ney, which to Cuthbert seemed
interminable, found them on the low spit of sand which runs along by the
side of the Dead Sea. Behind, lofty rocks rose almost precipitously, but
through a cleft in these the Arabs had made their way. Cuthbert saw at
once that they belonged to some desert tribe over whom the authority of
Suleiman was but nominal. When summoned for any great effort, these
children of the desert would rally to his armies and fight for a short
time; but at the first disaster, or whenever they became tired of the
discipline and regularity of the army, they would mount their camels and
return to the desert, generally managing on the way to abstract from the
farms of those on their route either a horse, cattle, or some other
objects which would pay them for the labors they had undergone.

They were now near the confines of their own country, and apparently had
no fear whatever of pursuit. They soon gathered some of the dead wood
cast on the shores of the sea, and with these a fire was speedily
lighted, and an earthenware pot was taken down from among their baggage:
it was filled with water from a skin, and then grain having been placed
in it, it was put among the wood ashes. Cuthbert, who was weary and
aching in every limb from the position in which he had been placed on
the camel, asked them by signs for permission to bathe in the lake. This
was given principally apparently from curiosity, for but very few Arabs
were able to swim; indeed, as a people they object so utterly to water
that the idea of any one bathing for his amusement was to them a matter
of ridicule.

Cuthbert, who had never heard of the properties of the Dead Sea, was
perfectly astonished upon entering the water to find that instead of
wading in it up to the neck before starting to swim, as he was
accustomed to do at home, the water soon after he got waist-deep took
him off his feet, and a cry of astonishment burst from him as he found
himself on rather than in the fluid. The position was so strange and
unnatural that with a cry of alarm he scrambled over on to his feet, and
made the best of his way to shore, the Arabs indulging in shouts of
laughter at his astonishment and alarm. Cuthbert was utterly unable to
account for the strange sensations he had experienced; he perceived that
the water was horribly salt, and that which had got into his mouth
almost choked him. He was, however, unaware that saltness adds to the
weight of water, and so to t