Palestine: the physical geography and natural history of the Holy Land / By John Kitto. Illustrated with one hundred and seventy-one woodcuts, by the most eminent artists.

  • John Kitto
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Palestine: the physical geography and natural history of the Holy Land / By John Kitto. Illustrated with one hundred and seventy-one woodcuts, by the most eminent artists. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    breadth ; and about the head of that sea is reduced to the single principal chain, which afterwards enlarges to form the mountains of Seir. This chain, commencing nearly opposite the northern extremity of the Asphaltic Lake, and, at its other extremity, jomimg Mount Seir, appears to form the mountains which in Scripture bear the name of Abarim. There it is recorded that from Mount Nebo, one of the highest summits of this range, and which, from the context, must have been in its northern part, Moses was permitted to view the Promised Land; and that there he died. Writers disagree as to the situation of this moun- tain. Nau refers to a mountain near Szalt, evidently meaning Mount Osha, mentioned above; and we should be inclined to agree with him, if it did not seem that this moun- tain is more to the north than the history will allow. Six miles westward from Heshbon is the situation assigned to Mount Nebo by Eusebius, who is followed by most later writers. It is an excellent position for the hzstory; but being unable to learn that the situation is occupied by any eminent mountain, we may, perhaps, with the few travellers who have visited this part of the country, look for it in Mount Attarous, which rises about eight miles to the north of the river Modjeb (the ancient Arnon). This mountain offers the highest summit of the neighbourhood. No traveller seems to have ascended it ; and it is only slightly mentioned, in passing, as a tall and barren mountain, on whose summit might be perceived a heap of stones overshadowed by a wild pistachio tree.® We have no information of any noted mountain in the country south of the Arnon. Beyond that river lie wide plains covered with absinthium and other plants and shrubs. But, on approaching Kerek,> the country becomes more mountainous; and at this point, beyond the plains of Moab, where the mountains rise again, we should be inclined to fix the commence- ment of Mount Seir, the southward continuation of which we have already indicated. This forms here, at its commencement, a very mountainous country between Kerek and the end of the Dead Sea; nor is the breadth of mountain country thus indicated much diminished in the southward progress of the chain.° Our attention must next be directed to the mountains which now line, on the east and on the west, the broad valley of Araba, which extends between the Asphaltic Lake and the Red Sea, and through which the river Jordan is believed to have once continued its southward course. The prolongations of Lebanon exhibit a very different character on the opposite sides of this * Reland, ‘ Palestina,’ lib. i. cap. 51; Nau, 365; Burckhardt, 370; Irby and Mangles, 464; Macmichael's ‘ Journal,’ 243. ® About twenty-five miles east from the southern extremity of the Dead Sea. © Seetzen, 36-40; Burckhardt, 375, et Seq.
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