ulminating in the lofty
peaks and precipitous ravines of Mount Hermon (9383 feet above the level
of the sea), while Lebanon runs southward till it juts out into the sea
in its sacred headland of Carmel. The fertile plain of Esdraelon or
Megiddo separates the mountains of the north from those of the south.
These last form a broken plateau between the Jordan and the Dead Sea on
the one side and the Plain of Sharon and the sea-coast of the
Philistines on the other, until they finally slope away into the arid
desert of the south. Here, on the borders of the wilderness, was
Beersheba the southern limit of the land in the days of the monarchy,
Dan, its northern limit, lying far away to the north at the foot of
Hermon, and not far from the sources of the Jordan.

Granite and gneiss, overlaid with hard dark sandstone and masses of
secondary limestone, form as it were the skeleton of the country. Here
and there, at Carmel and Gerizim, patches of the tertiary nummulite of
Egypt make their appearance, and in the plains of Megiddo and the coast,
as well as in the "Ghor" or valley of the Jordan, there is rich alluvial
soil. But elsewhere all is barren or nearly so, cultivation being
possible only by terracing the cliffs, and bringing the soil up to them
from the plains below with slow and painful labour. It has often been
said that Palestine was more widely cultivated in ancient times than it
is to-day. But if so, this was only because a larger area of the
cultivable ground was tilled. The plains of the coast, which are now
given over to malaria and Beduin thieves, were doubtless thickly
populated and well sown. But of ground actually fit for cultivation
there could not have been a larger amount than there is at present.

It was not in any way a well-wooded land. On the slopes of the Lebanon
and of Carmel, it is true, there were forests of cedar-trees, a few of
which still survive, and the Assyrian kings more than once speak of
cutting them down or using them in their buildings at Nineveh. But south
of the Lebanon forest trees were scarce; the terebinth was so unfamiliar
a sight in the landscape as to become an object of worship or a
road-side mark. Even the palm grew only on the sea-coast or in the
valley of the Jordan, and the tamarisk and sycamore were hardly more
than shrubs.

Nevertheless when the Israelites first entered Canaan, it was in truth a
land "flowing with milk and honey." Goats abounded on the hills, and the
bee o