Such were the difficulties which attended our third Jordan Valley camp in 1874. Against them we may count the exploration of Ãnon, Abel-Meholah, and Tirzah, the plotting of a region scarcely known before, and the discovery of an important volcanic centre and of hot springs. Perhaps no European will again be obliged to linger so long in this inhospitable region.
East of camp, Wâdy Mâleh ran out into the south part of the Beisân plain--a broad open valley, gay with flowers, dotted with Tells all hidden by dark mallows, and frequented by the solemn white storks, called "fathers of good luck,â or "little pilgrims,â by the Arabs. On the north-west the heights of Gilboa closed the view, with Tabor and Neby Duhy peeping over them. A black mound represented the ruins of Beisân, and the high plateau rose behind, crowned by the Crusading castle of Belvoir overlooking Jordan. A silver thread seen through the gap below was the Sea of Galilee; the hills of Safed were pale and blue beyond; and farther yet was Hermon, in the full glory of his fresh winter robe of snow, his rounded bulk dwarfing the lower ranges and closing the scene.
From the banks of the Ghôr we looked down also on Jordan, a turbid coffee-coloured stream, breaking in one place over stones down a small rapid, and varying from some forty to seventy yards in width, being now very full. Little islands covered with tamarisks occurred at intervals, and the river wound like a snake, looking wild and desolate, and flowing, as Josephus says, "through a desert.â The Zor is here not continuous, and in places there are cliffs a hundred feet high immediately over the stream. The low ground was covered with barley, already very high.
The only places of interest in this part of the Beisân plain were 'Ain Helweh, a spring with ruins, at the distance from Beisân at which Jerome places Abel Meholah; and Sâkût, which has been thought by some to be Succoth. The name is, however, radically different, and Succoth has been recovered under its later name Tarala at Tell Dar'ala, north-east of the Dâmieh ford; but Sâkût is probably a Crusading site, for Marino Sanuto seems to mark it on his map as Succoth, though Jerome places this Biblical site east of Jordan.