Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/107

91 WADY EL KELT. 91

makes another sweep north-east and south-east to Khan Hathrurah on the Jerusalem-Jericho road ; then advances by Talat ed Dumm to Kh. el Mestrab, and continues along the ridge between Wady el Kelt and Wady Talat ed Dumm, descending to the Ghor between Khaur Abu Dhahy and Khaur et Tumrar, passing south of Ain Hajlah and reaching the Jordan at the Pilgrims' Bathing place or Makhadet Hajlah.

At the western margin of the basin, its width is about nine miles. Where the head waters descending from it unite, at the confluence of Wady Suweinit from the north-west, with Wady Farah from the south-west, the width of the basin contracts to three or four miles. At the foot of the cliffs that form the base of the mountains in the plain of Jericho, the width is about two miles and a half, and in the eastern part of the Ghor it is about a mile. The length reckoned from Bethel to the Jordan is about twenty-three miles, or nineteen miles direct from Tell el Ful. The Kelt is the southernmost affluent of the Jordan from the west.

The Watercourses of Wady el Kelt.

The watercourses rising on the margin of the broad head of the basin are divided into two parts. The northern part contributes to Wady Suweinit, and the southern to Wady Farah. These unite in the -Wady Kelt, about midway between the western waterparting and the foot of the mountains.

The most northerly sources of the Suweinit are two brooks on the south of Bethel, which soon unite at the foot of Kh. Ibn Barak, where a third also falls in from the north of Bireh. From the junction, the wady runs south-eastward, till it joins another wady on the east of Burkah, coming from the north. This wady from the north, is the recipient of three parallel branches also running south-eastward, which rise on the south side of the road along the waterparting between Bethel (alt. 2,880 feet) and Deir Duwan or Diwan (alt. 2,370 feet). These branches are divided by spurs from