Anti-Lebanon Mountains

“ It amounts, therefore, to lifelong servitude, and there is little wonder that these independent sons of the mountains, as well as the tribes inhabiting the Syrian Desert, should rebel rather than submit.
The next day, we crossed a pass in the Anti-Lebanon beyond Zebdeni, descended a beautiful valley on the western side, under a ridge which was still dotted with patches of snow, and after travelling for some hours over a wide, barren height, the last of the range, saw below us the plain of Baalbec. ”

“ To my mind the Anti-Lebanon, off the beaten track, is wilder and more picturesque than the other range. The descent of the Anti-Lebanon we did at a good pace, but it seemed a long time until we landed on the plain Es Sáhará. That reached, compensation for the ugly scenery we had to pass through began when we entered a beautiful mountain defile, about two hours from Damascus. Here, between mountains, runs the road; and the Barada—the ancient Abana, they say—rushes through the mountains and by the roadside to water the gardens of Damascus. ”

“ These, say the chronicles, were emissaries from the Old Man of the Mountain, the chief of an Arab sect and tribe which had sprung up in the midst of the religious, political, and warlike agitations of Islamism. This tribe had established itself in the mountains of Anti-Lebanon, between Antioch and Damascus, and its members had been known in the East for more than a century under the name of Assassins. ”

“ To the present hour they continue to inhabit the mountains of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, in which twelve centuries since they sought and found refuge from the decided measures to which the general Council of Constantinople had recourse, in order to punish them for their adherence to the Monothelite heresy. ”

“ On the fringe of the desert it is often laden with fine penetrating sand, increasing the discomfort of man and beast.
Much of the rain water percolates through large expanses of limestone rock and is thus lost. Some of it gathers in subterranean channels and gushes out in the form of springs. The prevalence of limestone in Lebanon and Palestine thus introduces another unfavourable factor in addition to the minor one of a shimmering dusty landscape, mentioned above. It restricts the water supply and thus limits human settlement, especially on the slopes of Anti-Lebanon. ”

“ Weird, savage, like parts of Moab, the colouring is richer, forms more picturesque, contrasts of shape and hue are sharper, and the growth is more like thin forest. "That ravines of singular wildness and grandeur furrow the whole mountain side, looking in many places like huge rents," is true of Anti-Lebanon, but not of Lebanon. The views are superior; it is richer and more remarkable.
Some of our followers will not forget some of our day's work, for we ascend successively every height, taking angles, laying down altitudes, and building up kakús to serve for a theodolite survey. ”

“ Lebanon becomes white and ice-crowned in winter, but none of its peaks rises to the altitude of perpetual snows: the highest of them, Mount Timarun, reaches 10,526 feet, while only three others exceed 9000.* Anti-Lebanon is, speaking generally, 1000 or 1300 feet lower than its neighbour: it becomes higher, however, towards the south, where the triple peak of Mount Hermon rises to a height of 9184 feet. ”

“ There are regions more lofty than the glaciered crests of Lebanon; mountain scenery more sublime, perhaps even more beautiful: its peaks are not lost in the clouds like the mysterious Ararat; its forests are not as vast and strange as the towering Himalaya; it has not the volcanic splendour of the glowing Andes; in lake and in cataract it must yield to the European Alps; but for life, vigorous, varied, and picturesque, there is no highland territory in the globe that can for a moment compare with the great chain of Syria. ”

“ Jebel Sunnin, which seems so mighty when viewed from the harbor of Beirut, now lies far below us. Mount Hermon rises still majestic seventy miles away, yet even the topmost peak of great Hermon is not so high as the spot on which we stand. To the east, across the long, broad valley of the Bikaʿ, rises the parallel range of Anti-Lebanon. Westward the magnificent amphitheater which we have come to think of as peculiarly our own opens out to where the Mediterranean, like a sheet of beaten gold, seems to slope far up to the azure sky. ”

“ In ancient times the whole range of the Lebanon had been covered with cedars, and as the fertile plains beneath became more and more infested by government officers and tyrants of high and low degree, the people by degrees abandoned them and flocked to the rugged mountains, which were less accessible to their indolent oppressors. ”

“ Descending from our mountain camp, we rode north-west, over the well-watered plain, with its long rows of poplars, narrow strips of green turf beside the streams, and long vineyards, with vines trained into little bushes, as in Burgundy. Thence we ascended a rugged path over the grey rocky slopes of Anti-Lebanon, and our view extended over the broad brown Bukei’a, and as far as the long gleaming ridge of Lebanon, “the milk-white mountain,” the outline of which is broken by cones and rounded tops, whilst below a dusky fringe of brushwood creeps up the slopes. ”

“ Mount Hermon, the second mountain in Syria, is a range of hills lying east and west, all on the east side of the source of the Jordan, often called the Anti-Lebanon. The highest cone is entirely naked. The snow never disappears from the summit, though in the height of summer it melts here and there, except in the ravines radiating from the top. The parallel range nearest the Mediterranean is called the Lebanon; and Mount Lebanon, the highest part, is snow-capped the greater part of the year. ”

“ As we zig-zag up the western slope of Lebanon there appear, now at our right and now at our left, a succession of beautiful panoramas which differ one from the other only in revealing a constantly widening horizon. Rich, populous valleys, lying deep between the shoulders of the mountains, slope quickly downward to the coast where, farther and farther below [61] us, the silvery-green olive orchards and golden sands of Beirut reach out into the ever-broadening azure expanse of the Mediterranean. ”

“ At first view it appears a rather untoward circumstance that they have to resort to the mountains during a part of each summer. It must, no doubt, in some degree interrupt the thread of their operations; but the climate makes it necessary, especially until they are well acclimated. The evil, however, is not so great as might be expected. The mountains are full of villages; indeed, the mountains of Lebanon are the most populous districts in these countries. The missionaries take their station in some of these villages, and when their number will admit they occupy two or more. ”

“ Farther east and south extends the desert, with its parched sands and sultry air, yet in the very sight of these desert wastes rise snowy mountain peaks.
"There are palms in Jericho and pine forests in Lebanon. In the Ghor, in summer, you are under a temperature of more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and yet you see glistening the snow-fields of Hermon. All the intermediate steps between these extremes the eye can see at one sweep from Carmel—the sands and palms of the coast; the wheat-fields of Esdraelon, the oaks and sycamores of Galilee; the pines, the peaks, the snows of Anti-Lebanon. ”

“ On the other hand, there are Druse hamlets where no Maronite would trust himself. Ten years ago, when Beirut was in one of its periodic tumults, five thousand Lebanon soldiers, stalwart, brave and well-armed, encamped just outside the city limits, waiting for one more anti-Christian outbreak—which fortunately did not come—as an excuse for wiping out the Moslem population. Looking across a deep gorge of Lebanon, I once saw a file of Turkish soldiers laboriously making their way up the steep mountainside. ”

“ Within the small expanse of territory, one hundred and fifty miles by sixty, if the Trans-Jordanic region be included, contrasting peculiarities are crowded together, which give a marvellous character to that country. The perpetual snow-tops of Lebanon and Hermon in the north overlook the ranges of mountains and valleys far away to the sandy desert in the south, where scorching heat, like that of tropical Africa, burns up all vegetation. In close proximity to each other, trees of various kinds are found to thrive, which elsewhere are separated by great distances. ”

“ We now determined the forms and bearings of the Cedar Block, the true apex of the Libanus. We then went to the unknown and dangerous region called Tulúl el Safá, the Hillocks of the Safá district, a mass of volcanic cones lying east of the Damascus swamps called lakes. Then we explored the northern Anti-Libanus, a region which is innocent of tourists and traveller, and appears a blank of mountains upon the best maps. Of my fellow-traveller Charley Drake I can only say that every one knows his public worth. ”

“ The cities of the dead lay close together in the background, on the slope of the nearest chain of hills; still further back lay a plain celebrated for its fertility and the luxuriance of its verdure: Lebanon, with its wooded peaks, was shut in on the north and south, but on the east the mountain sloped downwards almost to the sea-level, furnishing a pass through which ran the road which joined the great military highway not far from Qodshu. ”

“ The day was cloudy and a little cool, and not unpleasant; but there existed all day a ground-swell which is full of all nastiness, and a short sea which aggravated the ground-swell; and although we sailed by the Lebanon mountains and along an historic coast, bristling with suggestions, and with little but suggestions, of an heroic past, by Akka and Tyre and Sidon, we were mostly indifferent to it all. The Mediterranean, on occasion, takes away one's appetite even for ruins and ancient history. ”

“ Amidst the wildly romantic hills of Lebanon is a pleasant valley for which Nature herself has a peculiar preference. Amidst the gigantic mountains which encircle a vast hollow on every side of it, rises a roundish mound. ”

“ Since the above was written the American press has chronicled many atrocities committed in the Lebanon. The execution of leaders and the complete blockade of the mountains by the Turkish authorities resulted in the starving of eighty thousand Lebanese. The French Government has warned Turkey through the American Ambassador that the Turks will be held accountable for their deeds. ”

“ There are, it is true, channels cut in different directions through the plain for the purpose of irrigation; but only for that purpose. The flocks that wander over the plain, are under the care of keepers; whose business it is not to allow them to commit trespass on spots under cultivation; except there, the flocks go pretty much where they please, and eat whatever they can find; and really they appear to have a poor chance to find much; the above spots excepted.
The Anti-Lebanon lies on the south-east side of this plain; and is very much such a mountain as Lebanon. ”

“ In Phoenicia the sea is everything: of land there is but just enough to furnish a site for a score of towns, with their surrounding belt of gardens. Mount Lebanon, with its impenetrable forests, isolated it almost entirely from Coele-Syria, and acted as the eastward boundary of the long narrow quadrangle hemmed in between the mountains and the rocky shore of the sea. ”

“ We entered the defiles of Anti-Lebanon, and in the course of a few hours found ourselves shut up in them, and [336] night settling around us, without knowing where to stop; and our Armenian friend, driven beyond his usual land-marks, could now give us no assistance. Tents we had, thanks to the kindness of Mr. Smith, and also provisions; but we had to find a stopping-place where our beasts could get water; and we passed on, mile after mile, without any indications of stream or fountain. This mountain is very different from Lebanon. ”

“ In the deep gorges flow copious streams, shaded by overhanging woods of pines or cedars; and towards the summit are in several places magnificent cedar groves, remnants of the primeval forest which once clothed the greater part of the mountain. Above all towers the bare limestone of the dorsal ridge, always white enough to justify the name Lebanon (White Mountain) , and for eight months of the year clothed with a mantle of snow. ”

“ Those who are fond of romantic and wild scenery, have only to travel over the Lattakia mountains to gratify their tastes and inclinations. The quiet woodbine, the pleasant myrtle-shade, the jessamine and the rose, the murmuring stream and the lovely cot; these are to be met with all over Lebanon and North Syria—nature, in all her variety, collected, together—hills, valleys, rivers, fountains—gardens, ocean—snow and sunshine; all these may be included in one prospect surveyed from any of the many eminences in the immediate neighbourhood of Beyrout. ”

“ On our return from Tripoli, we made an excursion into the mountains, on the road to Deir el Kammar, and there we saw nothing like the ravages of war; the country was beautifully cultivated to the tops of the highest mountains, and had we not known to contrary, we should have supposed from the appearance, that it was well governed. Nothing can be more beautiful than the mountains and villages of Lebanon, inhabited by a hardy and honest race of beings, and not a spot capable of cultivation is allowed to lie fallow. ”