Part 26 (2/2)

At the end of this, and on approaching the corner of the salt mountain, we had an _incident_ to enliven the tediousness of the hot journey. A party of Arabs came in sight. Our men discovered them first, and running forwards, primed their guns, or lighted the match of the lock, drew their swords and screamed, making bare the right arm, as if prepared for awful deeds. The others took up position behind low rocks, unslung their fire-arms, and screamed _not_. Presently a real or fict.i.tious recognition took place, the guns on both sides were fired up in the air, and swords were brandished for very joy. Both parties rushed into each other's embraces, smiling and kissing with the greatest fervour.

The comers proved to be some of their own Jehaleen, escorting some Hebron townsmen to Kerak. There were two women among the latter, some old men, and some conjurers with monkeys, who thereupon set up a dance to the music of tambourines. Upon something like equanimity being restored, the strangers informed us of certain doings that had taken place, on our account, since we had pa.s.sed by there, and which nearly concerned us.

The two parties soon separated, taking opposite directions.

As we were close upon the western side, there was the southern end of the Dead Sea at our right hand, coming up imperceptibly upon the land, flush with it, so that no limit could be distinguished between water and the wet beach.

At a few minutes past one we all alighted before the large cavern which runs into the heart of the salt mountain; and a picturesque group our party formed, spread about in some shade of the hill, with a great variety of costumes and colours--the camels kneeling and the horses picketed upon the bay of the sea of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Entering the cavern, we found relics of the recent French expedition thither, under M. de Saulcy, such as egg-sh.e.l.ls and torn paper coverings of candles, with French shopkeepers' names upon them. We did not penetrate far inwards, but could see traces of occasional overflowings of the lake into the interior.

The mountain itself is a wonder: five miles of salt above ground, and a hundred feet, probably in some places two hundred feet high. The colour is not bright, but of a dull gray. The best parts of it are very hard to break, and with difficulty we brought away some pieces for curiosity.

As for Lot's wife,--the pillar of salt, mentioned and portrayed by the American expedition in 1848, and of which it is said they took a fragment for a museum at home,--after a good deal of search, we only discovered a crooked thin spire of rock-salt in one place of the mountain; but it would not have been very remarkable if many such had been found to exist in similar circ.u.mstances.

It was a place for inducing solemn reflections and intense sensations, such as one could hardly venture to record at the time of being there, or endeavour to repeat now after so long an interval. Much may, however, be imagined by devout readers of the holy Scriptures--not only as contained in the records of the Book of Genesis, but also as inculcated with intense emphasis in the Epistle of Jude in a later period. Still, there is a vividness of impression to be derived only from being actually on the spot, and surveying the huge extent of water that differs from any other in the world,--placid and bright on its surface, yet awful in its rocky boundaries. But where are the cities and their punished inhabitants, except in the Bible, and the traditions preserved by Tacitus, the Koran, and by the present inhabitants of the country?

Some morsels of bitumen were found upon the beach; but the princ.i.p.al season of the year for finding it is in winter, especially at the commencement of winter, when the lake becomes unusually agitated, and breaks off ma.s.ses of it from the bottom, often of very large size--the peasants of Hebron, with exaggeration, say, ”As large as s.h.i.+ps;” but I have seen many camel-loads of it brought up to Jerusalem at a time, for export to Europe. It is, however, a monopoly of the crown.

We should note that in Gen. xiv. 10, the district was full of bitumen pits previous to the overthrow of the cities of the plain.

At twenty minutes to three we came to a rude heap of stones called _Zoghal_ or _Zoghar_. This cannot well be Zoar, among other reasons, because it lies upon the beach, and is not upon an eminence. It is well to mention that M. de Saulcy's extravagant ideas of the Pentapolis of Sodom, etc., had not then been published.

In another quarter of an hour we had reached the extremity of the ”Salt Mountain,” with all its distorted, sometimes even perpendicular stratification. By this time we were convinced that the whole of the mountain is not salt, but that a good deal of the upper length of it is a mixture of salt and marl or sand. Between it and the water's edge we frequently saw blocks and spires of rock-salt protruding through the flat beach.

There can be no doubt that the Arabic name, _Usdum_, is identical with Sodom, by a well-known custom of the language to invert the consonant and vowel of the first syllable. But even this is brought back to the original state in the adjective form. Thus I heard our guides speak of the Jebel Sid'mi, meaning the Khash'm or Jebel Usdum, or promontory of Sodom.

The _Wadi Netheeleh_ comes up from the southwest to the sh.o.r.e at this northern end of the mountain, parallel to the Wadi Hhuggereh at the southern end.

We kept along the sea-side, and on rising to a higher level, near five o'clock, halted for the night at the mouth of a valley where some water was to be procured, and near us was a broken tower. This site is named _Mobugghek_ or _Umm-Bugghek_. As we were scarcely out of the reach of the Ghawarineh Arabs, our people had to go out in armed detachments for collecting firewood.

During the process of pitching the tents, one of our men, named 'Odeh, perceived a stranger at a great distance, and half stripping himself, ran nimbly up a steep sand hill, ready for whatever operation might be necessary. Our European, I might rather say, our civilised eyes, could not have discovered the ill-omened object at that distance, but those of desert Arabs are far more powerful than ours. I do not know that I shall ever forget the ardent brilliancy of Shaikh Selameh's eyes at all times, as witnessed constantly during our excursion.

While we rambled on the beach in search of bitumen or sulphur, we suddenly heard a furious screaming in the direction of our tents, and hastily returning, found a number of strangers coming down a winding path. Our men were gathered together, and armed. The captain also examined the state of his double-barrelled pistols. However, on their arrival, the newcomers were recognised as people _not hostile_ to the Jehaleen, and their general location is near 'Ain 'Aroos. So, after some squabbling and arrangement, they agreed to share our supper with us in peace. Had the case been otherwise, our position was not an enviable one; for we were shut in between their hills and the sea, they were more numerous than our Arabs, and they had entire command of our spring of water. Our camels, too, were all unloaded, and the packages scattered on the ground.

The scenery was desolate and gloomy in the extreme, undoubtedly blasted by the wrath of Almighty G.o.d, although a place which had at one time been ”well watered everywhere . . . even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt,” (Gen. xiii. 10;) and it required strong faith to expect the possibility of this ”wilderness” (_'Arabah_) being again made ”like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord,” (Isa. li. 3.) Indeed, that promise does not seem to apply to this peculiar locality, by comparing it with Ezek. xlvii. 10, 11, although these unwholesome waters are to be healed, and are to have fish of various kinds in them, with fishermen's nets employed there.

It deserves observation, that now the sea is so utterly lifeless that the American explorers there were unable, by the most powerful microscopes, to find any animalculae in its water. Yet Lynch was of opinion that the atmosphere or vapour there was not in any way prejudicial to human health; and since then, Mr Holman Hunt spent a considerable time near the brink without injury derived from it.

The air was very warm all night, with no freshening dew, and the sound of slow, rippling water on the strand, during the still starlight hours, was one to which our ears had not been of late accustomed.

The Arab figures and conversation round the watch-fire were romantic enough. Thermometer at eight P.M., 90.5 degrees Fahrenheit.

_April_ 10_th_.--Sunrise, Fahrenheit 70.25 degrees. In taking this last note of the thermometer at sunrise, I may observe that the marking of it at that moment gives but a feeble idea of the heat that we experienced during the days' marches throughout this excursion,--the temperature rapidly increased after sunrise, and at later hours within the confined hollows, such as Petra and the basin of the Dead Sea, rose to that of (I suppose) an Indian climate--but above all the effects of heat was that produced by the weight of atmospheric pressure at probably the lowest position in the whole surface of the globe: about 1300 feet below the Mediterranean.

Before six o'clock we were on the march, over broken and precipitous rocky paths, on which the progress was slow and toilsome. Then down again upon the beach. I am sure that if the Dead Sea were already covering the ground that it now does, before the time of Chedorlaomer, the ”four kings against five” could not possibly have mustered or manoeuvred their armies on any side or place between the mountains on each side of the water. {332} At a quarter past seven the thermometer stood at 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

There is always a close, heavy heat in this depressed region, inducing profuse perspiration.

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