ning nearly parallel through a morass. The eastern one gushes from the rocky cavern of Banias, at the base of Mount Hermon. This is the Jordan.* The crystal waters flow from the cave still dignified by the name of a heathen deity, (Pan,) to whom the fountain was consecrated in the time of the Romans, and whose memorials may still be traced on the impending cliffs.

From the Huleh, which is the Merom of the Bible, the Jordan runs southward about seven miles, and then expands into the Lake Gennesareth, which is about twelve miles long by six or seven broad. Its clear, sweet waters lie deeply sunken amid the surrounding limestone mountains, every one of which was hallowed by the presence and gaze of our Saviour. Let us sail slowly over this Sea of Galilee, the chief scene of the miracles and ministry of Jesus. Far to the north, we see the summit of the snowy Hermon leaning high up against the azure sky. Close at hand, a little to the west of north, the white and sacred city of Safed impends high over the sea. To it, probably, our Saviour pointed when he said, "Ye are as a city set upon a hill, which cannot be hid." The cone-like summit of Mount Tabor, on which our Lord is supposed to have been transfigured, is seen to the south-west, peering above the subordinate hills, and commanding a view of Gilboa and the fountain of Jezreel; to the west, looking immediately down into the lake, we see the Mount of Beatitudes, where Jesus taught in a sermon the essence of his holy religion. As we sail slowly around the shores, we behold the ruins of Bethsaida, Capernaum, and Chorazin crumbling in the deep shadows of the overhanging mountains, amid whose desolate gorges and cliffs we seem still to hear the terrible words of Jesus: "Wo unto thee, Chorazin! wo unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which have been done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have remained unto this day. Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for you."

But we must not linger upon this beautiful sheet of water, amid these absorbing associations. We must drift southward to the outlet of the Jordan, and follow its course, led, we believe, by the only sure guide known to Christendom; we mean the narrative of Capt. Lynch, of the United States Navy, who commanded the expedition to explore the Jordan and the Dead Sea, under the authority of the late national administration. The only official, and therefore only authentic narrative of this very remarkable and important expedi

* Commander Lynch considers the larger and more copious stream to the west the Jordan. In this respect they are like the Mississippi and Missouri: the shortest bears away the palm.

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tion, is that named at the head of this article. It is not only a valuable contribution to Biblical knowledge and the cause of science, but it is also a book of great interest, fraught with thrilling passages of personal dangers, and abounding in picturesque and striking description.

On the 10th of April, Lieut. Lynch and his party, in two boats belonging to the ships which had been left at Acre, and one small frail craft purchased at Tiberias, passed from the Sea of Galilee into the Jordan. At first the river was three-quarters of a mile wide, with a sloping and undulating country on the west, and the eastern bank broken up into gullies and alluvial hills. In an hour it narrowed to seventy-five feet, banks thirty feet high, and rising and retiring away to the mountains which border the valley of the Jordan on either side. On both sides of the river, the banks and hills were covered with grass and a profusion of wild flowers, among which were the lily, anemone, oleander, and marigold. The water was clear, and from eight to ten feet deep. Scarcely were our travellers satisfied in gazing on this sweet scene, when they heard the roar of a cataract; and in a few minutes they saw, with astonishment and dismay, the waters rushing and leaping headlong down the narrow rocky channel. During their seven days' voyage on the Jordan, they encountered more than a score of these dangerous cataracts; and that the reader may have an idea of them, I give the author's description of the descent of one or two:

"We halted at the ruins of an old bridge, now forming obstructions, over which the foaming river rushed like a mountain torrent. The river was about thirty yards wide. Soon after we halted, the boats hove in sight around a bend of the river. See! the Fanny Mason attempts to shoot between two old piers! she strikes upon a rock! she broaches to! she is in imminent danger! down comes the Uncle Sam upon her! now they are free! the Fanny Skinner follows safely, and all are moored in the cove below!"

Scarcely had they recovered from the excitement and fatigue of this first descent, when, the Lieutenant records,

"The current at first about two and a half knots, but increasing as we descended, until at 8.20 we came to where the river, for more than three hundred yards, was one foaming rapid; the fishing-weirs and the ruins of another ancient bridge obstructing the passage. There were cultivated fields on both sides. Took everything out of the boats, sent the men overboard to swim alongside and guide them, and shot them successively down the first rapid. The water was fortunately very deep to the first fall, where it precipitated itself over a ledge of rocks. The river becoming more shallow, we opened a channel by removing large stones, and as the current was now excessively rapid, we pulled well out into the stream, bows up, let go a grapnel, and eased each boat down in succession. Below us were yet five successive falls, about eighteen feet in all, with rapids between, a perfect breakdown in the bed of the river. It was very evident that the boats could not descend them."

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By clearing out a side canal, which had been cut to conduct the water to a mill now in ruins, the boats were brought below the worst part of the rapids; and by making a breach in the canal, so as to let the water flow into the river, they were again launched on the current. In this way the party cleared three successive cataracts. Others they descended by fastening ropes to bushes on the banks, and thus easing the boats in their descent.

Capt. Lynch describes the Jordan as a very tortuous river, (as will be seen by the sketch from his chart on the next page,) measuring at least two hundred miles by its channel from the Sea of Galilee to the Dead Sea, while it is only sixty miles in a straight line. It flows in a deep bed, in some places from thirty to forty yards wide, and in some two hundred. When narrow, the depth was from five to eight feet in the middle of April, and the current from four to six miles an hour; when wide, from two to three feet deep, and from two and a half to three and a half miles an hour. In the wide portions of the river there are many little islands, some of them thickly covered with shrubs, reeds, canes, and wild flowers; others only sand-bars. The banks are generally steep, often perpendicular, composed of loam, clay, and limestone, and from twelve to thirty, and even fifty feet in height. The loam, clay, and gravel, in the form of alluvial deposits, increase as the river advances to the Dead Sea, and accordingly the water becomes more and more discoloured. During the first and second day's descent it was clear, then became milky, and finally turbid. From the bluff banks which border the stream, a fertile lower or second bottom, in some portions quite level, in others rolling and filled with low hills and shallow gullies, extends on each side to a second plain, much higher, and which is much wider, more hilly, and less fertile, and extends back to the mountains which enclose the valley of the Jordan. The upper portions of the valley, say for twenty miles from the Lake of Gennesareth, is wider, and the hills and mountains lower and more fertile. Descending southward, the valley narrows, the second bottom or plateau becomes lower and lower, the hills and mountains increase in elevation and are more sterile and forbidding, being composed chiefly of volcanic rocks; the temperature increases, and vegetation becomes more tropical in its character. The valley on the west side is narrower and more sterile and broken, and bounded by higher and gloomier mountains than on the east; and yet the whole plain of the Jordan is naturally fertile, and was populous and powerful not only under the Romans, but also under the Mohammedans, both of whom have left the evidences of their presence and power in the ruined bridges, dilapidated mills, and crumbling khans which are everywhere found in the valley, espe

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cially in the upper portion. Our travellers frequently found the upper plains covered with grass and wild flowers. The narrow lower bottoms, dipping to the water, were covered with thickets, in which the willow, the acacia, and some other trees mingle, rising above the almost impenetrable jungle of undergrowth, composed of grasses, flowers, vines, and canes. These thickets mingle with the water, and abound with birds of varied and beautiful plumage, and with wild beasts, among which are the tiger and the boar. The lion also perhaps, yet lies down, as in ancient days, by the margin of the consecrated Jordan.

Commander Lynch does not discuss the "swellings of Jordan," but incidentally mentions that drift-wood was lodged so high up in the trees that border the water, as to leave no doubt but that it overflows the secondary, or lower bottom. Between the 10th and 17th of April, he observed that during one day the river fell two feet, and he found it necessary to hasten his voyage, lest there should not be water enough to float the boats over the cataracts.

The tributaries to the Jordan are inconsiderable. With the exception of the Yarmakh and the Jabok, there were in April only occasional rills reaching the river. The Yarmakh is described as entering the Jordan on the east, about four miles, in a straight line, below Lake Gennesareth. It rises in the Hauran Mountains, (the Bashan of Scripture,) and at its mouth is as wide and as deep as the Jordan. ("Forty yards wide, with moderate current."-P. 191.) The author says the mouth of the Jabok is not correctly laid down in the maps. He places it only twelve miles north of the Dead Sea, while the maps place it thirty-five. He says it is "a small stream trickling down a deep and wide torrent bed; water sweet; is incorrectly placed upon the maps."-P. 253. As the eastern portion of the valley is wider, and the mountains farther removed and more broken and fertile, the principal tributaries to the river flow from the east, as the Yarmakh and the Jabok; while on the west only little rills or rattling rivulets descend from the nearer, sterner, and steeper mountains. This is the case also, as we shall see, in respect to the Dead Sea.

The inhabitants on either bank are Bedouin Arabs, who live in black hair or skin tents, and subsist upon the produce of their scanty flocks. They are not numerous, but of the fiercest and most savage character, often plundering each other, and making incursions into the cultivated portions of the Holy Land. They are divided into tribes, each having its territory, which sometimes occupies both sides of the river. The tribes are small, the largest mustering not more than five hundred warriors, and others fifty. The men scorn