Below the Coelo-Syrian valley, towards the south, came Palestine, the
Land of Lands to the Christian, the country which even the philosopher
must acknowledge to have had a greater influence on the world's
history than any other tract which can be brought under a single
ethnic designation. Palestine--etymologically the country of the
Philistines--was somewhat unfortunately named. Philistine influence may
possibly have extended at a very remote period over the whole of it; but
in historical times that warlike people did but possess a corner of
the tract, less than one tenth of the whole--the low coast region
from Jamnia to Gaza. Palestine contained, besides this, the regions of
Galilee, Samaria, and Judaea, to the west of the Jordan, and those of
Ituraea, Trachonitis, Bashan, and Gilead, east of that river. It was a
tract 140 miles long, by from 70 to 100 broad, containing probably about
11,000 square miles. It was thus about equal in size to Belgium, while
it was less than Holland or Hanover, and not much larger than the
principality of Wales, with which it has been compared by a recent
writer.

The great natural division of the country is the Jordan valley. This
remarkable depression, commencing on the west flank of Hermon, runs with
a course which is almost due south from lat. 33° 25' to lat. 31° 47',
where it is merged in the Dead Sea, which may be viewed, however, as a
continuation of the valley, prolonging it to lat. 31° 8'. This valley is
quite unlike any other in the whole world. It is a volcanic rent in
the earth's surface, a broad chasm which has gaped and never closed
up. Naturally, it should terminate at Merom, where the level of the
Mediterranean is nearly reached. By some wonderful convulsion, or at any
rate by some unusual freak of Nature, there is a channel opened out from
Merom, which rapidly sinks below the sea level, and allows the stream to
flow hastily, down and still down, from Merom to Gennesareth, and from