Compared with Sharon the plain of Acre is unimportant and of small
extent. It reaches about eight miles along the shore, from the foot of
Carmel to the headland on which the town of Acre stands, and has a width
between the shore and the hills of about six miles. Like Sharon it is
noted for its fertility. Watered by the two permanent streams of the
Kishon and the Belus, it possesses a rich soil, which is said to be at
present "perhaps the best cultivated and producing the most luxuriant
crops, both of corn and weeds, of any in Palestine."[110] The Kishon
waters it on the south, where it approaches Carmel, and is a broad
stream,[111] though easily fordable towards its mouth. The Belus
(Namâané) flows through it towards the north, washing Acre itself, and
is a stream of even greater volume than the Kishon, though it has but a
short course.

The third of the Phoenician plains, as we proceed from south to north,
is that of Tyre. This is a long but comparatively narrow strip, reaching
from the Ras-el-Abiad towards the south to Sarepta on the north, a
distance of about twenty miles, but in no part more than five miles
across, and generally less than two miles. It is watered about midway
by the copious stream of the Kasimiyeh or Litany, which, rising east of
Lebanon in the Buka'a or Coelesyrian valley, forces its way through the
mountain chain by a series of tremendous gorges, and debouches upon the
Tyrian lowland about three miles to the south-east of the present city,
near the modern Khan-el-Kasimiyeh, whence it flows peaceably to the sea
with many windings through a broad low tract of meadow-land. Other
rills and rivulets descending from the west flank of the great mountain
increase the productiveness of the plain, while copious fountains of
water gush forth with surprising force in places, more especially at
Ras-el-Ain, three miles from Tyre, to the south.[112] The plain is, even