cH.xxiii.] Physical Features of the Desert. 163 



a sandy loam covering the substratum of clialk or 

 con2;lomerate. 



Roughly speaking, tlie district is without moun- 

 tains, streams or fresh-water lakes, for the two 

 great rivers which cross its north-eastern angle 

 neither affect nor are affected by the country they 

 traverse. They cut through the plain, as it were, 

 like stran«jers, and have nothinof in common with 

 the desert above them. The only considerable 

 chain of hills is that which connects Damascus with 

 Mosul, and which, under the successive names of 

 Jebel Ruak, Jebel Amur, Jebel Abd ul Aziz, and 

 Jebel Sinjcir, forms a continuous line at right 

 angles to the Euphrates. This line marks the 

 difference of level in the plains north and south of 

 it, with a corresponding diversity of vegetation. 

 Above the hills, permanent sheep pasture is found ; 

 below them, camel pasture only. 



It is strange that modern map-makers, and es- 

 pecially the German, should in their anxiety to 

 improve on ancient models have abandoned so 

 marked a natural feature as this range of hills, 

 which the older geographers w^ere careful to give ; 

 and it is a poor exchange to find in its stead, the 

 old blank spaces of the desert filled up with new 

 landmarks either wholly imaginary or out of all 

 proportion to their real value. There is nothing 

 more irritating to the traveller, endeavouring to 

 make his way across the desert by the help of one 

 of these German maps, than to find a number of 



.M 2 



