1848.] VALLEY OF EL-GHOR. 487" 



beside the ancient Bethsaida, whose reputed site on its eastern 

 bank is still pointed out to the pilgrim. Throughout this 

 whole distance, the valley of the river is enamelled with the 

 brightest and most luxuriant vegetation. Mulberry orchards 

 and olive proves cover the bottom lands, and the shelving 

 slopes are adorned with fields of barley, wheat, and millet ; 

 with patches of vines and melons ; and with beds of wild 

 flowers, filling the air with their fragrance, and shaming with 

 their richly varied hues the brilliant dyes of an Eastern sun- 

 set. 



On its leaving the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan debouches 

 shortly to the right, and then turning to the south, enters the 

 narrow valley of El-Ghor. Henceforward it is even more 

 sinuous than before ; and, though it traverses only sixty 

 miles of latitude in its progress to the Djad Sea, it actually 

 makes full two hundred miles, according to the calculation of 

 Lieutenant Lynch.* The Ghor is about three quarters of a 

 mile in average width. On the east it is bordered by the 

 barren mountains of Hauran, and on the west by a series of 

 laminated hills worn by the rains into tent-like shapes, or 

 truncated cones. The river has two banks, — one just above 

 the channel which it has cut through the loose soil, and the 

 other, something like five hundred feet above, running like a 

 terrace along the rolling sand hills that form the surface of 

 the upper plain. 



The size of the stream, and the rapidity of the current, 

 vary with the season. In February and March the floods 

 occur, and its lower banks are then often overflowed by the 

 melted snows of the Libanus ranges. In high water, it is 

 from ten to seventeen feet deep, and the breadth varies from 

 twenty-five to seventy yards. At one time it meanders 

 slowly through a rich alluvial plain, and at another dashes 



* Narrative, p. 255. — A proneness to exaggeration is characteristic of the 

 statements of Lieutenant Lynch ; and as he does not appear to have been very 

 critical in the measurement of altitudes or distances, this estimate may be erro- 

 neous. Heretofore, the entire length of the Jordan has always been set down 

 at one hundred and fifty miles. 



