University of Houston, 4333 University Drive, Houston TX 77204-2000, (713) 743-1050.
© 2013 University of Houston. All rights reserved.
| Title | Picturesque Palestine, Sinai, and Egypt, Vol. 2 |
| Creator (LCNAF) |
|
| 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) |
|
| Genre (AAT) |
|
| Language | English |
| Type (DCMI) |
|
| 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 296 |
| Format (IMT) |
|
| File Name | exotic_201304_015_320.jpg |
| Transcript | 296 PICTURESQUE PALESTINE. describe what such a march is. Hands and faces are blistered—there is no shade, and an t attempt to halt without shelter in the glare of such a sun means sunstroke! The mouth of Wady Feiran is almost on a straight line of twenty-four miles with the immense Serbal cluster of mountains, and this recedes some eight or nine miles from the limestone hills which form a barrier-wall to the plain El Ga ah, draining gradually towards Tor. In this section of the wall (from the entrance of the Feiran valley to opposite Tor) there are at least two gorges which, coming unexpectedly upon one with their exuberance of vegetation and all the features of grand landscape, relieve the monotony of the desert and rive hope to the traveller. One of these is called Wady Dhaghadeh. Into this valley, from a home amidst wondrous little peaks of sandstone, there flows a clear cool stream bordered by palm-trees. Such a secluded valley occurs—and there may be many like it only waiting to be explored—in the immediate neighbourhood of Wady Shellal. The other is farther to the south, Wady Sigilliyeh, into the debouchure of which comes the system of valleys which drain the southern, i.e. the seaward, face of Serbal. The gorge which leads up to this valley is impassable, and the Arabs declare that in the great floods it is sometimes filled from top to bottom with the torrent, a depth of more than four hundred feet. That the gorge is impassable is not altogether a correct statement: for Professor Palmer and his companions got into the glen beyond the gorge by crossing over the lower mountains. They there found fenced in and concealed by precipitous cliffs a lovely mountain valley through which, " With many a break and many a fall," over a pavement of smooth white granite, and overshadowed by fantastic rocks draped with ferns and desert plants of richest green, murmured a tiny stream. The lower part of this wady has the name Jebaah, and its upper part is called Sigilliyeh. To make their way out from this happy valley of mountain solitude the explorers determined to essay the passage of the mysterious gorge. On one side was a wall of granite about fifteen hundred feet high, on the other a rock of some thirty feet, as smooth as though it had been polished by a lapidary : and between them was a pool of water breast deep on one side, twelve feet deep on the other. Two of the party took to the water, the other scaled the rock; the old Arab guide, Salem, sat down and groaned until his misery was terminated by being sent back by the way they had used in the morning to reach the valley. Safe through one pool of water, they came to a rock with an abrupt drop of about fifteen feet, down which they had to lower themselves in acrobat fashion. A smooth ledge of sloping rock, overhanging a precipice, brought them next to a large flat slab or pavement of rock terminating in a yawning chasm two hundred feet deep. The sun had dipped behind the hills and night was fast coming up, when luckily they discovered a kind of broken path, the remains of an attempt apparently to make a way in former times to reach the upper pools from the mouth of the gorge. Along this they scramble* and so reached at length the open country, and then their encampment. The Arabs wei enthusiastic in their congratulations on their escape from the ravine, which human eye ia |