VALLEY OF THE JORDAN. 101 



which raise to the highest pitch the contrast between its clear, bitter 

 waves, and the soft, fresh, turbid stream of its parent river. Strewn 

 along its desolate margin lie the most striking memorials of this last 

 conflict of life arid death : trunks and branches of trees, torn down 

 from the thickets of the river-jungle by the violence of the Jordan, 

 thrust out into the sea, and thrown up again by its waves, dead and 

 barren as itself. The dead beach shelves gradually into the calm 

 waters. A deep haze that which to earlier ages gave the appeai- 

 ance of the 'smoke going up for ever and ever' veils its southern 

 extremity, and almost gives it the dim horizon of a real sea. In the 

 nearer view rises the low island close to its northern end, and the 

 Jong promontory projecting from the eastern side, which divides it 

 into its two unequal parts. This is all that I saw, and all that most 

 pilgrims and travellers have seen, of the Dead Sea." * 



The sinister aspect of the valley of the Jordan, especially at the 

 embouchure of the river, impresses itself on the mind of every spec- 

 tator. There the traveller finds the path narrowed between two 

 abrupt gigantic walls. On the right rises the Arabian chain, black 

 and perpendicular ; on the left, the Judaean range, less elevated, more 

 irregular, and resembling a dismantled ruin. " The valley comprised 

 between these two chains," says the Pere Laorty-Hadji, " exhibits a 

 soil closely resembling the bed of a sea which has long been dry. 

 You can discern but a few stunted trees. Ruined towns and castles 

 appear in the distance. At the moment of flinging itself into the 

 Dead Sea, the Jordan itself, traversing a muddy soil, changes its 

 physiognomy and colour. It seems to drag reluctantly, towards the 

 motionless lake, a burden of slow and tawny waters. The shores of 

 the Dead Sea are low on the east and west ; to the north arid south 

 high mountains enclose it." " These mountains, separated by a 

 formidable cleft, exhibit their beds of red sandstone, overlain by a 

 thick stratum of compact chalk, interrupted by silicious fragments. 

 One is surprised not to see a volcanic crater, when all about, in this 

 convulsed site, the action of fire is visible the violent, bitter struggle 



* Dean Stanley, li Syria and Palestine," pp. 290-294. 



