PLANTS OF THE BIBLR. 



103 



the cultivation of corn, and there was no need to terrace the 

 steeper slopes. From this we can form a very fair idea of what 

 the country round Shechem and Bethel was like in the time 

 when Abraham first visited it, and during the succeeding few 

 hundred years. 



The highest mountains are covered with pine, evergreens and 

 other shrubs, lower down are semi-tropical trees, yielding, as we 

 descend into the Jordan Valley, to the jujube, oleander and 

 palm. In open glades corn is grown and olives planted, and the 

 streams are fringed with oleander. Further south we find an 

 open region of fine turf, well-watered and covered with flocks, 

 stretching to the east to the fertile corn lands of Syria ; and that 

 again gives a picture of the kind of country in the south of 

 Hebron round about Beersheba, a very open grazing country. 

 In the extreme south is a tropical desert, with a characteristic 

 surface of broken stone and shingle, and a vegetation of 

 scattered, stunted bushes one foot or two feet high. 



On the north the conditions are totally different ; and towards 

 the east we get the great Assyrian Desert. The most remarkable 

 feature is the Jordan Valley, which we may describe as a tropical 

 oasis. The Nile is a fertilising stream, which overflows its valleys 

 and spreads its fertilising influence far and wide on its banks. 

 "Cast thy bread upon the waters," etc., applies to the Nile, 

 but not to the Jordan. The Jordan winds through what is 

 practically a barren desert, with here and there an oasis of very 

 deep green and remarkably vigorous vegetation. 



Owing to the great depression the Jordan Valley is extremely 

 sheltered and the sun is very hot, so that where there is 

 sufficient moisture you have a remarkably vigorous vegetation ; 

 in fact it is a tropical vegetation. For instance, in the 

 marshes as far north as Lake Merom, growing by the side of 

 the Jake, are acres of papyrus, now extinct in Egypt, but which 

 in Bible times was the bulrush of the Nile. It reaches sixteen 

 feet high, and occurs also in the Plain of Gennesaret on the 

 west of the Lake of Galilee. 



The date palm was abundant here in the time of Josephus. 

 Below the lake the palm still occurs on the east side, but there 

 are comparatively few. The oleander fringes the river and its 

 streamlets, and many other trees unknown in the rest of Palestine 

 occur. In certain sheltered spots, such as the Plains of Shittim 

 on the north-east of the Dead Sea and of Jericho on the north- 

 west, the climate is truly tropical. The corn ripens in March, 

 and melons ripen in winter. Birds of tropical affinity also 



