Page:Syria, the land of Lebanon (1914).djvu/254

SYRIA, THE LAND OF LEBANON quite out of their element and for many square yards the water was completely hidden by the loathsome, wriggling mass.

After eight hours' drive along the valley that leads from Tripoli into the interior, a sudden turn of the road brought into full view the great plain of north-eastern Syria. We were entering this through a break in its western wall, the pass which divides Lebanon from the Nusairiyeh Range, inhabited by its cruel, half-pagan tribes. At our right, the southern margin of the plain was distinctly marked by the abrupt ending of Anti-Lebanon and of the nearer Bika'. The place where the central valley of Syria opens suddenly to the broad expanse of wheat country was known of old as the "Entering In of Hamath," and was the northernmost point to which the Kingdom of Israel ever extended. At the left, low hills rise slowly up to the horizon; in front, the plain rolls out to the unseen desert and the ruined palaces of Palmyra. [ 204 ]