Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/170

154 154 THE PLAINS OF THE JORDAN.

fortress which crowns the commanding summit on the south of the gorge, rising to a height of 1,850 feet above the plain, at the junction of the streams. The fortress, now in ruins and only occupied by a few poor wretches, is named Kaukab el Hawa, and was the crusader's Castle of Belvoir or Belvedere. The wady descends from Mount Tabor, about 10 miles from the mouth of the gorge, and passes through the north-eastern extremity of the Plain of Esdraelon, which is at the head of the gorge, only six miles from the Ghor or Plain of the Jordan.

Wady el 'Esh-sheh emanates from the hills on the north of Beisan, and of the Valley of Jezreel, and rises on the east of Jebel Duhy. About a mile south of its confluence with the Jordan, is the ford of 'Abarah, which Lieutenant Conder identifies with Bethabara of John i, 28.*

In this part of the Ghor, the lowest level of the Jordan Valley, in which the channel, of the river meanders, has not yet become distinctly separated from the higher plain ; but indications of such a feature begin to be displayed. Imme- diately on the south of the Nahr Jalud, this feature becomes distinct and prominent. There, the river's winding bed is sunk in a deep flat of varying breadth, called the Zor, which is enclosed between steep and sometimes perpendicular banks, as much as 150 feet in height, if not more, on the western side, to which the limits of the Survey confine these remarks ; the river occasionally washes the foot of the high bank, and elsewhere it is as much as a mile away, and repeatedly half a mile, the low flat of the Zor taking its place. This precipi- tous bank is the limit of the plain, that extends from the top of it to the foot of the mountains. It is this upper plain that is called the Ghor, in distinction from the bottom flat or Zor. Commonly the whole valley, from the Lake of Tiberias to its southern end, bears the Arabic name of el Ghor, or the depression. The distinction between the Ghor (pronounced Eor) and the Zor, was explained by Lieutenant (now Colonel) Charles Warren, in "Notes on the Jordan Valley," dated 21st October, 1868. It is also attested by former travellers.


 * " Tent Work," ii, 64.