Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/127

111 WADY HUSASAH. Ill

" Land of Israel/' 293),under the name of Wady el Areijeh,that name is however not even retained throughout the great chasm by which the main Wady descends from the upland to the sea, the upper part of the chasm being called Wady el Kelb.

Tlie Minor Basins.

The distance between the outfalls of Derajeh and Areijeh is about seven miles. The interval is occupied by the secon- dary basins of Wady Husasah, Wady esh Shukf, Wady Sideir, and a smaller one not named but delineated in the Survey, and called Wady Marjari in Canon Tristram's survey of the Dead Sea. See Map in Tristram's " Land of Israel."

Wady Husasah (Robinson, "Bib. Res." i, 527) rises within four miles on the south of Kh. Tekua, on the southern water- parting of the Derajeh basin; which, as it runs eastward through Bir 'Alia, and onwards as before described, forms the northern edge of the Husasah basin. On the west the waterparting runs southward, and hugs the precipitous gorge of Wady el Jihar and its continuation as Wady el Ghar, as far as the straight ridge of Sahlet el Muhteirdeh, from which the boundary of this basin makes a sharp bend to the north- east, and again to the south-east, and again to the north-east, around the heads of the Wady el Mukeiberah, and so on to the cliffs at Abu el Rebaa, and the Dead Sea.

At the head of the Husasah are four wadys, spread out over an area of three miles by two, and uniting at Bir Sukei- riyeh and el Megheidhat, where the altitude is 1,406 feet. These are surrounded by the waterparting on the north and west, and by an offset or spur from it on the south-east; which also throws off five branch wadys to the Husasah, from its outer or south-eastern slope ; the southernmost being also the recipient of branches derived from the greater part of the southern edge of the basin. The outlet of this upper plateau through the hills is below the junction of the wadys, where also three tracks meet from the north, south, and east ; the passage westward being barred by the chasm of Wady el Jihar, in the next basin. The Husasah makes bold sweeps to the north-east and south-east, in crossing its lower but