Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ...the eastern slope of the Jordan Valley. The road mounts by easy zigzag lines which cross the lava and limestone masses again and again, and at each turn reveal wider and more beautiful views of Galilee and the Jordan Valley. All the way up this slope we saw traces of the ancient Roman road, paved with blocks of basalt, leading to Gadara, one of the cities of the Decapolis. At the ford of the Jordan we set our barometers at zero, and when at last we reached the ruined city they registered nearly two thousand feet. To carry a chariot road up this bold headland, crowded on two sides with the deep clefts of the Jordan and the Hieromax (Yarmuk), over the crumbling limestone strata, and among the twisted folds of the adamantine basalt, and to overcome an elevation of two thousand feet within a distance of about eight miles, is a feat that seems to have delighted the Romans. To have laid those basalt blocks in such a manner as to defy the flight of two thousand years is an index to the iron-hearted purposes of the men who conceived and carried out such enterprises, while they were conquering the world. Mkes, the modern representative of the ancient city of Gadara, stands on a headland pushing westward, twelve hundred and fifteen feet above the Mediterranean and nearly two thousand feet above the ford of the Jordan. The steep slopes on three sides, north, west, and south, easily explain why it was once such a formidable fortress. It is a mass of ruins more than two miles in circuit. Its main street runs nearly east and west and is about a mile long. The ancient Roman pavement, deeply furrowed by the iron chariot wheels, is still in position and still doing duty as a road. The bases of hundreds of pillars still remain in situ, showing that the...
