DESCRIPTION OF THE SEA.

257

myself as to the buoyancy of the waters. On entering the sea I experienced none of the stinging sensations some have described, but rather a softness-something akin to what might be expected from a bath in the finest sweet oil; and, on trusting myself to the buoyancy of the water, I found that, lying on my back, I could keep afloat without any trouble whatever. Although the waves that rolled by me lifted me up apparently twelve or fifteen inches, yet over these I floated as free from fear of sinking as if on a bed. The temperature of the water was 66°, and that of The temperature

the air 74°, the latter taken in the sun. of the sea varies with the depth of the water and its proximity to the shore, as we afterwards proved in several places.

Obtaining an elevated site at the most northern point of the sea, west of the Jordan, we have a fine view of the surrounding country. Looking southward, there is the sea before us, whose waters are far from leaving the impression of terror or sadness attributed to them by some writers. On either side rise mountains, whose shadows and heights give an air of quiet grandeur to the scene. Birds are flying calmly over its face, and the wind drives up cheerful, dashing waves, which give back sunny gleams as naturally as upon any lake. At our feet are large masses of limestone pebbles, slight reed-stalks, and some large fragmentary portions of plants and trees, but none of the variegated shells of the shore of Tiberias. About six and a half miles off, in a direction south-south-west, projects a wild-looking headland running boldly down to the shore, and apparently directly into the water. This is the Ras el Feshkhah. From that point the headlands, parting from the shore, run with a concavity to the Wady Kelt, twelve or thirteen miles from the Ras, leaving a plain which lies between the north-west shore of the sea and the Ras el Feshkhah, and spreading out to the north just as if the handle of a halfopened fan lay at the foot of the Ras and the rest of it stretched north to the top of the sea. Much of this land

258

RUINS OF GOMORRAH.

appears salt and barren and torn by rents; and from its surface the Arabs take incrustations of salt, supposed to be deposited by spray from the sea and from evaporation.

In a direction almost due south-west is the spring Ain Feshkhah, which is spoken of as copious, but sulphureted, and surrounded by ruins. About two miles north of this spring commence ruins which M. de Saulcy supposes to be the ruins of GOMORRAH, and described by him as extending six thousand yards, forming a continuous mass, and bearing the Arab name of Kharbet Goumran, or Oumran, which he identifies with the Hebrew of Gomorrah. We did not get near enough to form an opinion in reference to the ruins themselves; but, if the guide of Dr. Stewart, of Leghorn, who visited what he supposed to be the place, did not deceive him, "the plateau is five hundred feet at least above the level of the Wady Goumran, which runs immediately to the south of it, and, as far as one could judge by the eye, eight hundred feet above the level of the sea, which is a couple of miles distant as the crow flies." The ruins, Dr. S. says, are insignificant, and he thinks he was not mistaken either as to the place or height, from which the Ain Feshkhah could be seen about two miles south. Though I examined this region with a fine glass, and the day was exceedingly clear, I do not think any such examination could yield satisfactory results; nor am I satisfied, from Dr. Stewart's description of the route to the spot he visited, that it coincides with M. de Saulcy's itinerary to that spot which the latter calls the ruins of Goumran. Notwithstanding his assertion "that one hundred successive travellers might pass them by without the slightest idea of their existence," it is strange that such extensive ruins as those described by M. de Saulcy, stretching for three miles (six thousand yards) along the coast, could have escaped the notice of travellers. "The only thing that remains entire," says Dr. Stewart, who examined what he supposed to be the place in March 1854, "though of the same age as the ruins, is a birket (pool) about thirty feet in length,

MOSQUE AND TOMB.

259

the interior of which is still covered with cement, like those about Jerusalem. A double row of stones, two feet apart, runs from the hill behind to the cistern, and has served as a rude aqueduct to convey water." Dr. Stewart then supposes that the ruined fortress with several chambers, which also appears in the same place, may be referred to the age of Herod, who resided in Jericho, and built fortresses in the neighbourhood, or that it may have, been built by the Romans while besieging Massada, which is farther south, at the present Sebbeh, thirty miles below. Upon a view, only with my glass, I am inclined to think that, possibly, the supposed ruins may have been nothing more than broken and abraded fragments and boulders, vast masses of which we frequently noticed, and which might, with a little imagination, be supposed to be ruins. On our right, a little south of west from our position, is a mountain-top, bearing upon its summit a monument to Mohammedan ignorance and credulity, in that it is said to be the Moslem mosque and tomb of him of whom it is written, "No man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day" (Deut. xxxiv. 6). So elevated is the mountain-summit that its cragged sides and top may be seen from a distance of several miles north and south.

No collection of water has exercised the ingenuity, the wonder, the superstition, the scientific speculation, of the world to an equal extent with the waters of the Dead Sea. Before we state our own impressions, we present a summary of the most interesting notices of these mysterious waters still "sleeping upon their ancient beds of crystal salt," or, rather, this corpse of a sea lying in its open sepulchre.

CHAPTER XXII.

NOTICES OF THE DEAD SEA.

THE first notice that we have of this sea suggests that it partook in some degree of its present character in the earliest historical times. "The salt sea' is its first introduction in Gen. xiv. 3. But as this was written by Moses, and reads thus, "in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea," we are reasonably led to suppose that the vale of Siddim, in the time of the battle of the nine kings, is in some respects the same thing as the Salt Sea of the time of Joshua; for, in the verse immediately preceding, a sentence of the same construction occurs in this form: "King of Bella, which is Zoar;" and Bela is therefore considered the old name, Zoar being the modern. Hence, with equal force, Salt Sea must in some respects be the modern name of Vale of Siddim. For fourteen hundred years very little is said of the sea. There was a shrinking from its shores as far as respects both animal and vegetable life, and, consequently, but little interest in this region. And though reference is made eight times to it, distinctly, as the Salt Sea, yet an unusual silence reigned around it for centuries, as if it were the shame of the land; and none referred to it, save as a mere boundary, until the time of Ezekiel, who made it the subject of a prophecy as strange as even the waters themselves—a prophecy that from En-gedi (the fountain of kids and goats), twenty-three miles south from the mouth of the Jordan, on the west coast, to En-eglaim (fountain of the calves *) it should be a place to spread

*Position unknown, but placed in Moab, near the mouth of the Jordan, by Jerome.-Kitto's Encyclopædia.

MYSTERIES OF THE SEA.

261

nets and catch fish, whose numbers shall be exceedingly great (Ezek. xlvii. 10). Strabo, writing B.C. 40, describes it with an air of mystery, and with some statements as to its size which considerably exceed the true measurements. He speaks of the great depth of the sea, which he calls a lake, and of the unusual heaviness of the waters, such that any one going in as far as the waist is immediately raised up. But his account of its formation is peculiar.

66

66 Bitumen," says Strabo, "is an ingredient in the soil of the land, which, heated, becomes liquid, and flows out until it is hardened by coming into water, which cools it into solidity." Sodom, according to this writer, was the metropolis of twelve cities; and, the earth beneath being full of fire (euvрov), they were upheaved, and burned by flames which exhaled from the earth. The Egyptians use the bitumen in embalming their dead. He makes a distinction between the liquid oil from the bitumen, which he says was called haphtha or naphtha," and the solid pitch, which he calls bitumen or asphaltum. With the former Alexander caused a bath to be filled, and, having put a boy into the same, applied a lamp, when the boy immediately took fire; and it was only with great difficulty, and by the application of great quantities of water, that the fire was quenched. This, he very philosophically tells us, he did for the sake of an experiment. Tacitus asserts that those who could not swim, alike with those who could, were borne up upon its waters. And Aristotle and Pliny, with descriptions, make scientific speculations upon it as a mysterious phenomenon. Josephus adds some information, describes some facts, and mystifies some others. Vespasian commanded some who could not swim to be cast in, having had their hands tied behind them; but they floated, being "forced upwards." Josephus says the colour of the lake changes thrice a day, and casts up "black clouds of bitumen in many parts of it;" and when the tradesmen in the vicinity of the lake come to the mass, and catch hold of it as it hangs together, and draw it into the boat, they are