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what less, the cultivated land is succeeded by a desert country, abandoned to the wandering Arabs. Near where this change of aspect begins to present itself, is a place called by the natives El Baid, where there is a fountain in the rock, and a second pool of greenish water: an ancient site to the N.W. of this spot, exhibits a wall of large construction and some good masonry.

The travellers, at some distance from this haltingplace, fell in with a camp of Jellaheen Arabs, who stated that, in years of scarcity, they retired to Egypt; a custom which would seem to have been handed down from the days of the patriarchs, or dictated by the same necessity which compelled the sons of Jacob to adopt a similar expedient. Among them was an Arab tailor, employed in making coats of sheep-skins, which he dyed red with ochre, or some such substance.*

At about eight hours' distance from El Baid, in a deep barren valley, very rugged and full of great stones, there are the ruins of an old Turkish fort, standing on a single rock to the left of the track; and on the right there is a pool of green water, about fifteen feet wide, tolerable for horses. Further on, the cliff is excavated, at a considerable height, into loop-holes, and the pass appears to have been a sort of barrier, where duties were probably levied on the traveller. The place is called El Zoar. From hence, a gravelly ravine, studded with bushes of acacia and other shrubs, conducts to the great sandy plain at the southern end of the Dead Sea. On entering this plain, the traveller has on his right a continued hill, composed partly of salt and partly of hardened sand, running S.E. and N.W.; till, after proceeding a few miles, the plain opens to the south, bounded, at the distance of about eight miles, by a sandy cliff, from sixty to eighty feet high, which traverses the valley of El Ghor, like a wall, forming a barrier to the waters of the lake when at their greatest height. The existence of that long valley, which, under the names of El Ghor and El Araba, extends from the Dead Sea to the Ælanitic gulf, was first ascertained by the indefatigable Burckhardt. This prolongation of the valley of the Jordan is considered by his learned editor as clearly indicating that that river once discharged itself into the eastern branch of the Red Sea; thus " confirming the truth of that great volcanic convulsion described in Gen. xix., which interrupted the course of the river, which converted into a lake the fertile plain occupied by the cities of Adma, Zeboin, Sodom, and Gomorrah, and which changed all the valley to the southward of that district into a sandy desert."* The sandy cliff, described by Captains Irby and Mangles, was probably either thrown up at the time of that convulsion, or has been subsequently formed by accumulation, like the sand-hills of Egypt.

* Exod. xxv. 5.

Many of our older travellers have described the north-western shores of the Dead Sea, to which the pilgrims are accustomed to repair from Jerusalem; but we are now, for the first time, put in possession, by the publication above referred to, of correct information respecting its southern boundary, and the singular phenomena which its shores present.

* Burckhardt's Travels in Syria, pref. vi.

THE DEAD SEA.

THIS celebrated lake, which the prevailing passion for the marvellous long invested with imaginary horrors, and of which the natives themselves still speak with a degree of terror, has received different names expressive of its character and origin. In Scripture, it is called the Sea of the Plain, the Salt Sea, and the East Sea. * By Josephus, and the Greek and Roman writers, it is spoken of under the appellation of Lake Asphaltites, that is, the Bituminous Lake. St. Jerome styles it the Dead Sea, because, according to the tradition, nothing could live in it. The Arabs call it El Amout (the dead), and Bahr Louth, or the Sea of Lot; and the Turks, according to Chateaubriand, Ula Deguisi. It is a lake lying between two ranges of mountains, which inclose it on the east and the west; on the north, it receives the Jordan from the plain of Jericho; while, on the south, it is equally open, its margin being the plain already described; and yet it has no outlet for its waters. Reland, Pococke, and other travellers, have supposed that it must throw off its superfluous waters by some subterraneous channel; but, although it has been calculated that the Jordan daily discharges into it 6,090,000 tons of water, besides what it receives from the Arnon and several smaller streams, it is now known, that the loss by evaporation is adequate to explain the absorption of the waters. + Its occasional rise and

Deut. iii. 17; iv. 49. Num. xxxiv. 3. Joshua xv. 5. Ezek. xlvii. 18. Joel ii. 20.

+ "For, provided the Dead Sea should be, according to the general computation, seventy-two miles long and eighteen broad,

fall at certain seasons, is doubtless owing to the greater or less volume which the Jordan and the other streams bring down from the mountains. Pococke noticed the evident effect of recent inundations of the sea, on trees which had been killed by the saltwater. At such seasons it spreads itself into what Captain Mangles describes as the backwater. The high-water mark, at the period of his visit, (the beginning of June,) was a mile distant from the water's edge. The backwater, however, is never quite dry. This periodical rise and fall may possibly explain, in some degree, the different accounts which have been given of the extent of the lake. Pliny makes it 100 miles long, twenty-five miles broad in the widest part, and six where it is narrowest. Josephus states, that it is seventy-two miles and a half long, by eighteen miles and three quarters broad; with which the account given by Diodorus Siculus very nearly agrees. Reckoning the stadium as equal to our furlong, his statement would make it above seventy-two miles in length and nearly nineteen in breadth. Whereas, the observations taken by Mr. Bankes and his companions, from several elevated heights, enabled them, they say, to ascertain that the utmost extent of the lake, including the backwater, does not exceed thirty miles. Yet, the ancients were

then, by allowing, according to Dr. Halley's observation, 6914 tons of vapour for every square mile, there will be drawn up every day above 8,960,000 tons." - SHAW's Travels, folio, p. 574.

• Adopting a different estimate of the stadium from Dr. E. D. Clarke, Dr. Pococke makes Diodorus say, that it is only sixty-two miles and a half long, and seven and a half broad; which he thought near the truth. But he judged only by its appearance to the eye.

PART II.

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well acquainted with the sea. Josephus, Julius Africanus, and Pausanias describe it from their own ocular evidence. Are we to conclude that the lake has contracted its dimensions, so as to be only half its ancient length? Supposing any change to have taken place in the depth of its basin, in the lapse of ages, during which the bituminous stores contained in the subterranean chambers of the abyss have been in a process of decomposition, - this is not impossible. For, as the whole of the plain extending from the backwater to the sandy wall which traverses the Ghor, is a flat, on a level with the sea, it is extremely probable that the waters anciently covered that whole extent; and a comparatively slight subsidence of the sea would convert the shallow into a marshy, and at length arid, plain. This supposition would not, indeed, according to Captain Irby's estimate of the distance of the cliff, add more than eight or ten miles of length to the lake; but it would at least lessen the discrepancy between the conflicting authorities. Even if the whole of the lake should prove to be a shallow, the diminution of its waters might be accounted for by changes in the course of the torrents, or in the volume of water which formerly supplied its constant waste by evaporation. It is probable, however, that, in the low estimation of its length, sufficient allowance has not been made for its winding or curved direction. Pococke says, it did not appear to him above a league broad; and Mr. Jolliffe thought, the expanse could not exceed five or six miles in breadth; but both speak of its northern extremity, where it ends in a sort of bay. As it advances southwardly, it increases in breadth, assuming the form of a curve, or, according to Chateaubriand, the shape of a bow. Its course is visible from the northern shore only for

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