A Few Hundred Paces Above The Issue Of The Wady Are
Several Springs, Called Ayoun Gharendel, Surrounded By A Few Date Trees,
And Some Verdant Pasture Ground.
The water has a sulphureous taste, but
these being the only springs on the borders of the great valley within
one day’s journey to the N. and S. the Bedouins are obliged to resort to
them.
The wells are full of leeches, some of which fixed themselves to
the palates of several of our camels whilst drinking, and it was with
difficulty that we could remove them. The name of Arindela, an ancient
town of Palæstina Tertia, bears great resemblance to that of Gharendel.
On issuing from this rocky country, which terminates the Djebel Shera,
on its western side, the Wady Gharendel empties itself into the valley
El Araba, in whose sands its waters are lost. This valley is a
continuation of the Ghor, which may be said to extend from the Red sea
to the sources of the Jordan. The valley of that river widens about
Jericho, and its inclosing hills are united to a chain of mountains
which open and enclose the Dead sea. At the southern
WADY EL ARABA
[p.442] extremity of the sea they again approach, and leave between them
a valley similar to the northern Ghor, in shape; but which the want of
water makes a desert, while the Jordan and its numerous tributary
streams render the other a fertile plain. In the southern Ghor the
rivulets which descend from the eastern mountains, to the S. of Wady
Szafye, or El Karahy, are lost amidst the gravel in their winter beds,
before they reach the valley below, and there are no springs whatever in
the western mountain; the lower plain, therefore, in summer is entirely
without water, which alone can produce verdure in the Arabian deserts,
and render them habitable. The general direction of the southern Ghor is
parallel to the road which I took in coming from Khanzyre to Wady Mousa.
At the point where we crossed it, near Gharendel, its direction was from
N.N.E. to S.S.W. From Gharendel it extends southwards for fifteen or
twenty hours, till it joins the sandy plain which separates the
mountains of Hesma from the eastern branch of the Red sea. It continues
to bear the appellation of El Ghor as far as the latitude of Beszeyra,
to the S. of which place, as the Arabs informed me, it is interrupted
for a short space by rocky ground and Wadys, and takes the name of Araba
(Arabic), which it retains till its termination near the Red sea. Near
Gharendel, where I saw it, the whole plain presented to the view an
expanse of shifting sands whose surface was broken by innumerable
undulations, and low hills. The sand appears to have been brought from
the shores of the Red sea by the southerly winds; and the Arabs told me
that the valley continued to present the same appearance beyond the
latitude of Wady Mousa.
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