appears indeed that they have undergone little alteration for many centuries past.

*

One of the consequences of the nearly equal mixture of Christians and Mohammedans in this community is a proportionate diminution of the force of bigotry and religious intolerance. It is well known that throughout the whole of the Turkish empire, and wherever the authority of Arab or Turkish governors extends, the Jews and Christians are not permitted to wear the gay colours worn by the Mohammedans; neither are they permitted to use the salutation of peace, or to swear by the oaths or ejaculations peculiar to the faith of Islam. At Assalt, however, no such distinctions exist. The Christians wear freely, and without molestation, the same garments and the same gay colours that are worn by their Mohammedan townsmen: they use the same mode of salutation; and there is no difference of exterior appearance, or even of manners, between the one and the other: so perfectly are they on a footing of equality. In return for this absence of intolerance on the part of the Mohammedans, there is a corresponding abstinence from what so particularly offends them in the Syrian towns among the Christians, namely, pork and spirituous liquors. In all the seaports particularly, there are pigs, spirit-shops, and wine-cellars

* The Arabians, called the Nabateans, inhabit a tract partly desert, and in other parts without water; and very little of this tract bears any fruit; therefore the inhabitants live by robbing and stealing, and for that end roving up and down the countries far and near, they vex the inhabitants with their continual incursions and robberies, it being a very difficult matter to subdue them. For in the dry country, they have wells digged in convenient places, unknown to strangers, whither they fly for refuge and are safe. For knowing where the waters lie hid and private, upon opening of the wells they are largely supplied: but strangers who pursue them, (unacquainted with those fountains,) either perish for thirst, or falling into many other disasters, and quite tired out, scarcely ever return home. And therefore these Arabians (being that they are not to be conquered) are never enslaved, nor ever admit any foreign prince over them, but preserve themselves continually in perfect liberty; and therefore neither the Assyrians anciently, nor the Medes and Persians, nor the very Macedonians themselves, were ever able to conquer them; who, though they often marched with great forces against them, yet they ever failed in their designs. - Diodorus Siculus, Booth's Translation, fol. 1700. Book ii. c. 4. p. 78.

in abundance, all of which are used and frequented solely by the Christians. At Assalt none of these are to be seen; and although the country about the immediate precincts of the town produces an abundance of grapes, no wine is made from them; but such as are not eaten in their fresh state are dried as raisins, and stored up for winter use. They make also of these raisins a sweet, thick syrup, which is eaten by dipping bread in it, and is in great esteem among all classes, old and young. It is called Dipse, and is in general use in all parts of Syria where grapes are produced.

*

The Bedouins take a quantity of this last article away with them into the Desert for their women and children, and to present it to guests to whom they may extend their hospitality. They also take from Assalt the manufactures of Egypt and Syria, including Sechem and Tyre, in return for which they bring camels, horses, and goats, as they did in the earliest times. † Indeed, in all respects they appear to have stood still, while every other part of the world has been either receding or advancing, and they are probably the only people now on the globe, to whom the most ancient description would apply with equal fidelity in the present day. ‡

The learned Dr. Vincent, in his Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, says, that this article, under the same name, Dipse, formed one of the exports of the ancients, from Diospolis in Egypt to Arabia and India. It is mentioned as frequently by early writers as by modern travellers. Ebn Haukal calls it Doushab, and says that it was made also at Argham in Susiana. - Vincent, Appendix, vol. ii. page 68. † Arabia and the princes of Kedar purchased the fabrics of Tyre, and brought in return lambs, rams, and goats. By the princes of Kedar may be understood the sheikhs of the tribes of the Desert, who lived in tents which were black. * black; and Bochart concludes from this, that they were Arabs burnt by the sun; but that it refers to the tents is evident from Canticles, i. 5., "I am black but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem: as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon." See the Song of Maisuna, wife of Moawiah, in Abulfeda, Reiska, p. 116., which presents a true picture of the Arabs of the Desert. Vincent's Periplus, vol. ii. page 548.

Kedar signifies

キ "It is worth our pains here," says Diodorus Siculus, "to relate the manners and customs of these Arabians, for the information of them that are ignorant; by the use

* All the tents of Bedouins, that I have ever seen, are made of sheep's wool and goat's and camel's hair,

and are mostly black, with sometimes, but rarely, stripes of white, grey, or brown; but this is so small a proportion, that even these striped tents all look black at a distance.

At the return of evening, we all met together as before, at the house of Aioobe the merchant, where a large party was collected before our arrival. We had not been seated long, however, before my companion, Mallim Georgis, gave the company a specimen of his powers as an Improvisatore, in Arabic, reciting, as he told me, extempore verses in that language, which, as far as I could discover, were generally thought successful efforts of skilful arrangement and correct rhyme. This was followed by one of the company repeating a set of lines on the letters of the Arabic alphabet, similar tö those known to all nurses in England.

Tales from the Arabian Nights were recited by some of the younger members of the party; and after this, the priest who was present closed the evening's entertainment by narrating, in set phrase and pompous manner, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, by their being engulphed in the Dead Sea. The peculiarities of this Sea, though within a day's journey of the spot on which we stood, were not accurately known to any one of the party, so indifferent had

of which customs they have hitherto secured themselves, and preserved their liberty. They live in the plain and open fields, calling that Desert their country, wherein are neither inhabitants, rivers, or springs, whereby an enemy's army can be relieved. It is a law amongst them neither to sow, plant, build houses, or drink any wine; and he that is discovered to do any of these is sure to die for it. And the reason of this law is, because they conceive that those who are possessed of such things are easily (for fear of losing what they have, or in hopes of gaining more,) forced to comply with the will and humour of those that are more powerful. Some of them breed up camels, others employ themselves in feeding of sheep, roving to and fro in the wilderness for that purpose. There are no few indeed of the Arabians, that though they give themselves to the pasturage of cattle in the Desert, yet are far richer than the rest, but exceed in number above 10,000. For many of them use to carry frankincense, myrrh, and other rich perfumes down to the sea-side, which they traffick for, and receive from them that bring them from Arabia the Happy. They highly prize and value their liberty, and when any strong armies invade them, they presently fly into the wilderness, as into a strong fortress and castle for refuge; for, no water being there to be had, none can follow them through those Deserts." - Diodorus Siculus, book xix. c. 6.

they all been to an object of so much natural curiosity, and doubly interesting from its association with the history of their religious faith. No two persons were agreed as to all that was said respecting it some of their assertions indeed were so extravagant, that no reflecting person could give them credit; but most of the individuals present concurred in these facts; namely, that the sea was seldom or ever agitated by storms; that its waters were heavier than any other known; that though the river Jordan, which comes through the fine fresh lake of Tiberias, and continues sweet to the end, discharges itself into the Dead Sea, its smell is offensive, and its taste salt, bitter, and highly disagreeable; that neither are birds seen to fly over it, nor fishes found in its waters; that the heaviest bodies float on its surface; and that it is constantly throwing up from its bottom large masses of black bitumen, which is secured, as it drifts on the shore, by the Arabs, who take it up to Jerusalem for sale. These facts appeared to be well authenticated, and even these correspond in a striking degree with many of the descriptions given of this sea by ancient writers. As one of the wonders of these parts, the Dead Sea engrossed a large share of the attention of all who wrote on Syria and Palestine; but their accounts of it, differing as they do in many particulars, are not half so discordant as the verbal description which I heard with my own ears at Assalt in a company of twenty persons, not twenty leagues from the spot, and each of whom had seen the sea for himself, an advantage enjoyed by few or none of the ancients who wrote of it.*

*

Having collected, in a little book set apart for the purpose of extracts, several passages from different works, as accident threw them in my way, relating to the Lake Asphaltes, I shall, perhaps, save others the trouble of reference, by subjoining a few of them in a note.

"There is a lake also in that country (the valley of Jericho), which, by reason of its greatness and immoveableness of the water, is called the Dead Sea; for it is neither stirred with the winds, (the glutinous substance with which all the water is covered resisting their violence,) neither is it patient of navigation, for all things wanting life do presently sink into the bottom, neither doth it sustain any matter unless it be washed over with rock alum."- The History of Justin. Codrington's Translation. London, 1688. 12mo. 5th edit. Book ́xxxvi. p. 253.

The mode of living at Assalt, and the conveniences and com forts of the people, as well as their manners, are much ruder than in Egypt, low even as the people of that country must be ranked in

"The Lake (Asphaltites) breedeth no living creature. Nothing will go down or sink into it. It exceeds 100 miles in length, is 25 miles over at the broadest part, and six miles at the narrowest. On the east are the Arabian Nomades, on the south Machærus, a fortress next in importance to Jerusalem. On the same coast there is a fountain of hot waters, called Callirrhoe, esteemed wholesome and medicinable. Along the west coast lived the Esseni, a people living without women or money, having community of property, and aiming at an extraordinary degree of purity in their lives and manners." Plin. Nat. Hist., book v. c. 16, 17.

“The Lake Asphaltes lies in the midst of the province of Edom, and stretches forth in length five hundred furlongs, but in breadth it is but three-score. The water is very bitter and stinking, so that neither fish, nor any other thing used to the water, can live in it. And though many remarkable rivers of very sweet water empty themselves into it, yet it remains as corrupt and unsavoury, both to the taste and the smell, as ever it did before. Every year rises out of the middle of it great massy pieces of bitumen and pitch, sometimes bigger than three plethras (of one hundred feet each,) and sometimes little less than one. And upon that account the barbarous inhabitants call the larger pieces bulls, and the lesser calves. These pieces of pitch and brimstone, floating upon the water, seem, at a distance, to be as so many islands. There are evident signs that forego and give notice of the casting up of this bituminous matter at least twenty days before; for a horrid smell of brimstone and pitch infects the air round about the lake at many furlongs distance; and all metals, whether of gold, silver, or copper, near the place, change their natural colour, which presently returns again, as soon as the brimstone is exhaled. The places bordering on it are so burning hot (by reason of the sulphur and brimstone under ground), and cast forth such an horrible stench, that the inhabitants are very unhealthy and short-lived. Yet the country thereabouts, being watered with many pleasant rivers and refreshing springs, bears abundance of palmtrees; and in a certain vale near to this place grows that they call balm, from which they raise a great revenue, inasmuch as this plant grows in no part of the world beside, and is of excellent use among physicians, for the healing and curing of wounds and other distempers. The inhabitants on both sides this lake are so eager to carry away this brimstone that they fight one with another, and they bring it off in a strange manner without shipping. For they cast in huge bundles of bulrushes fastened close together, upon which three or more of them place themselves; two of which ply the oars, which are fastened to the bulrushes, and the third carries a bow and arrows to defend themselves against such as attempt to make up upon them from the other side, or that offer them any violence. As soon as they come to the brimstone they get upon it and hew it in

* This does not correspond with the position of the ruins now so called.