valley into the Dead Sea. Here at a depth of 1293 feet below the level
of the sea it is swallowed up and lost; the sea has no outlet, and parts
with its stagnant waters through evaporation alone. The evaporation has
made it intensely salt, and its shores are consequently for the most
part the picture of death.

In the valley of the Jordan, on the other hand, vegetation is as
luxuriant and tropical as in the forests of Brazil. Through a dense
undergrowth of canes and shrubs the river forces its way, rushing
forward towards its final gulf of extinction with a fall of 670 feet
since it left the Lake of Tiberias. But the distance thus travelled by
it is long in comparison with its earlier fall of 625 feet between Lake
Hûleh and the Sea of Galilee. Here it has cut its way through a deep
gorge, the cliffs of which rise up almost sheer on either side.

The Jordan has taken its name from its rapid fall. The word comes from a
root which signifies "to descend," and the name itself means "the
down-flowing." We can trace it back to the Egyptian monuments of the
nineteenth and twentieth dynasties. Ramses II., the Pharaoh of the
Oppression, has inscribed it on the walls of Karnak, and Ramses III.,
who must have reigned while the Israelites were still in the wilderness,
enumerates the "Yordan" at Medînet Habu among his conquests in
Palestine. In both cases it is associated with "the Lake of Rethpana,"
which must accordingly be the Egyptian name of the Dead Sea. Rethpana
might correspond with a Hebrew Reshphôn, a derivative from Resheph, the
god of fire. Canaanite mythology makes the sparks his "children" (Job v.
7) and it may be, therefore, that in this old name of the Dead Sea we
have a reference to the overthrow of the cities of the plain.

Eastward of the Dead Sea and the Jordan the country is again mountainous