inity of the
Dead Sea, or, as it is called, the Lake Asphaltites, where the waves of
the Jordan pour themselves into an inland sea, from which there is no
discharge of waters.

The warlike pilgrim had toiled among cliffs and precipices during the
earlier part of the morning. More lately, issuing from those rocky
and dangerous defiles, he had entered upon that great plain, where
the accursed cities provoked, in ancient days, the direct and dreadful
vengeance of the Omnipotent.

The toil, the thirst, the dangers of the way, were forgotten, as the
traveller recalled the fearful catastrophe which had converted into an
arid and dismal wilderness the fair and fertile valley of Siddim, once
well watered, even as the Garden of the Lord, now a parched and blighted
waste, condemned to eternal sterility.

Crossing himself, as he viewed the dark mass of rolling waters, in
colour as in duality unlike those of any other lake, the traveller
shuddered as he remembered that beneath these sluggish waves lay the
once proud cities of the plain, whose grave was dug by the thunder of
the heavens, or the eruption of subterraneous fire, and whose remains
were hid, even by that sea which holds no living fish in its bosom,
bears no skiff on its surface, and, as if its own dreadful bed were the
only fit receptacle for its sullen waters, sends not, like other lakes,
a tribute to the ocean. The whole land around, as in the days of Moses,
was "brimstone and salt; it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass
groweth thereon." The land as well as the lake might be termed dead, as
producing nothing having resemblance to vegetation, and even the very
air was entirely devoid of its ordinary winged inhabitants, deterred
probably by the odour of bitumen and sulphur which the burning sun
exhaled from the waters of the lake in steaming clouds, frequently
assuming the appearance of waterspouts. Masses of the slimy and
sulphureous substance called naphtha, which floated idly on the sluggish
and sullen waves, supplied those rolling clouds with new vapours, and
afforded awful testimony to the truth of the Mosaic history.

Upon this scene of desolation the sun shone with almost intolerable
splendour, and all living nature seemed to have hidden itself from the
rays, excepting the solitary figure which moved through the flitting
sand at a foot's pace, and appeared the sole breathing thing on the wide
surface of the plain. The dress of the rider and the accoutreme