from the Shores of the Dead Sea. 447 
plant Nightshade, or Mad-apple,) which he states to be found in great abund- 
ance round Jericho, in the valleys near the Jordan, and in the neighbourhood 
of the Dead Sea. “ It is true," he says, “that these apples are sometimes full 
of dust, but this appears only when the fruit is attacked by an insect ( Ten- 
thredo), which converts the whole of the inside into dust, leaving nothing but 
the rind entire, without causing it to lose any of its colour." M. Seetzen, 
differing from Hasselquist in opinion, supposes the apple of Sodom to be the 
fruit of a species of cotton-tree, which, he was told, grows in the plain of El 
Ghor, in appearance resembling a fig-tree, and known by the name of Abes- 
chaez. The cotton is contained in the fruit, which is like a pomegranate, but 
has no pulp. Chateaubriand follows with his discovery of what he concludes 
to be the long-sought fruit. The shrub which bears it, he says, grows two 
or three leagues from the mouth of the Jordan: it is thorny, with small taper 
leaves, and its fruit is exactly like the little Egyptian lemon both in size and 
colour. * Before it is ripe it is filled with a corrosive and saline juice: when 
dried it yields a blackish seed, which may be compared to ashes, and which 
in taste resembles bitter pepper.” He gathered half a dozen of these fruits, 
but has no name for them either popular or botanical. Next comes Mr. Jol- 
liffe. He found in a thicket of brushwood, about half a mile from the plain 
of Jericho, a shrub five or six feet high, on which grew clusters of fruit, about 
the size of a small apricot, of a bright yellow colour, ** which; contrasting 
with the delicate verdure of the foliage, seemed like the union of gold with 
emeralds. Possibly, when ripe, they may crumble into dust upon any violent 
pressure." Those which this gentleman gathered did not crumble, nor even 
retain the slightest mark of indenture from the touch; they would seem to 
want, therefore, the most essential characteristic of the fruit in question. But 
they were not ripe. This shrub is probably the same as that described by 
Chateaubriand. Lastly, Captains Irby and Mangles have no doubt that they 
have discovered it in the oskar plant, which they noticed on the shores of the 
Dead Sea, grown to the stature of a tree, its trunk measuring, in many in- 
stances, two feet or more in circumference, and the boughs at least fifteen feet 
high. The filaments inclosed in the fruit somewhat resemble the down of a 
thistle, and are used by the natives as a stuffing for their cushions; * they 
likewise twist them, like thin rope, into matches for their guns, which, they 
