Eothen [54]
We saw a scraggy-looking fellow nearly black, and wearing nothing but a cloth round the loins; he was tending flocks. Afterwards I came up with another of these goatherds, whose helpmate was with him. They gave us some goat's milk, a welcome present. I pitied the poor devil of a goatherd for having such a very plain wife. I spend an enormous quantity of pity upon that particular form of human misery.
About midday I began to examine my map and to question my guide, who at last fell on his knees and confessed that he knew nothing of the country in which we were. I was thus thrown upon my own resources, and calculating that on the preceding day we had nearly performed a two days' journey, I concluded that the Dead Sea must be near. In this I was right, for at about three or four o'clock in the afternoon I caught a first sight of its dismal face.
I went on and came near to those waters of death. They stretched deeply into the southern desert, and before me, and all around, as far away as the eye could follow, blank hills piled high over hills, pale, yellow, and naked, walled up in her tomb for ever the dead and damned Gomorrah. There was no fly that hummed in the forbidden air, but instead a deep stillness; no grass grew from the earth, no weed peered through the void sand; but in mockery of all life there were trees borne down by Jordan in some ancient flood, and these, grotesquely planted upon the forlorn shore, spread out their grim skeleton arms, all scorched and charred to blackness by the heats of the long silent years.
I now struck off towards the debouchure of the river; but I found that the country, though seemingly quite flat, was intersected by deep ravines, which did not show themselves until nearly approached. For some time my progress was much obstructed; but at last I came across a track which led towards the river, and which might, as I hoped, bring me to a ford. I found, in fact, when I came to the river's side that the track reappeared upon the opposite bank, plainly showing that the stream had been fordable at this place. Now, however, in consequence of the late rains the river was quite impracticable for baggage-horses. A body of waters about equal to the Thames at Eton, but confined to a narrower channel, poured down in a current so swift and heavy, that the idea of passing with laden baggage-horses was utterly forbidden. I could have swum across myself, and I might, perhaps, have succeeded in swimming a horse over; but this would have been useless, because in such case I must have abandoned not only my baggage, but all my attendants, for none of them were able to swim, and without that resource it would have been madness for them to rely upon the swimming of their beasts across such a powerful stream. I still hoped, however, that there might be a chance of passing the river at the point of its actual junction with the Dead Sea, and I therefore went on in that direction.
Night came upon us whilst labouring across gullies and sandy mounds, and we were obliged to come to a stand-still quite suddenly upon the very edge of a precipitous descent. Every step towards the Dead Sea had brought us into a country more and more dreary; and this sand-hill, which we were forced to choose for our resting-place, was dismal enough. A few slender blades of grass, which here and there singly pierced the sand, mocked bitterly the hunger of our jaded beasts, and with our small remaining fragment of goat's-milk rock by way of supper, we were not much better off than our horses. We wanted, too, the great requisite of a cheery bivouac - fire. Moreover, the spot on which we had been so suddenly brought to a standstill was relatively high and unsheltered, and the night wind blew swiftly and cold.
The next morning I reached the debouchure of the Jordan, where I had hoped to find a bar of sand that might render its passage possible. The river, however, rolled its eddying waters fast down to the "sea" in a strong, deep stream that shut out all hope of crossing.
It now seemed necessary either to