220 SIR VICTOR BROOKE CHAP. 



It is not a bit like a desert, but ' wilderness ' is the 

 word. It is a succession of wild, lonely, undulating 

 hills, rather like Largie, no water, but still flowers and 

 plants becoming more and more tropical everywhere. 

 The Dead Sea is 1300 feet below the level of the 

 Mediterranean, and my barometer went quite out of the 

 marking. There is 25 per cent of salt in the water, 

 and Trench who bathed could not sink. The sea is 

 glassy, still, and the mountains of Moab, with Mount 

 Nebo (one thought of poor Moses), blue and purple, 

 run like a wall along its eastern side. Then on to the 

 Jordan, which runs swift and muddy through a belt of 

 lovely tropical forest. Here or hereabouts Joshua and 

 his host passed, and both Elijah and Elisha, the former 

 disappearing from near the same place in the chariot 

 of fire. We camped on the summit of the mounds 

 which cover the original Jericho, and I bathed in the 

 spring which runs from them out of the earth, which 

 Elisha healed with salt. Yesterday was the day of all. 

 We left Jericho and passed up the long weary ap- 

 proach He knew so well through the wilderness to 

 Bethany. As you leave the plain of the Jordan, the road 

 runs along the chasm, at the bottom of which runs the 

 Brook Cherith, where Elijah was fed by the ravens. 

 Eagles were flying round it, and a wilder spot I never 

 saw. At length, when we reached Bethany, the idea of 

 Martha coming out to meet Him is suggested by the very 

 approach. The house pointed out to us may easily be 

 the one, and the village is and was so small it cannot be 

 far wrong, and then the * cave where they laid Him ' is, 

 one cannot help thinking, the very cave. It is a natural 

 and very deep cave entered by steps, and the tomb at the 

 bottom. I doubt if there is another cave at Bethany, 

 and if not, this must be it. At any rate it is all so 

 natural, I think there is not much astray, and to think 



