William Francis Lynch

“ The time is coming — the beginning is even now — when the whole worthless tribe of kings, with all their myrmidons, will be swept from their places and made to bear a part in the toils and sufferings of the great human family; — when, not in theory only, but in fact, every man will be free and all men politically equal; — then, this world will be a happy one, for liberty, rightly enjoyed, brings every blessing with it.
In the evening we walked up the ravine to bathe. ”

“ The mosquitoes, as if their stings were envenomed by the heat, tormented us almost to madness, and we spent a miserable night, throughout which we were compelled to lie encumbered with our arms, while, by turns, we kept vigilant watch. ”

“ It was a delightful sensation when their feet touched the water, even the salt, slimy water of the sea, then at the temperature of 88°. The southern shore presented a mud-flat, which is terminated by the high hills bounding the Ghor to the southward. A very extensive plain or delta, low and marshy towards the sea, but rising gently, and, farther back, covered with luxuriant green, is the outlet of Wady es Safieh (clear ravine) , bearing S.E. by S. Anxious to examine it, we coasted along, just keeping the boat afloat, the in-shore oars stirring up the mud. ”

“ We threw ourselves upon the parched, cracked earth, among dry stalks and canes, which would before have seemed insupportable from the heat. Some endeavoured to make a screen of one of the boats’ awnings, but the fierce wind swept it over in an instant. It was more like the blast of a furnace than living air. At our feet was the sea, and on our right, through the thicket, we could distinguish the gleaming of the fires and hear the shouts from an Arab encampment.
HEAT AND THIRST
In the early part of the night, there was scarce a moment that some one was not at the water-breakers ”

“ Calm and warm; — went up and bathed in the ravine. There were voices in the cliffs overhead, and shortly after there was the report of a gun, the reverberating echoes of which were distinctly heard at the camp. As I had come unattended, the officers were alarmed, and some came to look for me. Our Arab was exceedingly nervous. The gun was doubtless a signal from a look-out on the cliff to his friends inland, for these people live in a constant state of civil warfare, and station sentinels on elevated points to give notice of a hostile approach. ”

“ Those who have never felt thirst, never suffered in a Simoom in the wilderness, or been far off at sea, can form no idea of our sensations. They are best illustrated by the exclamation of the victim in Dante’s Inferno. ”

“ We immediately pulled in for the shore, and Dr. Anderson and I went up and examined it.
The beach was a soft, slimy mud encrusted with salt, and a short distance from the water, covered with saline fragments and flakes of bitumen. We found the pillar to be of solid salt, capped with carbonate of lime, cylindrical in front and pyramidal behind. The upper or rounded part is about forty feet high, resting on a kind of oval pedestal, from forty to sixty feet above the level of the sea. It slightly decreases in size upwards, crumbles at the top, and is one entire mass of crystallization. ”

“ This part of the coast is claimed by no particular tribe; but is common to roaming bands of marauders.
RAVINE, WITH RUINS
The beach was bordered with innumerable dead locusts. There was also bitumen in occasional lumps, and incrustations of lime and salt. The bitumen presented a bright, smooth surface when fractured, and looked like a consolidated fluid. The Arabs called it hajar Mousa (Moses’ stone) .
Our Arabs insisted upon it that the only ford was at the southern extremity of the sea. There were seven of them with us, and they were of three tribes, the Rashayideh, Ta’amirah and Kabeneh. ”

“ We bivouacked without tents, on a dry marsh, a few dead bushes around us, and some of the thorny nubk, and a tree bearing a red berry a short distance inland, with low canes on the margin of the sea. A short distance to the N.E., on the peninsula, we found fragments of an immense and very old mill-stone. The mill had, doubtless, been turned by a canal from the ravine, down which the water must flow copiously in the rainy season.
EFFECTS OF THE HOT WIND
At 5, finding the heat intolerable, we walked up the dry torrent bed in search of water. ”

“ It is true that these apples are sometimes full of dust, but this appears only when the fruit is attacked by an insect, which converts the whole of the inside into dust, leaving nothing but the rind entire, without causing it to lose any of its colour.’
Linnaeus thought, also, that they were the fruit of a solanum, and named a species having large yellow berries, with black seeds, surrounded by a greenish pulp, which dries into a bitter, nauseous powder, solanum Sodomeum; but it has been found that this plant is a native of Southern Africa, and not of Palestine. ”

“ The great Being who wisely rules over all, is doubtless punishing the nations for their sins; but, as His justice is ever tempered with mercy, I have not the smallest doubt that when the ordeal is passed, the result will be beneficial to the human race. ”

“ We this day paid particular attention to the geological construction of the western shore, with a special regard to the disposition of the ancient terraces and abutments of the tertiary limestone and marls. There may be rich ores in these barren rocks. Nature is ever provident in her liberality, and when she denies fertility of surface, often repays man with her embowelled treasures. There is scarce a variety of rock that has not been found to contain metals ”

“ At 8:08, water shoaling to two and a half feet, hauled off; 8:12, stood in and landed on the extreme point of Usdum. Many dead bushes along the shore, which are incrusted with salt as at the peninsula. Found it a broad, flat, marshy delta, the soil coated with salt and bitumen, and yielding to the foot. ”

“ A prop, or buttress, connects it with the mountain behind, and the whole is covered with debris of a light stone colour. Its peculiar shape is doubtless attributable to the action of the winter rains. The Arabs had told us in vague terms that there was to be found a pillar somewhere upon the shores of the sea ”

“ One of the Arabs whom we sent back from Usdum fell fainting on his return, and nearly famished for want of water. His companions, suffering from the same cause, were compelled to leave him on the parched and arid shore and hasten forward to save themselves. Fortunately there was a messenger in the camp, who had come on horseback from Jerusalem, and Sherîf was enabled to send water forthwith, and have the poor man brought to the tents.
INTELLIGENCE FROM HOME
Found letters awaiting us from Beïrût, forwarded express from Jerusalem. ”

“ Here too may have been the dwellings of the Essenes, in the early days of Christianity, and subsequently of hermits, when Palestine was under Christian sway. Our Arabs say that these caves have been here from time immemorial, and that many years ago some of the tribe succeeded in entering one of them, and found vast chambers excavated in the rock. They may have been the cells where “gibbered and moaned” the hermit of Engaddi.
UNWONTED ENJOYMENT
Having bathed, we returned much refreshed to the camp. ”

“ In the last century, Amman describes them as resembling a small apple, of a beautiful colour, and growing on a shrub resembling the hawthorn. Hasselquist, on the contrary, is of opinion that it is the fruit of the solanum melongena, or egg-plant.
He says that 'it is found in great abundance collected in the descent of the Jordan, and the various places round Jericho, in the valleys near the Jordan, and in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea. ”

“ At 6:42, fifty yards from the shore, sounded, the depth one fathom. Wady Mubughghik bearing west. 6:51, soundings one and three-quarter fathoms, grey mud. At 7, two fathoms, black, slimy mud. A light wind sprang up from S.S.E., a few light cirrus clouds in the N.E. The cliffs gradually slope away and terminate in Usdum. Sounding every few minutes for the ford; stretching out occasionally from the shore line, and returning to it again, when the water deepened to two fathoms. The Fanny Skinner coasted along the shore to sketch the topography, and we kept further out to sound for the ford. ”

“ At 12:52, landed at Wady Muhariwat (Surrounded ravine) , on the western shore, where a shallow salt stream, formed by a number of springs oozing from a bank covered with shrubs, spread itself over a considerable space, and trickled down over the pebbles into the sea. There were some very small fish in the stream. Thermometer, 96°.
At 1:15 P.M., started again, and steered parallel with the western shore. Keeping about one-third the distance between the western shore and the peninsula, the soundings ranged steadily at two and a quarter fathoms; first part light, the second part dark mud. ”

“ At 2:35 P.M., close in with the eastern shore, but unable to land from the soft bottom and shoalness of the water. At 2:50, a light breeze from W.N.W.; hauled to the north towards the base of the peninsula. A long, narrow, dry marsh, with a few scrubby bushes, separated the water from a range of stupendous hills, 2000 feet high. The cliff of En Nuweireh (Little Tiger) , lofty and grand, towered above us in horizontal strata of brown limestone, and beautiful rose-coloured sandstone beneath. Clouds in the east, nimbus, seemed to be threatening a gust. ”

“ It has been remarked that races with highly coloured skins are rarely deformed; and the exemption is attributed, perhaps erroneously, not to a mode of life differing from that of a civilized one, but to hereditary organization. ”

“ At 3:05 P.M. a fine northerly wind blowing; stopped to take in our Arabs. They brought a piece of bitumen, found on the shore, near Sebbeh, where we had intended to camp; but the wind was fair, and there was an uncertainty about water. We ascertained that there is no ford as laid down in the map of Messrs. Robinson and Smith. One of the Arabs said that there was once a ford there, but all the others denied it. ”

“ Not far from us must be the site of Zoar; and on some of these mountains Lot dwelt with his two daughters. This country is called Moab, after the son of the eldest daughter. Moab means one begotten by a father. ”

“ At 1:30 P.M., nearly up with Ain Jidy; the white tents of the camp, the line of green, and the far-off fountain, speaking of shade, refreshment, and repose. A camel was lying on the shore, and two Arabs a little beyond. ”

“ These people never attack each other but at advantage, and fifteen well-armed Franks can, in that region, bid defiance to anything but surprise. We have not seen an instance of deformity among the Arab tribes. ”