3-021-675 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Source of the Jordan, 1869. 'The well-known master of the Rob Roy canoe (Mr. John Macgregor...solitary explorer of many inland waters in Europe, Africa, and Asia) has lately been navigating the rivers and lakes of Palestine, in that ubiquitous little boat of which he is both captain and the whole crew...An attack made upon him by some Arabs, who fired upon him and captured his canoe, prevented him from tracing the Jordan for one mile in the marsh of Huleh; but with that exception, he has followed the river's course from its three separate sources... these three rivers - the Hasbany, the Leddan, and the Banias - converge in the plain of Huleh, and unite in a small lake, called in the Bible 'the waters of Merom'...The highest source of the Jordan...is at Hasbeya, under the snowy Hermon. It consists of small springs in the little island above the stone dam represented in our Illustration. Under the rock on the right is a deep pool...the Jordan rushes on to the Sea of Galilee; and again, by tortuous bends, it runs down to the Dead Sea, which is the lowest depression on the surface of the globe. Here the Jordan is lost; but it ascends to heaven again by the evaporation under a fierce sun'. From "Illustrated London News", 1869.