ll.

CHAPTER XVII

A WORLD-FAMOUS RIVER--THE JORDAN

The great Mississippi and Amazon rivers are noted for their length; the
Hudson and the Rhine for their scenery; the Thames and Tiber for the
great cities on their banks; the Volga and the Dneiper for their
commerce; the Nile and the Yellow rivers for their annual overflow, the
former to give life and the latter to destroy; and the Euphrates and
Tigress for the ruins of mighty cities of other days.

But this chapter is a description of a river only a little more than two
hundred miles in length, no scenery to speak of near it, never a great
city on its banks, no sail or steamboat for commerce ever traveled upon
its waters, no one scarcely ever cared whether it was within its banks
or not, and not even any ruins worth while along its shores; and yet it
is today and has been for centuries the most famous river on the face of
the earth.

It is the River Jordan, and a glimpse of it brings forth some of the
most wonderful characteristics possessed by any river, as well as many
historical events that make their memories dear to the hearts of men and
women wherever civilization has found its way. Unlike all other rivers
which rise in some elevated place and flow toward the sea level, nearly
every mile of this river is below the surface of the ocean.

At the foot of Mount Herman in northern Palestine there is a spring of
water that is almost ice cold. That spring is but a few hundred feet
above sea level. The water from this spring is joined by that of several
other springs and small rivulets caused by the melting snows on the
mountain, flows to the south a distance of a few miles, and forms a
small lake which is about three miles wide and four miles long. This
lake is just on a level with the Mediterranean Sea which is only about
thirty miles to the west. This is spoken of in the Bible as "the waters
of Merom." From the southern end of this lake the Jordan begins.

The first ten and one-half miles the water falls six hundred and eighty
feet to where it enters the Sea of Galilee. This pear-shaped body of
water is a little more than a dozen miles long and half that wide and is
surrounded by mountains. The river enters through a small canyon at the
northwest and passes out through another canyon at the south end.
Sometimes the wind will rush down the canyon at the northwest and in a
few moments the waters of the lake are like a great whirlpool. These
sudden storm