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

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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.[1] 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.

  1. Many eminent scholars, however, follow Edward Robinson (Biblical Researches, III. 568) in identifying the "Entering In of Hamath" (Judges 3:3, I Kings 8:65, etc.), not with the northern end of the Bika', but with the east-and-west valley between the Lebanon and Nusairiyeh ranges, through which we have just come. While I incline more and more toward the view given in the text above, the question must be decided by one's feeling as to which would be the more striking and appropriate landmark, rather than by any direct evidence. The territory included would be practically the same in either case.

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