Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/173

157 THE PLAIN OF BEISAN. 157

combination to secure, in the first place, protection for life and property ; and in the second place, the highest results for local industry. Looking at the grave necessity for good administration in these long-oppressed regions, and the prospect of an early application of European instrumentality for their restoration to wealth and prosperity, that shall benefit, not these regions alone, but all the hives of manufac- turing industry elsewhere ; it does not seem out of place to seize upon such an occasion as this to strike a note that may, by the providence of the Almighty, reach home in the right direction.

The water derived from the Nahr Jalud, and from numerous fountains and brooks that descend from the hills, feeds the irrigation still partially in use, as well as the marshy tracts that denote the extent of the waste enforced by Arab spoliation and Turkish oppression. From these sources several streams pass from the upper to the lower terrace, and from the latter to the Jordan in the Zor. As many as six permanent streams thus find their way to the Jordan, between Nahr Jalud and Wady Maleh. The streams descending from Jebel Fuku'a, have little room for development on the short slopes ; but where the hills encroach on the southern part of the plain, the Wady Shubash and the Wady el Khashneh, drain more important valleys. The Shubash indeed rises on the western side of Jebel Fuku'a, and cuts through the range. The Khashneh rises in Eas Ibsik (altitude 2,404 feet), and skirts the Roman road to Beisan and Nablus.

All over the upper and lower terraces of the great plain, numerous tells or mounds are distributed; they still bear distinctive names, and are the sites of former habitations, scenes of domestic happiness, and abundant wealth, that may be restored almost as rapidly as they were obliterated, when once the civilization and power of the West becomes con- scious of the connection between Oriental prosperity and that of its own manufacturing populations.

These tells probably mark the substantial and lordly centres of villages, the latter more or less extensive, and