6 On the Valley of the Jordan and the Dead Sea. 



embracing at least one third of the surface of Palestine, is made 

 lip of a series of naked limestone hills, springing from broad bases, 

 divided from each other by little gravelly gullies, and running up- 

 wards into sharp acuminations : those on the north of this region 

 terminating in a conical form, while those southward, i. e. west 

 of the Dead Sea, take a wedge-like shape : the valleys between 

 them narrowing downwards as the hills sharpen upwards. Should 

 a quantity of hatchets of the usual figure be placed with the edges 

 upwards, and the nearest horizontal and parallel lines of the sev- 

 eral backs touching each other, they would represent the hills, 

 while other hatchets put between them with their edges down- 

 wards would represent the valleys. There is a rapid declination 

 in the height of these hills eastward, between the Jordan valley 

 and the central chain ; a general subsidence, referable I believe 

 to the same agencies which, prolonged through indefinite periods, 

 have lowered the bed of the Jordan ; the intense igneous action 

 of their movements affecting the whole adjacent region. The 

 sudden rents and jagged perpendicular ravines that break down 

 here and there, forming frightful gorges bounded by precipitous 

 walls, may have been opened by subsequent volcanic movements, 

 to which, it is well known, that the whole country has been fre- 

 quently and severely subjected. 



(1.) With the exception of a few olives and pomegranates 

 around Jericho, a small village in the Jordan valley, and a few 

 patches of green grass and shrubs scattered here and there through- 

 out the tract, and along the western shore of the Dead Sea, there 

 is scarcely a tree or shrub or blade of grass in all this district. 

 It would seem as though the curse which overwhelmed the cities 

 of the plain, was still burning over its arid and scathed surface. 



(2.) A fixed population is, therefore, limited to Jericho and 

 the small store-house village of the Tamamaarah Bedawins. 

 The country however, is not wholly uninhabited. The plun- 

 dering and lawless tribes of Tamamaarah, Rashaideh, Damairah, 

 &c. roam over this wild country, openly defying the Pasha of 

 Jerusalem, and robbing either directly or indirectly all who pass 

 through ; directly by seizing all, indirectly by forcing travellers 

 and caravans to take them as an escort against themselves, who 

 are the robbers. With all his bandit qualities however, let me 

 here remark, that the untamable Bedawin stands in favorable 

 contrast with the crushed and degraded Fellah of Egypt, and the 

 Arab cultivator of the more fertile districts of Palestine. 



