; Van de Velde, ii. 407).
This northern section of the mountain-chain cul minates a little to the west of Safed, in Jebel Jermuk (400o ft.), the highest land in Western Palestine. Safed itself stands on a commanding peak. From this point the ridge sinks rapidly, becoming more an assemblage of detached hills and ridges than a regular chain. It almost looks as if the great chain had been shattered to pieces, and the frag ments thrown confusedly together. The upland plains, which constitute a distinguishing feature of the higher section, here become larger and richer, with a surface like a bowling-green, and inter spersed here and there with corn-fields, olive-groves, orchards of pomegranates, apricots, and other fruit-trees (Van de Velde, ii. 406). The plain of Battauf is ten miles long by about two wide. From its eastern end, at Jebel Hattin, another plain extends, with gentle undulations, along the brow of the basin of Tiberias, southward to Tabor ; and another runs westward from HattIn to Seffirieh. The hill-tops and ridges which separate them are rugged, rocky, and thinly covered with dwarf-oak and terebinth, and with jungles of thorn-bushes. South of these plains, a transverse ridge of hills-, commencing with Tabor on the east, extends to the plain of Acre on the west. Tabor is green and well-wooded [TABOR]. The section adjoining it, encircling Nazareth, is mostly bare and rocky [NAZARETH] ; while the western end presents some beautiful scenery—green vales covered with long grass and bright-coloured thistles, winding down to the plains on the south and west, between richly wooded peaks and ridges.
Vegetation among the mountains of Galilee is much more abundant than elsewhere west of the Jordan. Long rank grass and huge thistles, and a splendid variety of wild-flowers, cover mountain, vale, and plain, in early spring ; and even during the heat of summer and the scorching blasts of autumn, that parched scathed look, which is uni versal farther south, is here unknown. This is owing, in part, to the cool breezes from Hermon and Lebanon, and in part to the forests which condense the moisture of the atmosphere, yielding heavy fertil izing dew. Fountains are abundant and copious : and the torrent-beds are rarely—many of them never—dry. Another fact is deserving of notice.
The whole region, considering its great fertility and beauty, is thinly peopled. A vast portion of it appears utterly desolate. The highways lie waste, the earth mourneth and languisheth.' The bleak mountains of Judah are far more densely peopled even yet than this highland paradise.
The plain of Esdraelon, as stated above, inter sects the mountain-chain, and forms a connecting link between the maritime plain and the Jordan valley. In this respect it may be termed the gate way of Central Palestine ; and history tells how fully, and often how fatally, hostile nations and marauding tribes availed themselves of it to enter and spoil the land. It joins the plain of Acre on the west at the base of Carmel ; it is connected with Sharon by an easy pass at Megiddo ; and on the east, two broad arms stretch down from it in gentle slopes to the principal fords and passes of the Jordan. Its features and history have already been so fully given, that it need not here be de scribed [ESDRAELON].
The isolated ridges of Moreh (now called by natives, Jebel-ed-Duhy ; by travellers, Little Her mon) and Gilboa, which lie between the eastern arms of Esdraelon, present a marked contrast to Tabor and the mountains of Galilee. They show that the humid and fertile north is giving place to the parched and bleak south. They are bare, white, and treeless ; and their declivities look in places as if they had been covered with flag-stones. They are isolated, broken links, lying between the chains of Galilee and Samaria.
While Esdraelon intersects the mountain-chain, a portion of the chain, appearing as if displaced, shoots out from the mountains of Samaria in a north-western direction ; and, running to the Me diterranean, intersects the maritime plain. This is Cannel, which, though physically united to the southern, bears more resemblance, in its luxuriant grass, green foliage, and bright flowers, to the northern ridge. Carmel and the northern end of the Samaria range present the appearance of a continuous transverse ridge, enclosing Esdraelon on the south.