runs almost due south to the Merom lake, which it enters in lat. 33°
7', through a reedy and marshy tract which it is difficult to penetrate.
Issuing from Merom in lat. 33° 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° 53'. Quitting the sea in lat. 32° 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; for though the direct distance between the two
lakes is less than seventy miles, and the entire fall above 600 feet,
which would seem to give a descent of nine or ten feet a mile, yet, as
the course of the river throughout this part of its career is tortuous
in the extreme, the fall is really not greater than above indicated.
Still it is sufficient to produce as many as twenty-seven rapids, or
at the rate of one to every seven miles. In this part of its course
the Jordan receives two important tributaries, each of which seems to
deserve a few words.

The Jarmuk, or Sheriat-el-Mandhur, anciently the Hiero-max, drains the
water, not only from Gaulonitis or Jaulan, the country immediately east
and south-east of the sea of Tiberias, but also from almost the whole
of the Hauran. At its mouth it is 130 feet wide, and in the winter it
brings down a great body of water into the Jordan. In summer, however,
it shrinks up into an inconsiderable brook, having no more remote
sources than the perennial springs at Mazarib, Dilly, and one or