opinion here, that they are part of the ruins of one of the towns which are buried under it." The bare possibility, that any wreck of the guilty cities should. be brought to light, is sufficient to excite an intense curiosity to explore this mysterious flood, which, so far as appears from any records, no bark has ever ploughed,* no plummet ever sounded. Should permission ever be obtained from the Turks, to launch-a vessel on the lake, its navigation, if practicable, would probably lead to some interesting results.

There yet remains to be noticed, in connexion with this subject, the far-famed apples

"which grew

Near that bituminous lake where Sodom stood."

Tacitus and Josephus both mention this fruit as beautiful to the eye, but crumbling, at the touch, to dust and bitter ashes. + Reland, Maundrell, and Shaw, all express themselves as sceptical concerning its existence. But none of them explored the borders of the lake sufficiently to entitle them to give a decided opinion on the subject, having only seen its northern shore. Pococke is inclined to lay more stress on the ancient testimonies; and he supposes the apples to be pomegranates, "which having a tough, hard rind, and being left on the trees two or three years, the inside may be dried to dust, and the outside may remain fair." Hasselquist, however, the pupil of Linnæus, pronounces the Poma Sodomitica, to be the fruit of the Solanum melongena, (egg-plant nightshade, or madapple,) which he states to be found in great abundance

* Strabo, Pliny, and Diodorus Siculus speak of rafts, composed of interwoven reeds, on which the Arabs used to go to collect asphaltos.

↑ See also Wisdom x. 7.

round Jericho, in the valleys near the Jordan, and in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea. "It is true," he says, "that these apples are sometimes full of dust, but this appears only when the fruit is attacked by an insect (tenthredo), which converts the whole of the inside into dust, leaving nothing but the rind entire, without causing it to lose any of its colour.” M. Seetzen, differing from Hasselquist in opinion, supposes the apple of Sodom to be the fruit of a species of cotton-tree, which, he was told, grows in the plain of El Ghor, in appearance resembling a fig-tree, and known by the name of Abeschaez. The cotton is contained in the fruit, which is like a pomegranate, but has no pulp. Chateaubriand follows with his discovery of what he concludes to be the long-sought fruit. The shrub which bears it, he says, grows two or three leagues from the mouth of the Jordan: it is thorny, with small taper leaves, and its fruit is exactly like the little Egyptian lemon both in size and colour. "Before it is ripe, it is filled with a corrosive and saline juice: when dried, it yields a blackish seed, which may be compared to ashes, and which in taste resembles bitter pepper." He gathered half a dozen of these fruits, but has no name for them, either popular or botanical. Next comes Mr. Jolliffe. He found in a thicket of brushwood, about half a mile from the plain of Jericho, a shrub five or six feet high, on which grew clusters of fruit, about the size of a small apricot, of a bright yellow colour, "which, contrasting with the delicate verdure of the foliage, seemed like the union of gold with emeralds. Possibly, when ripe, they may crumble into dust upon any violent pressure."? Those which this gentleman gathered, did not crumble, nor even retain the slightest mark of indenture from the touch; they would seem to want, therefore, the

most essential characteristic of the fruit in question. But they were not ripe. This shrub is probably the same as that described by Chateaubriand. Lastly, Captains Irby and Mangles have no doubt that they have discovered it in the oskar plant, which they noticed on the shores of the Dead Sea, grown to the stature of a tree; its trunk measuring, in many instances, two feet or more in circumference, and the boughs at least fifteen feet high. The filaments enclosed in the fruit, somewhat resemble the down of a thistle, and are used by the natives as a stuffing for their cushions; "they likewise twist them, like thin rope, into matches for their guns, which, they assured us, required no application of sulphur to render them combustible." This is probably the same tree that M. Seetzen refers to. But still, the correspondence to the ancient description is by no means perfect; there being little resemblance between cotton or thistledown, and ashes or dust. M. Chateaubriand's golden fruit, full of bitter seed, comes the nearest to what is told us of the deceitful apple. If it be any thing more than a fable, it must have been a production peculiar to this part of Palestine, or it would not have excited such general attention. On this account, the oskar and the solanum seem alike unentitled to the distinction; and for the same reason, the pomegranate must altogether be excluded from consideration. The fruit of the solanum melongena, which belongs to the same genus as the common potatoe, is white, resembling a large egg, and is said to impart an agreeable acid flavour to soups and sauces, for the sake of which it is cultivated in the south of Europe. This could hardly be what Tacitus and Josephus referred to. It is possible, indeed, that what they describe, may have originated, like the oak-galls in this country, in the work

of some insect: for these remarkable productions sometimes acquire a considerable size and beauty of colour. Future travellers will be inexcusable if they leave this question undecided.

The usual route by which travellers have reached the northern shores of the Dead Sea, is by Jericho and Santa Saba. Before we finally quit the land of Judea, we must notice the interesting sites which occur in this track.

THE ROAD TO JERICHO AND THE JORDAN.

SOON after leaving Bethany, the road descends the other side of Mount Olivet, having a valley to the right it then leads for three or four miles along the valley, and at length turns northward into a mountainous desert which the ancients have fixed upon as a fit place in which to lay the scene of our Lord's temptation. "A most miserable, dry, barren place it is," says Maundrell, "consisting of high rocky mountains so torn and disordered, as if the earth had here suffered some great convulsion, in which its very bowels had been turned outward. On the left hand," continues this accurate traveller, "looking down into a deep valley, as we passed along, we saw some ruins of small cells and cottages, which they told us were formerly the habitations of hermits retiring hither for penance and mortification. And certainly, there could not be found in the whole earth a more comfortless and abandoned place for that purpose. From the top of these hills of desolation we had, however, a delightful prospect of the mountains of Arabia, the Dead Sea, and the plain of Jericho; into which last place we descended, after about five hours' march from Jerusalem. As soon as we entered the plain, we turned up on the left hand, and going about one hour that way,

came to the foot of the Quarantania; which, they say, is the mountain into which the devil took our blessed Saviour, when he tempted him with that visionary scene of all the kingdoms and glories of the world. It is, as St. Matthew styles it, an exceeding high mountain, and in its ascent not only difficult but dangerous. It has a small chapel at the top, and another about half way up, founded upon a prominent part of the rock. Near this latter are several caves and holes in the side of the mountain, made use of anciently by hermits, and by some at this day, for places to keep their Lent in, in imitation of that of our blessed Saviour. In most of these grots we found certain Arabs quartered with fire-arms, who obstructed our ascent, demanding two hundred dollars for leave to go up the mountains. So we departed without further trouble, not a little glad to have so good an excuse for not climbing so dangerous a precipice.*

* Hasselquist attempted to reach the summit of "the mountain where Christ fasted and was tempted," but found it too perilous an adventure. "The mountain," he says, "is high and pointed; and on our left, as we ascended, was a deep valley, towards which the rock was perpendicularly steep. It consists of a loose white limestone, mixed with another that is greyish and harder. The way up to the highest point is dangerous beyond imagination. It is narrow, steep, and full of rocks and stones, which obliged us frequently to creep over them before we could accomplish our design. The difficulty is increased by the valley on one side, which, beside its terrible aspect, is dangerous in case one should slip, as in such case it would be impossible to escape death. Near the top of the mountain are the ruins of an old Greek convent, which shew how the monks and anchorites of the old Christians lived, and what places they inhabited. The Greeks preserve the ancient dwellings of their forefathers in Mount Sinai, Saba, St. Elias, and other places in the East. I went as far up on this terrible mountain of temptation as prudence would permit; but ventured not to go to the top, whither I sent my