226 PLAIN OF JERICHO. thirty years subsequent to this restoration that Elisha healed the fountain from which the city derived its supply of water. It is probable that the accursed site had been again abandoned, upon the catastrophe that followed the impious attempt of Hiel, for the existing city seems to have been at some distance from "the spring of the waters," which produced sterility and disease. It may have occupied, at the era of Elisha's miracle, the same site as it did when visited by our Saviour and described by Josephus. PLAIN OF JERICHO. Our road from Rihah to the Jordan pursued a southeasterly direction over a broad plain which extends quite to the river, and far southward to the shore of the Dead Sea. The surface of the plain is, for the first part of the way, undulating, but it becomes almost a perfect level in advancing towards the Jordan. It is compact and hard, formed of gravel, sand, and clay, resembling the region, already described, between Rihah and the western mountain, though less encumbered with stones, and susceptible of an easy restoration to tillage and unbounded fertility. It is mostly bare of vegetation; only a few scattering thorns appear east of the village, and now and then a diminutive patch is sparingly sprinkled with grass, which is at this season burned up with drought. Many small tracts of lower ground were white with an efflorescence of salt, with which the soil is strongly impregnated. We passed near considerable remains of a large edifice on our left, the probable ruins of a tower or convent. Two or three similar piles appeared upon the plain at a greater distance from our route. About a mile from the river a meager and scattering shrubbery appears, giving to the plain very much the aspect of the more verdant parts of the Arabian Desert. Half a mile farther on we descended to a lower stage of the plain, * 2 Kings, ii., 21. DECENT, TOWARDS JORDAN. 227 or to what may not improperly be termed the river bottom. This is separated from the higher level by a bank of marl or clay, running nearly parallel with the Jordan, from thirty to forty or fifty feet in height, generally precipitous, but cut through in many places by channels, formed, perhaps, by the passage of the water that falls in the rainy season upon the upper plain. The action of the elements has smoothed down the sides of many of these gullies into gentle slopes and covered their bottom with sand. The projecting angles and rough features of the embankment have been worn away by the same agency, and, as seen from the lower plain, it presents the appearance of a succession of mounds and isolated masses, rounded into a great variety of circular forms. Some of the loftier and more projecting points even assume the aspect of architectural façades, surmounted by regular domes. Near the summit of this bank are thin strata of limestone, which are also occasionally seen near the base, and, indeed, throughout the mass. The plain, along the base of this high bank, is covered with sand, but the clay predominates towards the river, and we soon found ourselves involved in a thicket of luxuriant shrubs and low, tangled bushes, which met across the narrow paths, and rendered our advance a matter of some difficulty. The banks of the river are covered with a luxuriant, crowded forest of willows, tamarisks, oleanders, and cane. The highest of these trees do not attain an elevation of more than thirty or forty feet, and few of them are above five or six inches in diameter. The willow (Agnus Castus) is held in great estimation by the pilgrims, who prefer it for staves, which they dip in the river and preserve as sacred memorials. The reeds, which form, in many places, an impenetrable, miry thicket, are carried away to be used in thatching cottages. This verdant canopy of foliage and the luxuriant undergrowth of cane and brushwood entirely concealed the river from our view until we had nearly reached the water's edge. The banks were quite full, and had recently been overflowed, as was apparent from the water yet standing upon the lower grounds, and from marks left by it upon the trees. I estimated the river to be thirty-five or forty yards wide at this point. It swept along with a rapid, turbid current. The water was discoloured and of a clayey hue, not unlike that of the Nile, and, though muddy, was agreeable to the taste. It bore the appearance of being deep, but I had no means of measurement. Some of the party who bathed in the river found themselves beyond their depth soon after leaving the shore, and they were carried rapidly down the stream by the strength of the current. Upon the particular part of the bank where we approached the river, a large quantity of sand had been deposited by the inundations, which formed good footing quite to the edge of the water. Here the pilgrims had performed their rites in the morning. A few rods lower down, however, the bank is formed of clay, with a very slight intermixture of sand, and it was too soft to bear footsteps. This is also the case at a little distance from the bank, where we stopped, and I several times sank deep in the mire in attempting to leave the beaten track upon the sand deposite to walk among the trees. This spot, which may be four or five miles from the mouth of the river, and three and a half from the Dead Sea by a direct course over the plain, is held by the Greeks, and, I presume, by the Armenians, who joined in the religious ceremonies of the day, to be the identical place where our blessed Lord received baptism at the hands of John the Baptist. The Latin Christians resort to a place between two and three miles higher up the river, guided in their preference by a tradition which they regard of greater authenticity. The spot is marked by a ruinous convent, dedicated to the Baptist, which occupies a position at a little distance from the river, and was a conspicuous object VALLEY OF THE JORDAN. 229 from some parts of our route from Jericho. The banks of the Jordan are there clothed with wood, presenting to the eye, as seen at a distance, the same appearances as at the point which we visited below. Still nearer to the mouth of the river the trees become more rare, and in the immediate vicinity of the sea, as it appeared to us in riding across the plain, the banks are low and marshy, and covered with a thick growth of reeds and low bushes. North of the Convent of St. John the border of trees continues to a great distance, quite beyond the reach of vision. VALLEY OF THE JORDAN-INUNDATIONS. The broad valley through which the Jordan flows, in its progress from the Sea of Tiberias to its termination in the Dead Sea, is called by the inhabitants El Ghor, a general name, which they apply still more extensively to its continuation through the Dead Sea, and to the northern portion of Wady Araba. Josephus calls it the Great Plain, and makes it comprehend both seas. He says it is 230 furlongs in length by 120 in breadth; a very inaccurate statement, since, if we exclude both seas, the distance between them is nearly sixty miles, while the valley at Jericho, which is nearly or quite its widest part, can hardly exceed ten or twelve miles in breadth. This plain was then, as now, a desert, with the exception of some spots susceptible of irrigation, of which the luxuriant fields around Jericho were the most noted, and a narrow margin along the river, which derives fertility from its waters. The lofty mountains that bound the valley of the Jordan are bare and desolate. That upon the west is more precipitous, while the eastern, rising by a more gradual slope, attains to nearly double its elevation. Neither affords any important tributaries to the Jordan, which probably enters the Dead Sea with a smaller volume of water than it receives from the Sea of Tiberias. Its loss by exhalation and VOL. II.-U absorption, in passing through a climate and soil adapted to make the largest possible exactions upon it, must be at least equal to any accession it may receive from two or three inconsiderable brooks, and from the occasional contributions of mountain torrents, always dry except in the season of rains. Josephus says the plain is destitute of water, except that of the Jordan, and that the mountain extending from Scythopolis, near the Sea of Tiberias, to the southern extremity of the Dead Sea, is "naked, barren, and uninhabited;" a statement from which it is reasonable to infer that the region south of the Sea of Tiberias, from which the rains and living streams all flow into the Jordan, has undergone no physical changes which would account for any considerable diminution of its volume. The mountains were never wooded or tilled, and, therefore, never more adapted than at present to feed water-courses or arrest the passing clouds. There is, perhaps, no good reason for believing that the supply of water furnished by the rains, and by the melting of the snows upon the mountains north and northeast of the Sea of Tiberias, was ever greatly more abundant than it is at present. The bearing of these observations upon the subject of the inundations of the Jordan will be readily perceived, and, if correct, they are obviously inconsistent with the prevailing opinion that the region covered by the annual flood was formerly more considerable than it is at present. The language used in Josh., iii., 15, "Jordan overfloweth all his banks all the time of harvest," does not necessarily imply an inundation more extensive than the one which had very recently preceded our visit, and which had obviously covered the verdant stripe along the banks. Just beyond this fertile tract, the ground rises several feet, and the region extending thence to the high bank-the limit of what I have denominated the lower plain-is quite too elevated to allow the supposition to be admitted, that it was ever narrow, |