80 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 275. 



pernicious to the adjoining country by its strong smell ; 

 the wind raises no waves tliere, nor will it maintain either 

 fish or such birds as use the water." * — Tacitus, lib. v. 

 C 6. 



2. " This lake Asphaltydes is by some also called Mare 

 Mortuum, for by reason of the saltnes, and thicknes of it, 



. nothing can live in it; neyther will it mix with the 



• waters of Jordan, though the river run through the very 



midst of the lake. No creature can possibly sink in it, 

 though it were a horse, or oxe, and their legs were tyd 

 together ; nay, the very burds that sometimes would fly 

 over it, are by the noysome smell of it suffocated, and fall 

 dead into it." * — Teonge's Diary, p. 120. 



3. "The river Jordan running a great way further 

 with many windings, as it were to delay his ill destiny, 

 gliding through the plains of Jericho not far below where 

 that city stood, is at length devoured by that accursed 

 lake Asphalt3-cles, so named of the bitumen which it 

 vomiteth; called also the Dead Sea — perhaps in that it 

 nourisheth no living creature, or for its heavy waters, 

 hardly to be moved by the wind." * — Sandyx, lib. iii. 

 p. 110., 1600. 



4. " We found the hills, which are of white stone, 

 higher the nearer we approached the Dead Sea. The air 

 has been always thought to be bad ; and the Arabs and 

 people who go near its banks, always bind their handker- 

 chiefs before their mouths, and draw their breath through 

 their nostrils, through fear of its pernicious effects." * — 

 Pococlt, vol. ii. pp. 37, 38., 1733, 1740. 



5. "Everything about it was in the highest degree 

 grand and awful. Its desolate, though majestic features, 

 are well suited to the tales told about it."* — Clarke's 

 Visit to the Holy Land, 1801. 



6. " I went on, and came near to those waters of death ; 

 they stretched deeply into the southern desert, and before 

 me, and all around as far away as the e3'e could follow, 

 blank hills piled high over hills, pale, yellow, and naked, 

 walled up in her tomb for ever — the dead and damned 

 Gomorrah. There was no fly that hummed in the for- 

 bidden air — but instead, a deep stillness. No grass grew 

 from the earth, no weed peered through the void sand ; 

 but in mockery of all life, there were trees borne down by 

 Jordan in some ancient flood, and these, grotesquely 

 planted upon the forlorn shore, spread out their grim 

 skeleton arms, all scorched and charred to blackness by 

 the heats of long silent years." — Eothen, cap. xiii. p. 10(5. 



7. " At length we reached the shore of the fatal sea, 

 and encamped within a few yards of the water's edge. The 

 shore was strewn with logs of wood, and withered branches 

 that presented something of a petrified appearance, and 

 lighted into a fire with great facility. There was no shell, 

 or fly, or any sign of life along the curving sand." — 

 Warburton's Crescent and the Cross, cap. xi. p. 107. 



8. " About six we entered the great plain at the end of 

 the Dead Sea ; for about a quarter of an hour we passed 

 a few bushes, but afterwards found the soil sandy and 

 perfectly barren. At dark, we stopped for the night in a 

 ravine at the side of a hill, much against the wishes of 

 our guides ; who strongly urged the want of water and 

 the dread of dytchmaan, as inducements to make us pro- 

 ceed. We collected a quantity of wood which the Dead 

 Sea had thrown up at high-water mark, and endeavoured 

 to make a fire in order to bake bread, as we had flour. 

 The wood however was so impregnated with salt, that all 

 our efforts to light it were unavailing; and we contented 



. * The references thus marked are to be seen in Teonge's 

 Diary, London, 1825, pp. 120. 123. 



ourselves with drinking the flour and water mixed, which, 

 though not very palatable, served to appease our hunger." 

 — Irby and Mangles' Travels in Egypt, Nubia, Syria, 

 and the Holy Land, London, 1845, p. 107. 



9. " We arrived all at once at the lake ; I say all at 

 once, because I thought we were a considerable distance 

 from it. No murmur, no cooling breeze, announced our 

 approach to its margin. The strand, bestrewed with 

 stones, was hot ; the waters of the lake were motionless, 

 and absolutely dead, along the shore. There was no 

 want of wood, for the shore was strewed with branches of 

 tamarind trees brought by the Arabs ; and such is the 

 force of habit, that our Bethlemites, who had pi-eceded with 

 great caution over the plain, were not afraid to kindle a 

 fire which might so easily betray us. One of them em- 

 ployed a singular expedient to make the fire : striding 

 across the pile, he stooped down over the fire till his 

 tunic became inflated with the smoke ; then rising briskly, 

 the air, expelled by this species of bellows, blew up a 

 brilliant flame. 



" About midnight I heard a noise upon the lake. The 

 Bethlemites told me that it proceeded from legions of 

 small fish which come and leap about on the shore. This 

 contradicts the opinion generally adopted, that the Dead 

 Sea produces no living creature." — Chateaubriand's 

 Travels to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, London, 1835, 

 vol. i. pp. 343, 344. 



10. " Since our return (to America), some of the water 

 of the Dead Sea has been subjected to a powerful micro- 

 scope, and no animalculse or vestige of animal matter 

 could be detected." — Lvnch's United States^ Expedition 

 to the Dead Sea, 1849, p.'377. 



11. "Almost at the moment of my turning from the 

 Jordan to the Dead Sea, notwithstanding the long credited 

 accounts that no bird could fly over without dropping 

 dead upon its surface, I saw a flock of gulls floating 

 quietly upon its bosom ; and when I roused them by a 

 stone, they flew down the lake, skimming its surface 

 until they had carried themselves out of sight." — 

 Stephen's Incidents of Travel, cap. xxxii. p. 122. 



12. " The general appearance of this wilderness of land, 

 and water over which an awful silence reigns, is gloomy 

 in the extreme, and calculated to depress the spirit of the 

 beholder. The soil around (the Dead Sea) being im- 

 pregnated with salt, produces no plants; and the air 

 itself, which becomes loaded with saline particles from 

 evaporation, cannot be favourable to vegetation. Hence 

 the deadly aspect which reigns around the lake. During 

 the few hours we remained in this neighbourhood, we 

 confess we did not see any birds ; but it is not true that 

 the exhalations of the lake are so pestiferous as to kill 

 those which attempt to fly over it." — liobinson's Pales- 

 tine, vol. i. pp. 66, 67. 



13. " Nothing in this place gave me the least idea of 

 the desolation spoken of in the Bible. The air is pure, 

 and the fields extremely verdant." — Mariti's Visit to the 

 Dead Sea, 1760, vol. vii. p. 372. 



14. " The old stories about the pestiferous qualities of the 

 Dead Sea and its waters, are mere fables or delusions ; 

 and actual appearances are the natural and obvious effects 

 of the confined and deep situation, the intense heat, and 

 the uncommon saltness of the waters. Lying in its deep 

 cauldron, surrounded by lofty cliffs of naked limestone 

 rock, exposed for seven or eight months in the year to 

 the unclouded beams of a burning sun, nothing but ste- 

 rility and solitude can be looked for upon its shores : and 

 nothing else is actually found, except in those parts 

 where there are fountains or streams of fresh water; in 

 all of which places there is a fertile soil, and abundant 



