Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 15, 2025
At Jisr Hadid the western mountains come to an end, and the Orontes, sweeping round their base, runs first west and then south-west down the broad valley of Antioch, in the midst of the most lovely scenery, to the coast, which it reaches a little above the 36th parallel, in long. 35° 55'. The course of the Orontes, exclusive of lesser windings, is about 200 miles.
The city was surrounded by fertile, spacious plains, bounded on one side by Mount Orontes, and on the other by a stately forest, amid whose lofty trees might here and there be seen the magnificent villas of Persian nobles.
The latter waited for them, with their front masked by light troops, presenting twenty-seven battalions deployed in line, the left of which rested on the Orontes, and the right upon a hamlet at the foot of a hill. The Egyptians, who were ignorant of the presence of the Turkish regular infantry, had adopted this vicious disposition against their irregular cavalry.
The next year Kadesh on the Orontes, near the Lake of Horns, was attacked and destroyed, its trees were cut down and its corn carried away. The heirs of four of the conquered princes were carried as hostages to Egypt, "so that when one of these kings should die, then the Pharaoh should take his son and put him in his stead."
She left him, not without a secret desire to find Lollius again in another, as she no longer found him in himself. She thought it would be less dull to live with someone she had never loved, than with one she had ceased to love. She appeared, in the company of rich debauchees, at those sacred feasts at which naked virgins danced in the temples, and troops of courtesans swam across the Orontes.
The loss of the Sultan's forces in this affair amounted to 2,000 killed and 2,500 prisoners. The wrecks of the Turkish corps retired pell-mell upon Antioch. Instead of rallying them, Ned-geb Pasha's brigade, which was encamped at two hours' march from the field of battle, fled with them. The field-marshal, on learning this disaster, took post at the tête du pont on Djezzer, on the Orontes.
At last a great shout from the rear announced the arrival of the third Egyptian brigade, and, the little knot of brave men who had saved the day still leading, the army swept the broken Hittites down the bank of the Orontes into the river. Great was the confusion and the slaughter. As the chariots struggled through the ford, the Egyptian bowmen, spread out along the bank, picked off the chiefs.
At last the movement was effected, and the army reached Antioch, where the cholera broke out in its ranks, and where eight days were lost. Instead of profiting by Ibrahim's delay to take up a more advanced position, the latter descended into the valley of the Orontes, and entered Damascus on the 15th of June, after a short engagement with the Turkish irregulars.
It is a considerable stream almost from its source. At Hamah, more than a hundred miles from its mouth, it is crossed by a bridge of thirteen arches. At Antioch it is fifty yards in width, and runs rapidly. There is one tributary of the Orontes which deserves a cursory mention.
The anchor is up and we are in a stately ship moving on slowly into the Suez Canal. When we arrived at Port Said how many weeks ago was it? It seems to me like a year we were on the Orontes, of the Orient Line, and we steamed into the harbour past a long breakwater like a thin arm; standing upon it is a statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man who made the Suez Canal.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking