14 ANNUAL 
Keypt, Palestine, and Syria, connecting the former country 
with Jerusalem, Damascus, Jaffa, Tyre, Sidon, and the 
Lebanon. It has been trod by the iron heel of war from the 
days when Rameses II. led his hosts against the Hittites of 
Mount Lebanon, down to the end of the eighteenth century, 
when Napoleon retired, bafiled and repulsed, from the walls of 
St. Jean d’Acre (December, 1799). The road generally les 
inside a line of high sandhills, which are constantly advancing 
hike a devastating wave on the land, with slow but certain 
steps. It is supposed that the Gaza of the time of Sampson 
is buried beneath the sands. 
(2.) The tableland of Western Palestine rises somewhat 
abruptly from the maritime tract on the west, and generally 
terminates along the borders of the Jordan Arabah depression 
by ranges of bold cliffs, intersected by deep ravines. ‘The 
tableland is formed of Cretaceo-nummulitic limestone, disposed 
in the form of an arch, the axis of which ranges in a general 
north to south direction, passing under the city of Jerusalem, 
and southwards by Hebron and Tell el Milh. Towards the 
south, and beyond the borders of Judah, the arched position 
of the limestone appears to alter, and the strata become spread 
out into low undulations, not yet properly determined, over 
the wide expanse of the Badiet-et-Tih, or “ Desert of the 
Wanderings.” This plateau is intersected by dry valleys, and 
breaks off along a line of escarpment, which, commencing 
east of the Bitter Lakes, ranges in a southerly direction for 
about 150 miles, and then, bending round towards the east 
at Jebel el Hjmeh, ultimately reaches the western margin of 
the Arabah valley near the head of the Gulf of Akabah. 
The average elevation of the tableland of Western Palestine 
may be taken at 2,500 feet above the sea, but the hills rise 
to 3,000 feet and upwards. The elevation of the Temple area 
at Jerusalem is 2,593 English feet. A lme of watershed runs 
along this tableland, dividing the streams which enter the 
Mediterranean from those which find their way into the Jordan 
valley. The greater depth of this latter outlet above that 
towards the western side causes the streams which enter the 
Jordan and Dead Sea to fall with remarkable rapidity. Thus 
the stream of the Wady el Aujah has an average fall of 280 feet 
per mile. The Kelt (supposed to be the brook Cherith) has 
a fall of 190 feet per mile, and the stream of the Wady el 
Nar (Kedron) a fall of 264 feet per mile. This rapid descent 
accounts for the great depth to which these streams have cut 
down their channels; as the force of the water, at a time 
when the channels were copiously supplied, must have been 
unusually powerful. 
