THE LEFT-HAND LAND
fifty miles. It is a long, narrow country. At the west is the Mediterranean; at the east is the Syrian Desert; within these boundaries, the width is never more than fifty miles.
The wealth and power of Syria have always been found in its southern half—the country of Lebanon. Here the mountains are divided into two parallel ranges by the long valley which the Greeks called "Hollow Syria." Between this valley and the Mediterranean is Lebanon; between the valley and the desert is the twin range of Anti-Lebanon.[1] The western mountains rise gradually toward their northern end, where they attain an elevation of over 11,000 feet. The eastern chain, however, reaches its culmination in its southernmost peak, Mount Hermon, which is 9,000 feet above the sea. On the coastal plain beside Lebanon lie the ancient cities of Tyre, Sidon and Byblos and the modern ports of Beirut and Tripoli. On a peninsula of fertility watered by the streams of Anti-Lebanon, Damascus stands between the mountains and the desert. The rest of Syria is made up of lofty summits, rocky gorges resounding with the tumult of cave-born torrents, high wind-swept pasture lands and broad, fertile valleys slanting up between the mountains.
The lovelorn Syrian does not sing dolefully of a sweetheart who "lies over the ocean." To him the typical barrier is not the sea. Beni ubenik ej-jebel
- ↑ See map, page 62, and cross-section, page 64.
