Page:Harry Charles Luke and Edward Keith-Roach - The Handbook of Palestine (1922).djvu/22

Rh The Plateau Region.—The plateau region is divided by the Plain of Esdraelon into two sections, the hill country of Galilee to the north and the hill country of Samaria and Judæa to the south.

At the southern end of the hills of Galilee rises Mount Tabor (1,845 ft.). The range becomes continuous and increases in height in the neighbourhood of Safed. The highest points of the range are Jermuk (3,934 ft.) and Jebel Heider (3,440 ft.).

The principal highlands of Samaria lie near the watershed between the Mediterranean and the Jordan. The highest points are Mount Ebal (3,077 ft.) and Mount Gerizim (2,849 ft.) near Nablus, and Tel Asur (3,318 ft.) further south. On the eastern side of the watershed the most important feature is the system of deep parallel valleys running from the plain south of Nablus into the Jordan Valley.

The plateau of Judæa takes the form of a long zig-zag central spine which throws out a series of steep spurs to east and west. South of Hebron the range becomes lower and finally loses itself in the desert. On the western side of the watershed the plateau of Judæa extends about halfway to the sea, broken by deep valleys. On the east side it descends abruptly within 20 miles from a maximum of over 3,000 feet above sea-level to 1,300 feet below sea-level to the Lower Jordan and the Dead Sea. The slopes are mere rocky wastes, almost without vegetation and water, inhabited only by a few Beduin and hermits. They descend in a series of terraces sometimes terminating in walls of cliff, such as the Mount of Temptation above Jericho, and are deeply seamed by profound cañons such as Mar Saba and the Wadi Qelt.

The Desert.—The desert country is, roughly speaking, a rectangle, of which the corners are Gaza, Beersheba, Rafa and al-Auja. East and south-east of this rectangle is a broken mountainous region fallipg to the east in a series of terraced escarpments to the Wadi Araba and the depression at the southern extremity of the Dead Sea. Farther south and east are the deserts of Sinai and Northern Arabia.