xtent, uncertain; but
it is probably not much less than 700 feet. Now, as formerly, the lake
produces an abundance of fish, which are pronounced, by those who have
partaken of them, to be "delicious."

Nine miles above the Sea of Tiberias, on the course of the same stream,
is the far smaller basin known now as the Bahr-el Huleh, and anciently
(perhaps) as Merom. This is a mountain tarn, varying in size as the
season is wet or dry, but never apparently more than about seven miles
long, by five or six broad. It is situated at the lower extremity of
the plain called Huleh, and is almost entirely surrounded by flat marshy
ground, thickly set with reeds and canes, which make the lake itself
almost unapproachable. The depth of the Huleh is not known. It is a
favorite resort of aquatic birds, and is said to contain an abundant
supply of fish.

The Bahr-el-Kades, or Lake of Hems, lies on the course of the Orontes,
about 139 miles N.N.E. of Merom, and nearly the same distance south of
the Lake of Antioch. It is a small sheet of water, not more than six
or eight miles long, and only two or three wide, running in the same
direction with the course of the river, which here turns from north to
north-east. According to Abulfeda and some other writers, it is mainly,
if not wholly, artificial, owing its origin to a dam or embankment
across the stream, which is from four to five hundred yards in
length, and about twelve or fourteen feet high. In Abulfeda's time the
construction of the embankment was ascribed to Alexander the Great, and
the lake consequently was not regarded as having had any existence in
Babylonian times; but traditions of this kind are little to be trusted,
and it is quite possible that the work above mentioned, constructed
apparently with a view to irrigation, may really belong to a very much
earlier age.

Finally, in Northern Syria, 115 miles north of the Bahr-el-Kades, and
about 60 miles N.W.W. of the Bahr-el-Melak, is the Bahr-el-Abyad (White
Lake), or Sea of Antioch. [PLATE. VIII., Fig. 1.] This sheet of water
is a parallelogram, the angles of which face the cardinal points: in its
greater diameter it extends somewhat more than ten miles, while it
is about seven miles across. Its depth on the western side, where it
approaches the mountains, is six or eight feet; but elsewhere it is
generally more shallow, not exceeding three or four feet. It lies in a
marshy plain called El-Umk, and is thickly fringed with reed