The Jordan Valley is not only the most remarkable feature of Palestine, but one of the most curious places in the world. It has no exact counterpart elsewhere, and the extraordinary phenomenon of clouds sweeping as a thick mist 500 feet below the level of the sea, is one which few European eyes have seen, but which we witnessed in the early storms of the spring of 1874.
The Jordan rises as a full-grown river, issuing from the cave at Baniâs, about 1000 feet above the level of the Mediterranean. In the short distance of twelve miles it falls not less than 1000 feet, passing through the papyrus-marshes, and reaching the Huleh Lake. This lake is four miles long, and from its southern extremity to the north end of the Sea of Galilee is ten and a half miles. The second lake has been determined, by our line of levels, as 682 feet below the Mediterranean; thus in twenty-six and a half miles there is a fall of 1682 feet, or more than sixty feet to the mile.
The Sea of Galilee is twelve miles and a half long, or about the length of Windermere, and thence the Jordan flows sixty-five miles measuring in a straight line (the bends make it a good deal more) to the Dead Sea, 1292 feet below the Mediterranean. The fall in this distance is, however, not regular. Above the Jisr Mujâmi'a it is over forty feet to the mile. From the south end of the Sea of Galilee to the Dâmieh ford is a distance of forty-two miles, and a fall of only 460 feet. From the Dâmieh to the mouth of Wâdy el 'Aujeh is thirteen miles, with sixty feet fall, and thence to the Dead Sea is ten miles, with ninety feet of fall.
It will be seen from above that the total direct length of Jordan is about 104 miles, or only half the length of the Thames; that the fall to the Sea of Galilee is over sixty feet to the mile; thence to the Dâmieh, at first forty feet, afterwards not quite eleven feet per mile; from the Dâmieh to the 'Aujeh not much over four and a half feet to the mile; and for the last ten miles, about nine feet per mile. The break down of the immense chasm may thus be said to commence immediately north of the Sea of Galilee.
The valley may be divided into eight sections. First the portion between Banîas and the Huleh, where it is some five miles broad, with steep cliffs some 2000 feet high on either side and a broad marsh between. Secondly, from the Huleh to the Sea of Galilee, where the stream runs close to the eastern hills, and about four miles from the base of those on the west, which rise towards the high Safed mountains, more than 3500 feet above the lake. Thirdly, for thirteen miles from the south end of the Sea of Galilee to the neighbourhood of Beisân, the valley is only one and a half miles broad west of the river, and about three on the east, the steep cliffs of the plateau of Kaukab el Hawa on the west reaching an altitude of 1800 feet above the stream.