ver to
the Dead Sea, a distance of several miles, and soon we were all enjoying
a fine bath in the salt water, the women bathing at one place, the men
at another. The water contains so much solid matter, nearly three and a
third pounds to the gallon, that it is easy to float on the surface with
hands, feet and head above the water. One who can swim but little in
fresh water will find the buoyancy of the water here so great as to make
swimming easy. When one stands erect in it, the body sinks down about
as far as the top of the shoulders. Care needs to be taken to keep the
water out of the mouth, nose and eyes, as it is so salty that it is very
disagreeable to these tender surfaces. Dead Sea water is two and a half
pounds heavier than fresh water, and among other things, it contains
nearly two pounds of chloride of magnesium, and almost a pound of
chloride of sodium, or common salt, to the gallon. Nothing but some very
low forms of animal life, unobserved by the ordinary traveler, can live
in this sea. The fish that get into it from the Jordan soon die. Those
who bathe here usually drive over to the Jordan and bathe again, to
remove the salt and other substances that remain on the body after the
first bath. The greatest depth of the Dead Sea is a little over thirteen
hundred feet. The wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah stood here some
place, but authorities disagree as to whether they were at the northern
or southern end of the sea. In either case every trace of them has been
wiped out by the awful destruction poured on them by the Almighty. (Gen.
18:16 to 19:29)

The Jordan where we saw it, near the mouth, and at the time we saw it,
the thirteenth of October, was a quiet and peaceful stream, but the
water was somewhat muddy. We entered two little boats and had a short
ride on the river whose waters "stood, and rose up in one heap, a great
way off," that the children of Israel might cross (Joshua 3:14-17), and
beneath whose wave the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was baptized by the
great prophet of the Judaean wilderness. (Matt. 3:13-17.) We also got
out a little while on the east bank of the stream, the only time I was
"beyond Jordan" while in Palestine. After supper, eaten in Jericho, we
went around to a Bedouin encampment, where a dance was being executed--a
dance different from any that I had ever seen before. One of the
dancers, with a sword in hand, stood in the center of the ground they
were using, while the other