in half. Others
irrigate the gardens and orchards both to the north and to the south.
Beyond the town the tendency to division still continues. The river,
weakened greatly through the irrigation, separates into three main
channels, which flow with divergent courses towards the east, and
terminate in two large swamps or lakes, the Bahret-esh-Shurkiyeh and the
Bahret-el-Kibli-yeh, at a distance of sixteen or seventeen miles from
the city. The Barada is a short stream, its entire course from the plain
of Zebdany not much exceeding forty miles.

The Jordan is commonly regarded as flowing from two sources in the
Huleh or plain immediately above Lake Merom, one at Banias (the ancient
Paneas), the other at Tel-el-Kady, which marks the site of Laish or
Dan. But the true highest present source of the river is the spring near
Hasbeiya, called Nebaes-Hasbany, or Eas-en-Neba. This spring rises in
the torrent-course known as the Wady-el-Teim, which descends from the
north-western flank of Hermon, and runs nearly parallel with the great
gorge of the Litany, having a direction from north-east to south-west.
The water wells forth in abundance from the foot of a volcanic
bluff, called Eas-el-Anjah, lying directly north of Hasbeiya, and is
immediately used to turn a mill. The course of the streamlet is very
slightly west of south down the Wady to the Huleh plain, where it
is joined, and multiplied sevenfold, by the streams from Banais and
Tel-el-Kady, becoming at once worthy of the name of river. Hence it
runs almost due south to the Merom lake, which it enters in lat. 33 deg.
7', through a reedy and marshy tract which it is difficult to penetrate.
Issuing from Merom in lat. 33 deg. 3', the Jordan flows at first sluggishly
southward to "Jacob's Bridge," passing which, it proceeds in the same
direction, with a much swifter current down the depressed and narrow
cleft between Merom and Tiberias, descending at the rate of fifty
feet in a mile, and becoming (as has been said) a sort of "continuous
waterfall." Before reaching Tiberias its course bends slightly to the
west of south for about two miles, and it pours itself into that "sea"
in about lat. 32 deg. 53'. Quitting the sea in lat. 32 deg. 42', it finally
enters the track called the Ghor, the still lower chasm or cleft which
intervenes between Tiberias and the upper end of the Dead Sea. Here the
descent of the stream becomes comparatively gentle, not much exceeding
three feet per mile;