I848.J POSITION OF THE FIVE CITIES. 509 



trees, with the nubk, the palm, the olive, and the pistachia. 

 Beds of yellow henbane, of nightshade and mignionette, not 

 only destitute of fragrance but entirely scentless, are mingled 

 with patches of prickly cucumbers; and in the moist places 

 of the plains and deltas there are thickets of cane, and clumps 

 of reeds and sedges, and tufts of fern and water lilies. But 

 the foliage is usually of a tawny color, occasioned by the 

 sulphurous vapors floating in the air; and the leaves and 

 fruit of most of the shrubs and trees have a salt and bitter 

 taste, and often seem to be completely saturated with the 

 saline substances with which the atmosphere is loaded. 



Tolerably successful attempts have been made, in some 

 instances, to cultivate the plains and deltas along the borders 

 of the lake, and very good crops of barley and dhoura have 

 not unfrequently been obtained. Where irrigation has been 

 practicable, still greater success has attended the labors of the 

 husbandman. In the land of Moab, beyond the barren strip 

 lying upon the shore of the sea, the country is tolerably fer- 

 tile, in the low grounds and intervales ; but it is liable to 

 visitations from the locusts, which oftentimes commit dread- 

 ful ravages. 



(5.) For centuries speculation has been rife with regard to 

 the probable position of the cities of the plain, and the manner 

 of their destruction. It has repeatedly been said, that their 

 ruins have been observed near the western side of the Dead 

 Sea, but this fact is not well authenticated. Josephus, 

 indeed, avers, that the shadows of the five cities could be 

 seen in his time, yet it is not at all clear that he intended to 

 be literally understood.* Strabo professes to give the actual 

 circumference of the ruins of Sodom as being sixty stadia,! 

 but the correctness of his statement is more than doubtful.! 



* History of the Jewish War, book iv, chap. 8. 



•)• Geographic lib. xvi, cap. 2. 



| The Geography of Strabo is of great value to the present age, but some of 

 its statements are grossly erroneous. For instance, he asserts that there were 

 thirteen cities in the plain now occupied by the Dead Sea (lib. xvi, cap. 2). 

 Stephen of Byzantium is more moderate, and makes them only ten in number 

 (art. S^j/jj.)— According to the Scriptural account, there were but five,— 

 Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, and Bela, or Zoar, (Genesis xiv, 2.J 



