ranean
from Joppa to Gaza.--Te.]

The whole of this district forms a little world in itself, whose
inhabitants, half shepherds, half bandits, live a life of isolation,
with no ambition to take part in general history. West of the Jordan, a
confused mass of hills rises into sight, their sparsely covered slopes
affording an impoverished soil for the cultivation of corn, vines, and
olives. One ridge--Mount Carmel--detached from the principal chain
near the southern end of the Lake of Genesareth, runs obliquely to
the north-west, and finally projects into the sea. North of this range
extends Galilee, abounding in refreshing streams and fertile fields;
while to the south, the country falls naturally into three parallel
zones--the littoral, composed alternately of dunes and marshes--an
expanse of plain, a "Shephelah," dotted about with woods and watered by
intermittent rivers,--and finally the mountains. The region of dunes
is not necessarily barren, and the towns situated in it--Gaza, Jaffa,
Ashdod, and Ascalon--are surrounded by flourishing orchards and gardens.
The plain yields plentiful harvests every year, the ground needing no
manure and very little labour. The higher ground and the hill-tops are
sometimes covered with verdure, but as they advance southwards, they
become denuded and burnt by the sun. The valleys, too, are watered only
by springs, which are dried up for the most part during the summer, and
the soil, parched by the continuous heat, can scarcely be distinguished
from the desert. In fact, till the Sinaitic Peninsula and the frontiers
of Egypt are reached, the eye merely encounters desolate and almost
uninhabited solitudes, devastated by winter torrents, and overshadowed
by the volcanic summits of Mount Seir. The spring rains, however,
cause an early crop of vegetation to spring up, which for a few weeks
furnishes the flocks of the nomad tribes with food.

We may summarise the physical characteristics of Syria by saying that
Nature has divided the country into five or six regions of unequal
area, isolated by rivers and mountains, each one of which, however, is
admirably suited to become the seat of a separate independent state.
In the north, we have the country of the two rivers--the
Naharaim--extending from the Orontes to the Euphrates and the Balikh, or
even as far as the Khabur:* in the centre, between the two ranges of
the Lebanon, lie Coele-Syria and its two unequal neighbours, Aram of
Damascus a