68 MEMOIR OF BURCKHARDT. 



where its enclosing hills are united to a range of 

 mountains which open and include the Dead Sea. 

 At the lower extremity of this lake they again ap- 

 proach, and leave between them a valley similar to 

 the northern Ghoeyr in shape, but which the want of 

 water makes a desert ; whereas the Jordan and its 

 numerous tributaries render the other a fertile plain. 

 At a short distance south of the Dead Sea it is in- 

 terrupted by rocky ground, when it takes the name 

 of Arabah, which it retains until its termination near 

 Akaba. 



The existence of this lower valley, as Burckhardt 

 remarks, appears to have been unknown to ancient 

 as well as modern geographers, although it is a very 

 remarkable feature in the topography of Syria and 

 Arabia Petraea ; and is still more interesting for its 

 productions. Indigo is of common growth ; so is 

 the coloquintida, the szadder, a species of the 

 cochineal-tree, the talh or acacia, which produces 

 the gum-arabic, the tarfa or tamarisk, and the 

 asheyr or silk-tree, which bears a fruit of reddish- 

 yellow colour, containing a white substance resem- 

 bling the finest silk, and used by the Arabs as 

 matches for their firelocks. It is here also, as well 

 as in the desert of Mount Sinai, that the manna is 

 still found. It is called by the natives Assal Bey- 

 rouk, or the honey of Beyrouk. " It was described 

 to me," says Burckhardt, " as a juice dropping from 

 ihe leaves and twigs of a tree called Gharrab, of the 

 size of an olive-tree, with leaves like those of the 

 poplar, but somewhat broader. The honey collects 



