In the southern half of the range the descent is abrupt from the crest of the mountain into the Buka'a, or valley of the Litany, and the aspect of the mountain-side is one of "unrelieved bareness."[141] There is, however, one beauty at one point on this side of the Lebanon range which is absent from the more favoured western region.

On the ascent from Baalbek to the Cedars the traveller comes upon Lake Lemone, a beautiful mountain tarn, without any apparent exit, the only sheet of water in the Lebanon.

Lake Lemone is of a long oval shape, about two miles from one end to the other, and is fed by a stream entering at either extremity, that from the north, which comes down from the village of Ainat, being the more important.

As the water which comes into the lake cannot be discharged by evaporation, we must suppose some underground outlet,[142] by which it is conveyed, through the limestone, into the Litany.
The eastern side of Lebanon drains entirely into this river, which is the only stream whereto it gives birth.

The Litany is the principal of all the Phoenician rivers, for the Orontes must be counted not to Phoenicia but to Syria.