508 ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE LIFE. [1848 



(4.) Few travellers have written more eloquently upon the 

 Dead Sea than Chateaubriand, and few have made more 

 grievous mistakes. "Its solitary abysses," he remarks, "can 

 sustain the life of no living thing ; no vessel ever ploughed its 

 bosom ; its shores are without trees, without birds, without 

 verdure ; its water, frightfully salt, is so heavy that the 

 highest wind can hardly raist> it." Fish are scarce, it is 

 true, — being only found at or near the mouths of the tribu- 

 tary streams, — and occasionally a few shell fish have been 

 seen alonsr the shore. Panthers now and then disturb the 

 solitude with their wailing cry, and once in a while a hare 

 may be discovered darting in and out among the cane-brakes 

 or the sedgy thickets in the ravines. Swallows and par- 

 tridges have their homes in the cliffs above, and ducks and 

 snipes dwell amid the tufts of cane and clumps of flags grow- 

 ing in the vicinity of the springs, and often sail out upon the 

 lake or disport along its shores. Hawks and herons are not 

 uncommon. Doves and catbirds, also, are quite plentiful. 

 Several kinds of insects are found here, and butterflies are 

 very abundant. The fabulous accounts of the olden time 

 are therefore disproved, and though this scene be so drear 

 and desolate, it is still the home of many a living thing. 



At the bottom of the ravines and gorges, which, during the 

 rainy season, or throughout the year, form the beds of tribu- 

 tary streams, there are plains or deltas, more or less exten- 

 sive, frequently projecting for some distance out into the 

 lake. The mountain sides and summits are, indeed, almost 

 destitute of vegetation ; but the ravines are fringed, here and 

 there, with tamarisks and oleanders, with osher* and ghurrah 



* The fruit of the osher is the genuine apple of Sodom, about which so much 

 has been said, and which, according to Tacitus, (Hist. lit), v, cap. 7) is fair 

 without, but within all dust and ashes. It is a tall, perennial plan*, and Ins 

 thick, dark-green, and glossy leaves. The flowers are interminal, umbelli- 

 ferous, and of a purple color. They are succeeded by globose pods about the 

 size of a lar<*e apple, which contain numerous Hat brown seeds, each of which 

 is furnished with a silky plume or pappus If the bark be cut, or a leaf torn 

 from the plant, a viscous, milky juice exudes from the wound, which is exceed- 

 ingly acrid, and is used in Egypt as a depillutory. 



