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Lieut. Lynch 7 s Expedition to the Jordan and Dead Sea. 329 



They passed up the Wady Kerak, the path extremely steep 

 and difficult, and the scenery very wild and grand ; on one side 

 a deep chasm ? on the other high overhanging cliffs, and a fierce 

 thunder-storm which soon came on poured a powerful torrent alon 

 the gorge, bearing rocks before it that made the region resound 

 with their collision. Excepting a single palm bending in the tem- 

 pest, they had not seen a tree or shrub since they turned up the 

 ravine, but only mountain ruins of naked rocks piled up in wild 

 grandeur along a zigzag path. They saw much of the scarlet 

 anemone, also a blue flower resembling the convolvulus, and par- 

 tridges, hawks and doves, were their attendants. The cavalcade 

 wound up along a circuitous ascent, and limestone, some of it 

 fossiliferous, accompanied them quite to Kerak. 



A little after noon they came upon the brow of a hill 3000 feet 

 above the Dead Sea, at the N.E. angle of the town. They pass- 

 ed along a wall and by a tower, and entered the town under an 

 arch cut in the solid rock thirty feet high by twelve wide ; a part- 

 ly effaced Arabic inscription was over the gateway; they pro- 

 ceeded through a passage eighty feet long, and found the town to 

 be a collection of stone huts built without mortar. They were 

 from seven to eight feet high (from the ground floor ?), the ground 

 floor is about six feet below, and the flat terrace roof about two 

 feet above the streets, and the people were assembled on the dirt- 

 heaps and roofs to see the strangers pass. The council-house is 

 the Christian school-room, and there is a work-room below. A 

 Christian church was building ; it was seventy-four feet by forty, 

 and twelve feet high. 



The room for the travellers had a naked stone floor and a mud 

 roof supported by rafters, two windows without glass or shut- 

 ters, and a door without fastenings. Their food was eggs and 

 milk, three eggs for each for a dinner. There was only one shop, 

 and that contained thin cakes of dried and pressed apricots, and 

 English muslin. The huts had neither windows nor chimneys, 

 the inside was smoked, and the women and children were squalid 

 and filthy. The population of Kerak is about 300, three-fourths 

 Christian, and the entire Christian population here 900 to 1000. 



The castle was originally a vast and magnificent structure, 

 partly excavated from and partly built upon the mountain top; 

 the architecture is a mixture of Saracenic, Gothic and Roman, 

 hut its history appears to be obscure. 



. On the 3d of May the party, not without danger from the Mus- 

 lim Arabs, made their way back to their boats. They now com- 

 menced their return along the eastern or Arabian shore. Moun- 

 tains of red sandstone variegated with yellow were passed, with 

 white cliffs in the background. The next day the shores present- 

 ed boulders of trap, and the mountain appeared to be composed 

 of scoria and lava. The scenery was grand and wild. A stream, 





