d made our
breakfast of hard-boiled eggs, a piece of bad bread, and some
lukewarm water. I tasted the sea-water, and found it much more
bitter, salt, and pungent than any I have met with elsewhere. We
all dipped our hands into the lake, and afterwards suffered the heat
of the air to dry them without having first rinsed them with fresh
water; not one of us had to complain that this brought forth an
itching or an eruption on our hands, as many travellers have
asserted. The temperature of the water was 33 degrees Reaum.; in
colour it is a pale green. Near the shore the water is to a certain
extent transparent; but as it deepens it seems turbid, and the eye
can no longer pierce the surface. We could not even see far across
the water, for a light mist seemed to rest upon it, thus preventing
us from forming a good estimate of its breadth.

To judge from what we could distinguish, however, the Dead Sea does
not appear to be very broad; it may rather be termed an oblong lake,
shut in by mountains, than a sea. Not the slightest sign of life
can be detected in the water; not a ripple disturbs its sleeping
surface. A boat of any kind is of course quite out of the question.
Some years since, however, an Englishman made an attempt to navigate
this lake; for this purpose he caused a boat to be built, but did
not progress far in his undertaking,--a sickness came upon him, he
was carried to Jerusalem, and died soon after he had made the
experiment. It is rather a remarkable fact that, up to the present
moment, no Englishman has been found who was sufficiently weary of
his life to imitate his countryman's attempt.

Stunted fragments of drift-wood, most probably driven to shore by
tempests, lay scattered every where around. We could, however,
discover no fields of salt; neither did we see smoke rising, or find
the exhalations from the sea unpleasant. These phenomena are
perhaps observed at a different season of the year to that in which
I visited the Dead Sea. On the other hand, I saw not only separate
birds, but sometimes even flights of twelve or fifteen. Vegetation
also existed here to a certain extent. Not far from the shore, I
noticed, in a little ravine, a group of eight acicular-leaved trees.
On this plain there were also some wild shrubs bearing capers, and a
description of tall shrub, not unlike our bramble, bearing a
plentiful crop of red berries, very juicy and sweet. We all ate
largely of them; and I was the