mountain- chain, and south of the cultivable ground about Aleppo, is the great Syrian desert, an "elevated .dry upland, for the most part of gypsum and marls, producing nothing but a few spare bushes of wormwood, and the usual aro- matic plants of the wilderness." Here and there bare and stony ridges of no great height cross this arid re- gion, but fail to draw water from the sky, and have, consequently, no streams flowing from them. A few wells supply the nomad population with a brackish fluid. The region is traversed with difficulty, and has never been accurately surveyed. The most remarkable oasis is at Palmyra, where there are several small streams and abundant palm-trees. See Tadmok. Towards the more western part of the region along the foot of the mountain-range which there boimds it, is likewise a good deal of tolerably fertile country, watered by the streams which flow eastward from the range, and after a longer or a shorter course are lost in the desert. The best -known and the most productive of these tracts, which seem stolen from the desert, is the famous plain of Damascus — the el-Ghutah and el-Merj of the Arabs — already described in the account given of that city. See Damascus. No rival to this " earthly paradise" is to be found along the rest of the chain, since no other stream flows down from it at all comparable to the Ba- rada; but wherever the eastern side of the chain has been visited, a certain amount of cultivable territory has been found at its foot; corn is grown in places, and olive-trees are abundant (Burckhardt, Travels in Syi-ia, p. 124-129; Pococke, Description of the East, ii, 146). Farther from the hills, all is bare and repulsive — a drv, hard desert like that of the Sinaitic peninsula, with a soil 'of marl and gravel, only rarely diversified with sand.
5. Rivers. — (1.) The Orontes is the largest river in Syria. It is now called el-'Asy (" The Rebellious"), and also el-Maklub (" The Inverted"), from the fact of its running, as is thought, in a wrong direction. Its high- est source is in the plain of Buka'a (Coele-Syria),at the base of Antilebanon, beside the ruins of the ancient city of Lybo. It runs north-west across the plain to the foot of Lebanon, where its volume is more than trebled by the great fountain of Ain el-'Asy. Hence it winds along the plain of Hamath, passing Riblah, Hums, Ha- math, and Apamea. At Antioch it sweeps round to the west through a magnificent pass, and falls into the Med- iterranean at Seleucia. Its scenery is in general tame and uninteresting. Its volume above Hamath is less than that of the Jordan, but lower down it receives several tributaries which greatly increase it. Its total length is about 154 miles.
(2.) The Litany is the next river in magnitude. Its principal sources are in the valley of Buka'a, at Baalbek, Zahleh, and Anjar (the ancient Chalcis). After wind- ing down the Buka'a to its southern end, it forces its way through a sublime glen, which completely inter-
sects Lebanon, and falls into the sea a few miles north of Tyre.
(4.) The rivers Eleutherus, Lycus, and Adonis have been noticed in the article Lebanon, and the Abana and Pharpar under Damascts.
(5.) A small stream called Nahr Koweik rises near the village of Aintab, flows southward through a nar- row glen to Aleppo, waters the town and its gardens, and empties itself in winter into a marsh Sfime twenty miles farther south. It seems to be the Chalus of Xen- ophon (Anal), i, 4, 9).
(6.) The Sajur rises a little farther to the north, in the mountains north of Aintab. Its course for the first twenty-live miles is south-east, after which it runs east for fifteen or twenty miles, finally resuming its first di- rection, and flowing by the town of Sajur into the Eu- phrates. It is a larger river than the Koweik, though its course is scarcely so long.
6. Lakes. — There are only two lakes of any impor- tance in Syria.
(1.) One lies some miles north of Antioch, and is called Bahr el-Abiad, " White Lake." It is about twenty-five miles in circuit, but has a broad margin of marsh, which is flooded after heavy rains,
(2.) The other lake is on the Orontes, west of Hums, and is called Bahr Kades. It is about six miles long by from two to three broad, and is in a great measure, if not entireU', artificial. It is formed by a dam built across the valley. The water is thus raised to an ele- vation sufficient to supply the town and irrigate the surrounding plain (Porter, Damascus, ii, 344).
(3.) The Sabakhah is a salt lake, into which only in- significant streams flow, and which has no outlet. It lies midway between Balis and Aleppo, the route be- tween these places passing along its northern shore. It is longer than the Lake of Antioch, but narrower, being about thirteen miles from east to west, and four miles only from north to south, even where it is widest.
(4.) The Bahr el-lMerj, like the piece of water in which the Koweik, or river of Aleppo, ends, scarcely de- serves to be called a lake, since it is little better than a large marsh. The length, according to colonel Ches- ne\-, is nine miles, and the breadth two miles (Eiqihrat, Exj). i, 503) ; but the size seems to vary with the sea- sons, and with the extent to which irrigation is used along the course of the Barada. A recent traveller, who traced tlie Barada to its termination, found it di- vide a few miles below Damascus, and observed that each branch terminated in a marsh of its own; wliile a neighboring stream, the Awaj, commonly regarded as a tributary of the Barada, also lost itself in a third marsh separate from the other two (Porter, in Geograph. Jourii. xxvi, 43-4G).