Title | Picturesque Palestine, Sinai, and Egypt, Vol. 2 |
Creator (LCNAF) |
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Publisher | D. Appleton and Company |
Date | 1883 |
Description | Index: Phoenicia and Lebanon / by the Rev. H. W. Jessup -- The Phoenician plain / by the Rev. Canon Tristram -- Acre, the key of Palestine, Mount Carmel and the river Kishon, Maritime cities and plains of Palestine / by Miss M. E. Rogers -- Lydda and Ramleh, Philistia / By Lt. Col. Warren -- The south country of Judaea / by the Rev. Canon Tristram -- The southern borderland and Dead Sea / by Professor Palmer -- Mount Hor and the cliffs of Edom, The convent of St. Catherine / by Miss M. E. Rogers -- Sinai / by the Rev. C. P. Clarke -- The land of Goshen, Cairo, Memphis, Thebes, Edfu and Philae / by S. Lane-Poole. |
Subject.Geographic (TGN) |
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Genre (AAT) |
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Language | English |
Type (DCMI) |
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Original Item Location | DS107 .W73 v.2 |
Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b1703789~S11 |
Digital Collection | Exotic Impressions: Views of Foreign Lands |
Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/exotic |
Repository | Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room, William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library, University of Houston Libraries |
Repository URL | http://info.lib.uh.edu/about/campus-libraries-collections/william-r-jenkins-architecture-art-library |
Use and Reproduction | No Copyright - United States |
Identifier | exotic_201304_015 |
Title | Page 126 |
Format (IMT) |
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File Name | exotic_201304_015_144.jpg |
Transcript | MP"*** 126 PICTURESQUE PALESTINE. " Now the younger son was industrious and prudent, and his wealth increased preatlv The elder one was profligate and idle, and he became poor. In his poverty he looked with jealous anger on the rich flocks and herds of his brother, and considered in his heart how he might destroy them. He journeyed to Egypt, and thence brought some young crocodiles and having secretly placed them in the river, he went to a distant country. His hope was that his brother's flocks would be devoured on going to drink, or while feeding on the banks. He did not know that his brother, having been warned of coming danger in a dream, no longer watered his flocks there. " Now after a time the elder brother returned to this place, and he went down to the riverside to wash his feet, without taking thought of the danger which he in his wickedness had spread there. The crocodiles swiftly approached him, and seized upon him and destroyed him. Such was the will of God, and thus the wicked fall into the nets which they spread for their neighbours." Stories or fables of this kind are often very appositely introduced in ordinary conversation, to point a moral or give force to an argument, or to administer an indirect rebuke to a superior. The versions of such stories naturally vary slightly according to the circumstances under which they are related. It is probable that the ancient city called Crocodilon was situated near to the Nahr ez Zerka. Strabo, who died in a.d. 24, speaks of it as one of the many cities of the coast of Palestine which in his time existed only in name. From the Nahr ez Zerka the Plain of Sharon extends southwards to the Nahr er Rubin, a distance of forty-four miles (see map). The northern section between Nahr ez Zerka and Nahr Iskanderuneh, nine miles from north to south, averages eight miles in width : the greater part of it is either marshy or encumbered with drifting sand dunes. It is a district of deserted ruins, and is haunted by the Bedawin, who occasionally cultivate some patches of land here, and reap scanty crops of wheat and barley (see page 111). This desolate-looking region, however, includes a winding water-course called Nahr Mefjir, to the north of which there is an oak forest nearly nine miles in circumference, near to the eastern hills, which are bordered by a strip of rich alluvial soil. Here there are a few insignificant villages, with small plots of cultivated land around them. Groups of sarcophagi and mounds of ruins, representing ancient towns or comparatively modern villages, are numerous; and by the seashore, midway between the Nahr ez Zerka and the Nahr Mefjir, a vast expanse of ground is covered with the almost indistinguishable debris of Herod's once-splendid city of Caesarea Sebaste, so named in honour of Augustus; and within this area, in a central position close to the seashore (occupying, however, only about one-tenth of the space included within the walls of the Roman city), stand the ruins of the Crusading city which succeeded it. C/ESarea Sebaste was built on the site of a place called Strato's Tower, and As minutely described by Josephus. It was planned and completed by King Herod the Great within the |