OUTLET OF JORDAN-BABEER CANE.

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boat is ever seen on the tranquil bosom of the Hûleh-no hunter disturbs them here. The plain down to the exit of the Jordan is level as a floor, and much of it is carpeted with the softest, richest sward in all the East. One feels tempted to leap from the saddle, and gambol and roll about on it like a little child. The lake ends in a triangular marsh, the largest part of which is on the eastern bank of the river. It is an impenetrable jungle of ordinary cane, mingled with that peculiar kind called babeer, from whose stems the Arabs make coarse mats for the walls and roofs of their huts. This cane is the prominent and distinctive production of these marshes, both at the north and south end of the lake. I have seen it also on the banks of brooks in the plain of Sharon, north of Jaffa. The stalk is not round, but triangular. It grows eight or ten feet high, and ends above in a wide-spreading tuft of stems like broomcorn, shooting out in every direction with surprising regularity and beauty. It imparts a singular appearance to the whole marsh, as if ten thousand thousand brooms were waying over it. Through this jungle the Jordan creeps slug

gishly for half a mile, and then glides tranquilly between green sloping banks for another mile to Jisr Benat Yacobe. Thence it commences its headlong race over basaltic rocks down to the Lake of Tiberias, a distance of about six miles,

and the descent, according to my aneroid, is ten hundred and fifty feet. Of course, it is a continued repetition of roaring rapids and leaping cataracts. I once rode, walked, and scrambled from the bridge down to the entrance into the lake-a wild, stern gorge, fit haunt for robbers, from whom it is never free.

The bridge is concealed from our view by that projecting hill on the south corner of this plain. It is not ancient -at least not in its present form-but is a very substantial affair, having three broad arches. A guard is always stationed at it, and a few Arabs generally pitch their tents near, to profit from the passing traveler by selling eggs and lebn, and by pilfering, as occasion offers. On the east of the bridge are the remains of an old khan, with a beautiful cisItern of well-cut stone in the centre of the court. It had handsome basaltic columns at the corners, and was supplied with water by a canal from the mountains above. The whole road from the bridge to the khan, and thence up the eastern mountain, was once paved with large basaltic slabs. The road from Jerusalem to Damascus passes up it and out on to the wild rocky region of the Jaulan.

HULEH-HUNTING GROUND.

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About a quarter of a mile south of the bridge are the ruins of a large castle, called now Kusr 'Atra. It is on the west bank, and was evidently built to command the ford at that place and above it.

This Hûleh-plain, marsh, lake, and surrounding mountains-is the finest hunting-ground in Syria, and mainly so because it is very rarely visited. Panthers and leopards, bears and wolves, jackals, hyenas and foxes, and many other animals are found, great and small, while it is the very paradise of the wild boar and the fleet gazelle. As to water-fowl, it is scarcely an exaggeration to affirm that the lower end of the lake is absolutely covered with them in the winter and spring. Here only have I seen the pelican

PELICAN.

of the wilderness, as Da

vid calls it. I once had one of them shot just be low this place, and, as it was merely wounded in the wing, I had a good opportunity to study its character. It was certainly the most sombre, austere bird I ever saw. It gave one the blues merely to look at it. David could find no more expressive type of solitude and melancholy by which to illustrate his own sad state. It seem

ed as large as a half-grown donkey, and when fairly settled on its stout legs, it looked like one. The pelican is never seen but in these unfrequented solitudes, and to this agree all the references to it in the Bible. It is sometimes called cormorant in our English translation.2

There is an easy ascent to Safed from this plain of el Kheît. It is half an hour to a large winter torrent called 2 Is. xxxiv. 11; Zeph. ii. 14.

1 Ps. cii. 6.