which are widened year by year by the down-rush of torrents. These
ridges, as they proceed southwards, become clothed with verdure and
offer a more varied outline, the ravines being more thickly wooded, and
the summits less uniform in contour and colouring. Lebanon becomes white
and ice-crowned in winter, but none of its peaks rises to the altitude
of perpetual snows: the highest of them, Mount Timarun, reaches 10,526
feet, while only three others exceed 9000.* Anti-Lebanon is, speaking
generally, 1000 or 1300 feet lower than its neighbour: it becomes
higher, however, towards the south, where the triple peak of Mount
Hermon rises to a height of 9184 feet. The Orontes and the Litâny drain
the intermediate space. The Orontes rising on the west side of the
Anti-Lebanon, near the ruins of Baalbek, rushes northwards in such a
violent manner, that the dwellers on its banks call it the rebel--Nahr
el-Asi.** About a third of the way towards its mouth it enters a
depression, which ancient dykes help to transform into a lake; it flows
thence, almost parallel to the sea-coast, as far as the 36th degree of
latitude. There it meets the last spurs of the Amanos, but, failing to
cut its way through them, it turns abruptly to the west, and then to the
south, falling into the Mediterranean after having received an increase
to its volume from the waters of the Afrîn.

* Bukton-Drake, Unexplored Syria, vol. i. p. 88, attributed
to it an altitude of 9175 English feet; others estimate it
at 10,539 feet. The mountains which exceed 3000 metres are
Dahr el-Kozîb, 3046 metres; Jebel-Mislriyah, 3080 metres;
and Jebel-Makhmal or Makmal, 3040 metres. As a matter of
fact, these heights are not yet determined with the accuracy
desirable.

** The Egyptians knew it in early times by the name of