Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time by Michael Russell
page 27 of 387 (06%)
Gaulonitis, consisting of one extensive and noble plain, bounded on the
north by Hermon or Djibel-el-Sheik, on the south-west by Djibel-Edjlan,
and on the east by Haouran. In all these countries there is not a single
stream which retains its water in summer. The most of the villages have
their pond or reservoir, which they fill from one of the wadi, or brooks,
during the rainy season. Of all these districts, Haouran is the most
celebrated for the culture of wheat. Nothing can exceed in grandeur the
extensive undulations of their fields, moving like the waves of the ocean
in the wind. Bothin or Batanea, on the other hand, contains nothing except
calcareous mountains, where there are vast caverns, in which the Arabian
shepherds live like the ancient Troglodytes. Here a modern traveller, Dr.
Seetzen, discovered, in the year 1816, the magnificent ruins of Gerasa,
now called Djerash, where three temples, two superb amphitheatres of
marble, and hundreds of columns still remain among other monuments of
Roman power. But by far the finest thing that he saw was a long street,
bordered on each side with a splendid colonnade of Corinthian
architecture, and terminating in an open space of a semicircular form,
surrounded with sixty Ionic pillars. In the same neighbourhood the ancient
Gilead is distinguished by a forest of stately oaks, which supply wealth
and employment to the inhabitants. Peraea presents on its numerous
terraces a mixture of vines, olives, and pomegranates. Karak-Moab, the
capital of a district corresponding to that of the primitive Moabites,
still meets the eye, but is not to be confounded with another town of a
similar name in the Stony Arabia.[8]

The countries now described lie on the eastern side of the river Jordan.
But the same stream, in the upper part of its course, forms the boundary
between Gaulonitis and the fertile Galilee, which is identical with the
modern district of Szaffad. This town, which is remarkable for the beauty
of its situation amid groves of myrtle, is supposed to be the ancient
DigitalOcean Referral Badge