Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/208

192 192 THE MOUNTAINS OF UPPER GALILEE.

becomes a deep and rocky chasm, with branches of the same character.

Between Eas el Bedendy and Jebel Jumleh, the range crosses the Hubeishiyeh basin, and sends off from Kh. el Yadhun, the spur which has upon it the Crusaders' castle of Tibnin or Toron. This spur lies between two curious divisions of the Hubeishiyeh basin. The uppermost is the heacl of the basin. It is nearly four miles long by two miles broad, and slopes from the south-east towards tl^e base of the Tibnin spur, along which a wady runs to the north-east, and receives several streams from the south-eastern slope. At the north-east comer, the wady discharges the drainage of this enclosed plateau, by passing round the end of the Tibnin spur, and then entering the south-east corner of a similarly enclosed plateau, it skirts the spur along its north-western ba.se, in the reverse direction to its previous course on the other side. The wady is turned abruptly frqm the spur in a northerly direction by the range between Yadhun and Jumleh, which crosses the eastern part of this plateau obliquely. The wady intersects the range, and bein,g then diverted to the westward by a parallel range, takes the name of Wady el Ma, and reaches tfye north-western corner of the plateau, where it receives a tributary from the higher western range, and leaves the plateau, proceeding on a north-westerly course to the sea. In this direction it keeps close along the southern boundary of the basin, and receives all its affluents from the triangular slope between it, the north-western side of the hills enclosing the Wady el Ma, and the spur despendr ing from Jebel Jumleh through Teir Zinbeh, Siiah, and Mahrakah. This spur separates the northern and southern divisions of the Hubeishiyeh basin. The inain channel of the northern division of this basin, called Wady Humraniyeh towards its outlet, also hugs its southern limit in tjie same way, and receives nearly all its affluents from the north, where the waterparting divides the basin from that o,f the Kasimiyeh. There are three of these affluents, rising in succession, and running at first in the same line, parallel with the main