ld in point of time, first in Syria and Western Asia in point
of importance--surge, like an emerald sea, forests of apricots and
olives and apples and citrons, and "every tree that is pleasant to the
sight and good for food," with all their variety of colour and tint,
according to their season, sometimes all aglow with blossoms, sometimes
golden and ruddy with fruit, and sometimes russet with the mellowing
tints of autumn. Beyond the city the water conveys its wealth by seven
rivers to shady gardens and thirsty fields; and, as far as cultivation
extends, two or three splendid crops during the same year reward the
industry of the husbandman. But even in the plain of Damascus the land
is cultivated for only a few miles beyond the gates of the city. The
water that would fertilize the whole plain flows uselessly into
pestiferous marshes, and the wide plain within sight of the Damascus
garrison is abandoned to the Bedawin of the Desert and the wild boars of
the jungle.[58]

In Palestine there is the great plain of Esdraelon, now, to a large
extent, in the hands of a Greek firm at Beyrout, and partially
cultivated, but capable of producing wheat and maize and cotton and
barley, throughout its whole extent. On the southern side of Carmel
spreads out the extensive plain of Sharon, a vast expanse of
pasture-land, ablaze with flowers in early spring, and rank with
thistles in the time of harvest; and further south extends the still
more fertile regions of Philistia.

Looking south, from the southern slopes of Mount Hermon, the green plain
of the Huleh, with Lake Merom glassed in its centre, forms a beautiful
picture. Mr. Oliphant here first saw an enchanting location for his
colony. "I felt," he says, "a longing to imitate the example of the men
of Dan; for there can be no question that if, instead of advancing upon
it with six hundred men, and taking it by force, after the manner of the
Danites, one approached it in the modern style of a joint-stock company
(limited), and recompensed the present owners, keeping them as
labourers, a most profitable speculation might be made out of the 'Ard
el Huleh.'" The lake "might, with the marshy plain above it, be easily
drained; and a magnificent tract of country, nearly twenty miles long by
from five to six miles in width, abundantly watered by the upper
affluents of the Jordan, might then be brought into cultivation. It is
only now occupied by some wandering Bedawin and the peasants of a