eamed with tortuous valleys which
open out to the Euphrates, the Orontes, or the desert. Vast, slightly
undulating plains succeed the table-lands: the soil is dry and stony,
the streams are few in number and contain but little water. The Sajur
flows into the Euphrates, the Afrin and the Karasu when united yield
their tribute to the Orontes, while the others for the most part pour
their waters into enclosed basins. The Khalus of the Greeks sluggishly
pursues its course southward, and after reluctantly leaving the gardens
of Aleppo, finally loses itself on the borders of the desert in a small
salt lake full of islets: about halfway between the Khalus and the
Euphrates a second salt lake receives the Nahr ed-Dahab, the "golden
river." The climate is mild, and the temperature tolerably uniform. The
sea-breeze which rises every afternoon tempers the summer heat: the
cold in winter is never piercing, except when the south wind blows which
comes from the mountains, and the snow rarely lies on the ground for
more than twenty-four hours. It seldom rains during the autumn and
winter months, but frequent showers fall in the early days of spring.
Vegetation then awakes again, and the soil lends itself to cultivation
in the hollows of the valleys and on the table-lands wherever
irrigation is possible. The ancients dotted these now all but desert
spaces with wells and cisterns; they intersected them with canals,
and covered them with farms and villages, with fortresses and populous
cities. Primaeval forests clothed the slopes of the Amanos, and pinewood
from this region was famous both at Babylon and in the towns of Lower
Chaldaea. The plains produced barley and wheat in enormous quantities,
the vine throve there, the gardens teemed with flowers and fruit, and
pistachio and olive trees grew on every slope. The desert was always
threatening to invade the plain, and gained rapidly upon it whenever
a prolonged war disturbed cultivation, or when the negligence of the
inhabitants slackened the work of defence: beyond the lakes and salt
marshes it had obtained a secure hold. At the present time the greater
part of the country between the Orontes and the Euphrates is nothing
but a rocky table-land, ridged with low hills and dotted over with some
impoverished oases, excepting at the foot of Anti-Lebanon, where two
rivers, fed by innumerable streams, have served to create a garden of
marvellous beauty. The Barada, dashing from cascade to cascad