Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 13, 2025
This inscription is cut in hieroglyphs on the walls of the tomb of Aahmes at Al-Kāb in Upper Egypt; this distinguished marine flourished in the reigns of the first kings of the eighteenth dynasty, about 1600 B.C. The text reads: The captain of the transport men, Aahmes, the son of Abana, the truth-speaker, saith: O all men, I will declare unto you, and will inform you concerning the favours that were conferred upon me.
In 2 Kings, chapter v., Naaman boasts extravagantly about them. That was three thousand years ago. He says: "Are not Abana and Pharpar rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean?" But some of my readers have forgotten who Naaman was, long ago. Naaman was the commander of the Syrian armies. He was the favorite of the king and lived in great state.
"I have used the Tractors with success in several other cases in my own family, and although, like Naaman the Syrian, I cannot tell why the waters of Jordan should be better than Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus; yet since experience has proved them so, no reasoning can change the opinion.
Then I saw the gardens and orchards of Damascus, watered by the streams of Abana and Pharpar, with their sloping swards inlaid with bloom, and their thickets of myrrh and roses.
I suppose there are lovelier rivers than that we ourselves are known to brag of our Pharpar and Abana but I cannot think of anything more nobly beautiful than the Guadalquivir resting at peace in her bed, where she has had so many bad dreams of Carthaginian and Roman and Gothic and Arab and Norman invasion.
"I have used the Tractors with success in several other cases in my own family, and although, like Naaman the Syrian, I cannot tell why the waters of Jordan should be better than Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus; yet since experience has proved them so, no reasoning can change the opinion.
If the scenery of the south be less romantic and sublime than that of the northern mountains, it must be allowed to possess in the same proportion superior softness and beauty; and upon the whole, we feel ourselves entitled to exclaim with the patriotic Syrian "Are not Pharphar and Abana, rivers of Damascus, better than all the rivers of Israel?"
As for the water of my hillside," he went on with a sharp change of voice and speaking, to their amazement, in English, "have not your countrymen, O sahibs, their particular springs? Churchman and Dissenter, Presbyterian and Baptist count they not every Jordan above Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus?" He turned and walked swiftly from them, mounting the slope with swift loose strides.
It is the principal source of the Abana river only one-half mile down to where it joins. Beautiful place giant trees all around so shady and cool, if one could keep awake vast stream gushes straight out from under the mountain in a torrent. Over it is a very ancient ruin, with no known history supposed to have been for the worship of the deity of the fountain or Baalam's ass or somebody.
Why should he bathe in the Jordan River, where the water was clay-white and often muddy, when he had his own rivers of Abana the golden and Pharpar the sweet, brimming with the finest water in the world? His friends did not answer him in his wrath; but they soon reached the ford of crossing, and if he would not bathe in the Jordan, he would have to ride through it, for there was no bridge.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking