Dam, Abana River

‎Here we have another of the crude dams built by the natives for the purpose of turning part of the Abana River into some other channel to water some other part of the plain of Damascus. This view is taken from the Beyrout road. We are looking toward the north. We see groups of slender poplar trees to the right of the picture with a spur of the Anti-Lebanon rising beyond them. The Nile is said to be larger at its source than at its mouth because the waters of the Nile are diverted from the main stream for the purpose of irrigation so that it becomes smaller and smaller as it extends toward the sea. The same is true of the Abana. The artificial canals which are cut at different places along its banks to water the country round about make constant levies upon its waters. The largest canal leaving the Abana is from above Damascus. It runs along the hills northward and is said to pass Tadmor in the wilderness. This channel is seven feet wide and three feet deep. The second channel, which is about twelve feet wide, Torah, leaves the main stream below Dummar. The natives know so little about these rivers that they have confused some of these channels running from the Abana with the celebrated Pharpar. This is their error. It is to Abana that Damascus is indebted for its water supply, and therefore for its very existence. It is from the River of Life which flows from Mount Zion and Mount Calvary that the race gains strength and by which the world is yet to become as the garden of the Lord.