Out-Of-Doors in the Holy Land by Henry Van Dyke

Samaria is a mountain land, but its characteristic features, as distinguished from Judea, are the easiness of approach through open gateways among the hills, and the fertility of the broad vales and level plains which lie between them. The Kingdom of Israel, in its brief season of prosperity, was richer, more luxurious, and weaker than the Kingdom of Judah. The poet Isaiah touched the keynote of the northern kingdom when he sang of "the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim," and "the fading flower of his glorious beauty which is on the head of the fat valley. " (Isaiah xxviii: 1-6.)

We turn aside from the open but roundabout way of the well-tilled Wadi Farah and take a shorter, steeper path toward Shechem, through a deep, narrow mountain gorge. The day is hot and hazy, for the Sherkiyeh is blowing from the desert across the Jordan Valley: the breath of Jehovah's displeasure with His people, "a dry wind of the high places of the wilderness toward the daughter of my people, neither to fan nor to cleanse."