Page:An Introduction to the Survey of Western Palestine.djvu/249

233 THE JERUSALEM GROUP. 233

extent, is the waterparting of the Eubin Basin, from Bireh to Earn Allah ; or it may be confined to the foot of the slope descending southward from that eminence. Its southern edge has been already described in page 43, on the authority of Dr. Eobinson. But it seems preferable for the present purpose to take a larger view of the subject, and to connect with the Plain of el Jib, the ground on the west of Jeru- salem, and also the Plain of Eephaim, called on the survey, el Bukei'a, which lies on the south-west of the city. The whole may come under the general denomination of the Western Plateau of Jerusalem. There is an Eastern Plateau adjoining on the Jordan watershed.

The group of the Judaean Hills now under notice, is limited on the south by another group, named the Shephelah in the Bible, and corresponding in extent with ancient Philistia. The low hills of the present group are of a similar character to the Shephelah, and adjoin that tract ; but they are clearly related to the Plain of Sharon, while the hills of the Shephelah terminate in the range including Surar and Abu Shusheh, and dividing Sharon from Philistia. The towns of the Shephelah and Philistia named in the Bible, so far as they have been discovered, all lie to the south of the Plain of Sharon, which does not extend southward beyond the basin of Nahr el 'Auja, including the valleys which pass to the plain by Eamleh and Ludd. The dividing line between this mountain group and the Shephelah, is therefore traced along the watercourses which pass south-eastward from Eamleh by el Kubab and south of Latron, to the waterparting on the north of Eshua, and then by the water- course which passes Eshua, to Wady es Surar. Here the borders of the Shephelah are left, and Wady es Surar is ascended as far as its confluence with Wady es Sikreh, when the latter is followed upwards to the junction of Wady Ahmed, which is next ascended up to the Jordan waterparting on the west of Bethlehem. On the east of the waterparting, the dividing line is laid along the wady named et Tahuneh, Fureidis, Khu- reitun, el Mu'allak, and ed Derajeh, to the Dead Sea.