The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Abanah

ABANAH, ä-bä′nä, or AMANAH (Gr. Chrysorrhoas, now Baradá, “The cold”), one of the two famous “rivers of Damascus” mentioned in the Scripture: rising in the heart of the Anti-Lebanon, it flows through a narrow gorge and spreads fan-wise through the Damascus oasis, irrigating the land and supplying the city, by the canals or “rivers,” with its clear sparkling water, so greatly superior to the Jordan in beauty that Naaman's question is quite intelligible.