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, 

 diflFering 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 stufling for their cushions ; " they 

 likewise twist them, like thin rope, into matches for their guns, which, they 



