Chap. 16.] ACCOTOT OF COUOTBIES, ETC. 
431 
people that live apart from the world, and marvellous beyond 
all others throughout the whole earth, for they have no women 
among them ; to sexual desire they are strangers ; money 
they have none ; the palm-trees are their only companions. 
Day after day, however, their numbers are fully recruited by 
multitudes of strangers that resort to them, driven thither 
to adopt their usages by the tempests of fortune, and wearied 
with the miseries of life. Thus it is, that through thousands 
of ages, incredible to relate, this people eternally prolongs 
its existence, without a single birth taking place there ; so 
fruitful a source of population to it is that weariness of 
life which is felt by others. Below this people was for- 
merly the town of Engadda\ second only to Hierosolyma in 
the fertility of its soil and its groves of palm-trees; now, 
like it, it is another heap of ashes. Next to it we come to 
Masada^, a fortress on a rock, not far from Lake Asphaltites. 
Thus much concerning Judaea. 
CHAP. 16. (18.) — DECAPOLIS- 
On the side of Syria, joining up to Judsea, is the region 
of Decapolis^, so called from the number of its cities ; as to 
which all writers are not agreed. Most of them, however, 
agree in speaking of Damascus^ as one, a place fertilized 
♦ 
tained the same doctrines ; but the latter were distinguished by a more 
rigid mode of Hfe. It has been suggested by Taylor, the editor of 
*Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible,' that John the Baptist belonged to 
this sect. 
1 Or Engedi. Its ancient name was Hazezon-Tamar, when it was 
inhabited by the Amorites. See Gen. xiv. 7 ; 2 Chron. xx. 2. Accord- 
ing to Josephus, it gave name to one of the fifteen toparchies of Jud?ea. 
It still retains its name, Ain-Jedey, or "Fountain of the Groats," and 
was so called from a spring which issued out of the limestone rock at the 
base of a lofty cHff. 
^ Its site is now known as Sebbeh, on the south-west of the Dead Sea. 
3 Afi/ca ttoXgTs, the "Ten Cities." He alludes to the circumstance, 
that the number of cities varied from time to time in this district ; 
one being destroyed in warfare, and others suddenly rising from its 
foundation. 
^ The capital city of Syria, both in ancient and modern times. It is 
now called Es-Sham. The only epithet given to it by the ancient poets 
is that of " ventosa," or " windy," found in the Pharsaha of Lucan, B. iii. 
1. 215, which, it has been remarked, is anything but appropriately chosen. 
