Across the Jordan

Abstract

THIS volume is the last of several recently published by the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, following quickly on the steps of Conder's “Heth and Moab” and Hull's “Mount Seir,” and describes with great accuracy a district lying to the east of the Sea of Galilee not often visited; or, if visited, only hastily skirted, by travellers on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus. How little is known of its geographical details may be gathered from a comparison of the excellent map which faces the title-page of the book with any of the best maps now published. The district described embraces the eastern part of the Jaulan and the western of the Hauran, and is remarkable for the number and variety of its works of ancient art, dating from the time of the dolmen-builders to those of the Crusaders, and including structures referable to Jewish, Greek, Roman, and Christian times. How this region came to be expIred is narrated by Mr. Walter Besant in the preface. It appears that about a year ago a firman was granted by the Porte for the survey of the district lying between Haifa on the Mediterranean and Damascus, with a view to the construction of a railway. For the western part of this route, namely, that between Haifa and the Jordan Valley, the maps of the Palestine Exploration Society afforded the necessary details; but from the Jordan to Damascus the line of country had to be specially surveyed, and this work was intrusted by the concessionnaires to Herr Gottlieb Schumacher. In the course of his work Herr Schumacher was able to make many scientific observations, as well as maps and drawings of villages, structures, and works of art, which he afterwards embodied in the memoir forming the greater part of the present volume. A ready means of publication was found in the active Society which has done so much in elucidating, and embodying in maps and memoirs, the topographical details of Palestine and its borders.

Across the Jordan Being an Exploration and Survey of Part of Hauran and Jaulan.

By Gottlieb Schumacher. With Additions by Laurence Oliphant and Guy Le Strange. (London: R. Bentley and Son, 1886.)