Note 159 — Chapter XI · CAMPAIGN IN SYRIA.—BATTLE OF WACUSA ON THE YERMUK. A.H. XIII. A.D. 634.

The country is well described by Laurence Oliphant in his Land of Gilead, and the picture at p. 87 gives an admirable idea of the gorge surrounding our battle-field. ‘The Yermûk,’ he says, ‘at this point is just sinking below the level of the plain through which it has been meandering, and in the course of the next mile plunges down, a series of cascades, into the stupendous gorges through which it winds, until it ultimately falls into the Jordan below Gadara.’ The grand old military road, still bearing traces of wheeled carriages, bifurcates five and twenty miles south of Damascus. The right branch leads S.W. to Palestine, crossing the Yermûk at Gadara; the other continues to run south towards Jerash and Bostra, and so onward till it is lost in the Hajj or pilgrim-route into Arabia. The latter was the road always traversed by the Saracen armies as they marched into Syria and Palestine; and I assume that the battle was fought at a point some 30 miles east of Gadara where this road crosses the Yermûk. The same road northward leads to Jâbia (Tell Jâbieh); and Jâbieh became the grand base of operations both for Syria and for Palestine; for Palestine was never approached from Arabia but by this circuitous route. The Arabs, we are told, do not use the Roman road, because probably it is in so rugged and ruinous a condition. But they always use the bridges when passable; and Mr. Oliphant tells us of an ‘old Roman bridge of nine arches, one of which has fallen and has not been repaired,’ over the Yermûk in this vicinity, p. 87. The researches now being prosecuted to the east of the Jordan may throw farther light on this great battle-field, the site of which it may be possible yet to identify.