thrown into it, will not even be dissolved; we did not try the experiment, but such would seem very likely to be the fact.1 The water is exceedingly buoyant. Two of us bathed in the sea; and although I could never swim before, either in fresh or salt water, yet here I could sit, stand, lie, or swim in the water, without difficulty. The shore in this part shelved down very gradually; so that we waded out eight or ten rods before the water reached our shoulders. The bottom was here stony, but without mud or slime. After coming out, I perceived nothing of the salt crust upon the body, of which so many speak. There was a slight pricking sensation, especially where the skin had been chafed; and a sort of greasy feeling, as of oil upon the skin, which lasted for several hours. The bath proved exceedingly refreshing, after the heat and burden of the day.-There was much drift-wood along the shore; brought down into the sea, doubtless, from the Wadys in the adjacent mountains. We now measured a base upon the plain near the shore, beginning at the mouth of the little stream from the fountain, and extending N. 19° E. for 1500 feet or 500 yards. From the northern end of this base we took with our large compass the bearings recorded in the note below. The point of the western shoal lay here nearly in a line with the southern extremity of the peninsula. 1) Dr. Marcet's experiments seem to show the contrary; Philosoph. Transact. 1807. p. 299. 2) So Tacitus: "Periti imperitique nandi perinde attolluntur." Hist. V. 6. This buoyancy is mentioned by many ancient writers; e. g. Aristot. Meteorol. II. 3. Plin. H. N. V. 12. Joseph. B. J. IV. 8. 4. See these and other notices collected in Reland Pal. p. 249, seq. 3) Bearings from the N. end of the base on the shore at 'Ain Jidy: Mouth of Wady el-Mojib opposite, S. 821° E. Kerak S. 35° E. Peninsula, north end, S. 28° E. Penins. south end, S. 1° W. Usdum, west end, S. 10° W. Cliff at southwest corner of the sea, S. 13° W. Sebbeh S. 214° W. Râs el-Feshkhah near the northwest corner of the sea, N. 18° E. We returned much exhausted to our tent; and spent the evening, until quite late, in writing up our journals on the spot. The beams of the full moon lay upon the sea below us, diffusing a glow of light over the darkness of death. During the day, as we travelled down the declivity of the eastern slope, we had found the heat continually increase; and here in the chasm of the sea, we encountered an Egyptian climate and Egyptian productions. At Carmel the thermometer at sunrise had stood at 51° F.; at 2 o'clock P. M. near the brow of the cliffs it stood at 82°; and at sunset on the shore at 80° F. The next morning at sunrise, it was at 68° F. Indeed, shut in as this deep caldron is, between walls of rock, the heat of the burning summer-sun cannot be otherwise than very great. And such is the richness of the soil, both along the descent below the fountain and on the little plain, and such the abundance of water, that nothing but tillage is wanting, to render this a most prolific spot. It would be admirably adapted to the cultivation of tropical fruits. We had no question at the time, nor have we any now, that this spot is the ancient En-gedi. With this name the present 'Ain Jidy of the Arabs is identical; and like it also signifies the 'Fountain of the Kid.' The more ancient Hebrew name was Hazezon-Tamar. As such it is first mentioned before the destruction of Sodom, as being inhabited by Amorites and near to the cities of the plain. Under the name En-gedi it occurs as a city of Judah in the desert, giving its name to a part of the desert to which David withdrew for fear of Saul.' At a later period, bands of the Moabites and Ammonites came up against king Jehoshaphat, apparently around the south end of the Dead Sea as 1) Gen. xiv. 7.—Josh. xv. 62. 1 Sam. xxiv. 1-4. See above, p. 203. far as to En-gedi; by the very same route, it would seem, which is taken by the Arabs in their marauding expeditions at the present day, along the shore as far as to 'Ain Jidy, and then up the pass and so northwards below Tekoa. According to Josephus, Engedi lay upon the lake Asphaltis, and was celebrated for beautiful palm-trees and opobalsam; while its vineyards are likewise mentioned in the Old Testament.2 From it towards Jerusalem there was an ascent "by the cliff Ziz," which seems to have been none other than the present pass. In the days of Eusebius and Jerome, En-gedi was still a large village on the shore of the Dead Sea.1 3 I find no mention of En-gedi in the historians of the crusades; but Brocardus, about A. D. 1283, speaks of the mountains of En-gedi in such a way, as to show that their character was then known. They were on the west side of the sea, lofty, and so precipitous as 1) 2 Chron. xx. 1, 2, 20. Joseph. Antiq. IX. 1. 2. See more upon this road under May 11th. 2) Joseph. 1. c. Cant. i. 14. Plin. H. N. V. 17.-Josephus here gives the distance of En-gedi from Jerusalem at 300 stadia or 371 Roman miles, which is by far too great. 3) Heb. 7, Josephus ἀναβάσεως λεγομένης ἐξοχῆς. 2 Chron. xx. 16. Joseph. Antiq. IX. 1. 2. 4) Onomasticon, art. Engaddi. Both writers here say that En-gedi was situated in Aulone Hierichus ; and this has led Reland and others to place it at the north end of the Dead Sea. But the Aulon is described by the same writers, as the great valley of the Jordan, in which Jericho and the Dead Sea are situated, extending south to the desert of Paran; Onomast. art. Aulon.-Jerome elsewhere seems to say that En-gedi was at the south end of the sea, "ubi finitur et consumitur;" Comm. in Ezech. to threaten to fall down into the valley beneath; and were ascended by a pass. But the site of En-gedi itself he seems to place above upon the mountains.' Since that day no traveller appears to have visited this region until the present century. Succeeding writers copied Brocardus; and the imagination of the monks drew En-gedi nearer and nearer towards Bethlehem, until Quaresmius places it at six miles from Bethlehem and seven from the Dead Sea, apparently on the way to Mâr Sâba.2 He speaks also of its vineyards as formerly connected with Bethlehem; and these are probably the same which Hasselquist regarded as the vineyards of Solomon at En-gedi. The present name and site of 'Ain Jidy were first found out by Seetzen in A. D. 1806, and are given upon his map; but whether he actually visited the spot, or only obtained his information from the Arabs, we are nowhere told. At any rate, the preceding pages contain, I believe, the first account of this place from personal observation, which has been given to the public for many centuries.5 THE DEAD SEA. A few general remarks upon the character and phenomena of the Dead Sea, arising out of our observations at 'Ain Jidy, and during the two following days, may here find their proper place. In our later excur 180. 1) Brocardus, c. VII. pp. 179, 2) Elucid. II. pp. 692, 693. Compare Von Troilo, p. 327. Pococke II. p. 38, fol. 3) Ibid. II. p. 620. Hasselquist's Reise, p. 156. 4) No mention is made of 'Ain Jidy in any of Seetzen's printed papers. Not improbably he may have passed this way on his second journey round the Dead Sea, respecting which nothing has been published. An account of this journey exists among his unpublished papers. See First Appendix, A. pp. 22, 23. 5) 'Ain Jidy is mentioned by the Arabian writer Mejr ed-Din about A. D. 1495, as on the eastern border of the district of Hebron. Fundgr. des Or. II. p. 142. sion from Hebron to Wady Mûsa, we visited the south end of the sea; and I shall there have occasion to make some further remarks upon that portion of it, as well as upon the geological structure of the whole region, and the destruction of the cities of the plain. Length and Breadth of the Dead Sea. From calculations founded on the base and angles measured by us at 'Ain Jidy, as above described, the following results were obtained; reckoned from the northern end of the base. These distances, of course, could be considered only as an approximation to the truth; and they appear to be actually too small. My own estimate of the width of the sea at the time, was ten or twelve English miles. The general breadth is very uniform; except where the sea is contracted near the extremities, by Usdum on the South and by Râs el-Feshkhah on the North. In constructing a new map of this region, a minute and very careful comparison of all the bearings taken by us at various points along the whole western coast of the Dead Sea, as well as of the distances travelled upon our several routes, has resulted in fixing the breadth of the sea at 'Ain Jidy at about nine geogra. phical miles. The same minute comparison and cautious construction, gives likewise for the length of the Dead Sea about thirty-nine of the like miles; 'Ain Jidy being situated nearly at the middle point of the west ern coast. There will therefore be no very essential error in estimating the whole length of the Dead Sea at THIRTYEIGHT OF FORTY geographical miles. My own estimate of its length at the time, founded on various data, was VOL. II. 28 |