Plain of Sharon

“ Leaving the gate of Jaffa, we rode eastward between delightful gardens of fig, citron, orange, pomegranate and palm. The country for several miles around the city is a complete level--part of the great plain of Sharon--and the gray mass of building crowning the little promontory, is the only landmark seen above the green garden-land, on looking towards the sea. The road was lined with hedges of giant cactus, now in blossom, and shaded occasionally with broad-armed sycamores. The orange trees were in bloom, and at the same time laden down with ripe fruit. ”

“ The two victorias rattled through the streets of Jaffa, past the low, flat-topped Oriental houses, the queer little open shops, the orange-groves in full bloom, the palm-trees waving their plumes over garden-walls, and rolled out upon the broad highroad across the fertile, gently undulating Plain of Sharon. On each side were the neat, well-cultivated fields and vegetable-gardens of the German colonists belonging to the sect of the Templers. They are a people of antique theology and modern agriculture. ”

“ That vast plain affords a tempting camping-ground for remote Arabs to visit in huge swarms coming from the East with their flocks for pasture; and in the ancient times this very site between Ta’annuk and Lejjoon, being the opening southwards, gave access to the Philistines or Egyptians arriving in their chariots from the long plain of Sharon, or a passage over this plain to that of the great hosts of Syria under the Ptolemies, with their elephants. ”

“ A large tract of the most fertile land of the plain of Sharon has been donated to them by the Turkish government, and there can be no doubt that the country will gain by their settlement in it. In manners and costume they form a marked contrast to the natives, who are evidently much impressed by their wealth and dignity. ”

“ Isaiah prophesied that Sharon should be a wilderness, and the black huts of the Bedouin tell the fulfillment of that prediction. We look in vain for the beautiful flower to which Solomon likened his beloved. But although man is no longer regaled by its fragrance, the true Rose of Sharon still unfolds its charms to every believer, whether he be a child of the plain, or the mountain. ”

“ During the trench warfare before Gaza, when a raid was carried out on Beach Post, no attempt was made to cut the enemy wire with our artillery, but the wire was simply pulled up by hand with the standards, for which the soft sand had provided no firm foundations.
The Coastal Plain comprises, towards the north, the Biblical Plain of Sharon, and, towards the south, the land of Philistia. By this plain, and not through Judæa, lies the road from the Nile to the Euphrates. Along this plain have marched the invading armies of all the ages. ”

“ The plain of Sharon, where we struck it, is being by degrees brought into cultivation, partly by colonists, Circassian and Bosnian, and partly by native capitalists. The peasantry themselves are rapidly losing all proprietorship in the soil, unable to contend against the exactions of the government tax-gatherer, on the one hand, and of the usurious money-lender, on the other ”

“ Sharon extends southward from Carmel about fifty miles, reaching a little below Jaffa, and has an average width of eight miles. The Zerka, or Crocodile river, which traverses this plain, is the largest stream of Palestine west of the Jordan. There are several other streams crossing the plain from the mountains to the sea, but they usually cease to flow in the summer season. Joppa, Lydda, Ramleh, and Caesarea belong to this plain. Herod the Great built Caesarea, and spent large sums of money on its palace, temple, theater, and breakwater. ”

“ North of Mount Carmel a narrow strip is called Phœnicia. Directly east of Mount Carmel the level country is pressed inward, and lies between the mountains, forming the remarkable Plain of Esdraelon, physically belonging to the Maritime Plain, but geographically to the Mountain Region. South of Mount Carmel lay Sharon; and further southward was Philistia, a land whose people, the Philistines, were long the enemies of Israel, and have since given the name Palestine to the whole land. ”

“ This part of the plain is (in European nomenclature) divided into two at about the latitude of Jaffa, that to the north being the plain of Sarona (Sharon) , the southern half being the plain of the Philistines.
On the east side of the watershed the ground slopes rapidly from its height of 2500 ft. above sea-level to a maximum depth of 1300 ft. below sea-level, within a distance of about 20 m. It is a waste, destitute of water and with but scanty vegetation. It has never been brought into cultivation ”

“ Most of the mansions, however, squat ephemerally upon the soil, no cellar to them, and no staircase, the total fragile box ready to bounce and caracole should the wind drive hard enough. Inside them, eating, mending, the newspaper, and more babies, eke out the twelvemonth; outside, the citizens loiter to their errands along the brief wide avenues of Sharon that empty into space. Men, women, and children move about in the town, sparse and casual, and over their heads in a white tribe the wind-wheels on their rudders veer to the breeze and indolently revolve above the gaping obsoleteness. ”

“ We rode on amid the gardens, every moment meeting a little caravan of camels. Immediately beyond the gardens we descry the fruitful valley of Sharon, extending more than eight miles in length, and to a still greater distance in breadth. Here and there we find villages built on hills, and the whole presents the appearance of an extremely fertile and well-populated region. ”

“ The houses rise in terraces from the water’s edge, and present a singular appearance from the sea. It is like a town of stairs, the streets paved in steps, owing to the inequality of the ground. This port is small, and the rocks dangerous. The view from the roofs of the houses is splendid. The surf comes to an immense height to-day, having had a strong north wind. The environs are beautiful, particularly the orange groves, which abound, extending all over the plains of Sharon, so celebrated in Scripture for their fertility, and the beautiful flowers that grow spontaneously from the soil. ”

“ Throughout the Shenango Valley hundreds of families were imprisoned in their homes and frantic efforts were made to rescue the marooned persons from their dangerous positions. At Sharon the greatest flood in the history of the city was experienced. Thousands of persons were thrown out of employment and the property loss was enormous. ”

“ The dreams of my childhood are being realized—I am in the Holy Land! Reaching the summit of one of the ridges, a beautiful panorama is spread out before us. At our feet lies the valley of Sharon, dressed in the richest green, and ornamented with the bright, beautiful wild flowers of early spring ”

“ After the war, she married Benjamin Gannett, and the homestead in Sharon, where she lived for the rest of her life, is still standing, relics of her occupancy, her table and her Bible, being shown there to-day to interested visitors. [Pg 189]
In 1802 she made a successful lecturing tour, during which she kept a very interesting diary, which is still exhibited to those interested by her great-granddaughter, Mrs. Susan Moody. Her grave in Sharon is carefully preserved, a street has been named in her honour, and several patriotic societies have constituted her their principal deity. ”

“ Sharon's Choice
Under Providence, a man may achieve the making of many things—ships, books, fortunes, himself even, quite often enough to encourage others; but let him beware of creating a town. Towns mostly happen. No real-estate operator decided that Rome should be. Sharon was an intended town; a one man's piece of deliberate manufacture ”

“ The men of Sharon, Connecticut, having wheedled their town-site from the Indians in 1754, were plagued thereafter by whoops and whistlings and the throwing of stones. Men were seen in the starlight and were fired upon, but without effect, and the disturbances were not ended until the Indians had received a sum of money. ”

“ Since the first object of my search was a rose of Sharon, it was evident that it must begin in the garden and I made my way into it through an opening in the hedge. The hedge was very close and thick, though spraggly and badly kept, and must have been planted many years before. The garden, as I have said, was a desolate place enough, but not without evidences of ancient beauty. Just inside the hedge was a perfect tangle of dead flower-stocks of hollyhocks with the fresh new plants springing at their base, of phlox and pinks and candytuft. ”

“ Now she understood how the ranch was aptly named Desert Valley; it was a freak, an oasis, a fertile valley with desert lands to east as well as west, and to north and south. When they had ridden down the far slope of the hills they were once more upon the edges of the solitudes of sand-sweep and sand-ridge and cactus and mesquite and utter drought. Every step their horses took carried them further into a land of arid menace; at the end of the first hour it was difficult to imagine green water-fields only a handful of miles away.
'It's just the water that makes the difference,' Howard told her. ”

“ I have never seen a place that so completely conveyed the idea of fertility as those teeming, haze-haunted plains of Sharon. Level as a floor, the soil dark, loose, and loamy; here green with young wheat, there populous with labor—men and women, boys and girls, dressed in the old, old dress, tilling the fields in the old, old manner; flocks and herds tended by such shepherds as saw the Star rise over Bethlehem; girls carrying water-jars on their heads; camel trains swinging across the horizon—a complete picture of primal husbandry, it was—a vast allegory of increase. ”

“ Its broad tower, which is at the road end, is almost as broad as itself. It has a gray, weedy churchyard, far too large for the few big ivy-covered box tombs lying about in it like unclaimed luggage on a railway platform.
The Winterbourne guides you through the heart of the Plain. It has, I believe, no very strict boundaries, but the Plain may be said to consist of all that mass of downland in South Wiltshire, which is broken only by the comparatively narrow valleys of five rivers—the Bourn, the Avon, the Wylye, the Nadder, and the Ebble. ”

“ I can imagine the time when the now fallen walls were standing, and inclosing cool chambers, columned corridors, terraces, courts, fountains, and gardens of citrons and roses; when the hill-sides were covered with vines, and the valley below was well watered, and brought forth all kinds of goodly fruits and fragrant spices. Gathered together there, I see in fancy "virgins without number;" agile and graceful mountaineers from the Lebanon; proud and stately daughters of Jerusalem; sweet, shy girls from the plains of Sharon ”

“ To the west is an open valley called “Valley of the City,” which, gradually curving round eastward, runs close to the old road from Jericho by which Joshua’s army would probably have advanced. To the north of the site there is also a great valley, and the plain or plateau on which the modern village stands close to the old site, expands from a narrow{254} and rugged pass leading up towards Bethel, which is two miles distant on the watershed. ”

“ For miles across the plain the men who follow the trail watch the steep outlying shoulder of the Brandon Hills for a landmark. When they leave the Souris valley the hills are blue with distance and seem to promise wooded slopes, and maybe leaping streams, but a half-day's journey dispels the illusion, for when the traveller comes near enough to see the elevation as it is, it is only a rugged bluff, bald and bare, and blotched with clumps of mangy grass, with a fringe of stunted poplar at the base. ”

“ And for this cause has the Lord of Kings given us Dor and Joppa, and the fertile cornlands which are in the plains of Sharon, as a reward for the great things which I have done, and added them to the boundaries of the land, that they may belong to the Sidonians for ever. ”

“ From this point, or ridge of hills, we entered the plain of Soor. This plain is narrow at first, but gradually spreads out, and presently has a wide extent, with a gentle rising of its eastern side into hills, with mountains towering beyond. The soil is rich and productive. There are some villages, on the hills, but none of any size. We passed several places near the shore where there had evidently once been villages; in one or two of these there were remains of walls and other relics of former habitations. As we approached Soor, the mountains and hills fell back, making a kind of amphitheatre ”