Such locations, however, leave Southern Palestine without a baptismal station. Born in the south, and from his Judean home called to the great work of his mission,John’s ministry was commenced in the “wilderness of Judea.”[302] His first hearers were those of the Jewish capital and of its adjacent towns:“Then went out unto him Jerusalem, and all Judea, and all the region round about Jordan.”[303] Preferring a journey of six hours to one of two days, the people of the south would naturally descend to this traditional ford, where the Baptist as naturally would be waiting to receive them. And where else should Jesus be baptized but where his ancient people had crossed the “swellings of Jordan,” and nigh unto the capital of his kingdom, whose citizens had just received his forerunner?
Having prepared the way of the Messiah in Judea, and to accommodate the multitudes of the north, and prepare themfor the reception of the promised Christ, John ascended the river to the mouth of the Jabbok, where he baptized the inhabitants of Samaria; and ascending thirty miles farther, to the ruined bridge of Semakh, he baptized the people of Galilee. His mission accomplished in Southern, Central, and Northern Palestine, and compelled to leave the Jordan at that season of the year to seek water suitable to drink, John removed to the fountains of Ænon, eight Roman miles southeast from Scythopolis, where there was “much water,” and where he baptized “strangers,” and those who had failed to attend his ministry at the river. His latter days were spent in the north, and mostly in Tiberias, the royal city of Galilee, where, true to his high calling, he reproved Herod Antipas for his connubial infidelity, for which he was imprisoned and beheaded in the Castle of Machaerus, near the scene of his earlier labors.
The sun was rapidly approaching the zenith when we left the ford for the Dead Sea. To avoid a detour, and also to shun the banks of the river, which, from their softness and steepness, are never safe, we crossed diagonally the great plain extending to the sea. The heat was intense; not a breath of air was stirring; neither shrub nor flower appeared to gladden the eye; no fountain was nigh to moisten our parched lips. A deep purple haze veiled earth and sky, obscuring the view of Moab and the peaks of Engedi; and over that vast plateau of unrelieved desolation was spread a white sulphurous crust, reflecting the light and heat. Near the mouth of the Jordan a band of Bedouin ruffians were holding an ominous consultation, and keenly watching our movements. From the head of the caravan came the shrill voice of the sheikh to “close ranks,” while two soldiers dashed into the jungle to ascertain the design of the council. Intimidating the robbers by threats, they returned, assuring us that no attack would be made, but advising us to keep close together. At noon we stood upon the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Owing to the thick haze that obscured the mountains, it seemed shoreless. The smooth waters lay like molten silver, silent and motionless, sparkling in the sunlight and dazzling to the sight. It was death robed in light. The waters are clear as crystal and exceedingly brilliant, and, though intensely salt, they are so soft that a bath in them is like bathing in oil. When midway my person Ibegan to rise, and yielding to the soft hands that bore me up, I reclined as upon the softest down. To sink was impossible; to float required no effort; to read, converse, sleep, was easy. Where the cuticle was bruised or broken a smarting sensation was experienced, and for ten hours after the bath the hair remained stiff and the body felt as if it had been lubricated with oil. Gently sloping toward the sea, the northern coast consists of sand and blackened pebbles, and over its entire breadth are strewn quantities of drift-wood, such as willow twigs, broken canes, and poplar branches, thrown up by the violence of the waves when the sea is in commotion. Higher up is a terrace of bitumen, soft and slippery, and not unlike black clay. Neither shrub, flower, nor blade of grass, nor shell, can be found on all that lengthened beach.
DEAD SEA.
Occupying the lowest portion of the Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea is forty miles long, from five to nine wide, and from two to 1308 feet deep. Its greatest depth is 2620 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, and 5220 below the site of Jerusalem. Having its greatest width midway the sea, from Ain Jidy to the River Arnon, it is most shallow at its southern extremity, and deepest in its northern section, southwest from the thermal waters of Callirrhoe. Not many yards from the eastern cliffs it is more than one hundred and seventy fathoms deep.
Geologically considered, the profound cavity containing this inland sea must be coeval with the conformation of the Jordan Valley on the north and the Valley of ’Arabah on the south. This mighty chasm must always have been the bed of a great lake, receiving the waters of the Jordan and the mountain torrents, together with those of the living springs which abound along the margin of the vale. Though much smaller then than now, both Abraham and Lot must have looked down upon its waters. Originally confined within its deeper bed, it has passed its primal limits by some convulsion or atmospheric phenomena as yet unknown. The great difference in its depth, from a third of a fathom to two hundred and eighteen fathoms, together with the record of Moses that the“plain of Jordan was well watered every where before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt as thou comest unto Zoar,”[304]sufficientlyindicates that the more shallow portions now overflown were once the rich green fields so tempting to the eyes of Lot.[305] According to authentic history, this vale was one of the cradles of the earliest civilization, not only containing the five royal cities that were destroyed, but also the cities of the Phœnicians, who, afterward removing to Tyre and Sidon, rose to greatness in art, science, and commerce. Its present desolation is due to natural causes, some of which are still apparent, and though its waters must always have been more or less salt, and its coasts must always have abounded in bitumen pits, yet these are not inconsistent with the richness of its plains, as attested by sacred and profane writers.
Though the receptacle of the perennial Jordan and of springs that never fail, and though without an outlet its mighty caldron is never filled to overflowing, and its waters have but a slight perceptible rise and fall. Situated 1312 feet below the level of the Mediterranean, and shut in by high barren mountains of limestone, its supply never exceeds the demand made by its rapid evaporation. With the Gulf of Akaba thirty-five feet above the Mediterranean, it is inconceivable how the Dead Sea could ever have flowed southward over the plain of ’Arabah to mingle its waters with those of the Red Sea; and this impossibility is the more apparent from the fact that the waters of ’Arabah flow into the Dead Sea from a water-shed midway between the two seas. Such curious facts at once disprove the hypothesis either that there is a subterranean outlet on the south, or that, prior to the fall of Sodom, the waters of the Jordan flowed in a river channel through the “Vale of Siddim” to mingle with those of the Indian Ocean. Evaporation was then, as now, the only outlet.
With the exception of a few semicircular plains, the “Salt Sea” covers the entire breadth of the vale, in many places the mountains dipping into the waters without a footpath along the shore. At the northwest corner there is a neck of land extending into the lake, which, when the water is low by increased evaporation, is a peninsula, but at high water its extreme point is a small island, covered with ruins of great antiquity, consisting of heaps of unhewn stones, some of which retain their original position in the foundation of a building whose history is unknown; and at the southeast angle of the sea, nearthe ravine of Kerak, is a low, broad promontory or cape, extending four miles to the north up the centre of the lake. Wherever a brackish fountain trickles down the hill-side, and flows over those little plains formed by the receding mountains, there shrubs grow, flowers bloom as in more genial climes, birds sing sweetly as in more enchanting bowers, and the Arab, with the traveler, pitches his tent, unaffected by the fancied deadly exhalations from the poisonous sea, which only exist in the stories of poet and romancer.
The mountains that bound the Asphaltic Lake on the east and west are as remarkable for their native grandeur as for their historic associations. Those on the east are portions of the Moab and Edom ranges; the one descending from the north and the other ascending from the south, are separated midway the sea by the sublime chasm of El-Môjib. The former is composed of sandstone, with sections of limestone, and with dikes and seams of trap rock, over which are scattered quantities of post-tertiary lava, pumice-stone, and volcanic slag; the latter is in part sandstone with strata of limestone; while at the extreme south there is a post-tertiary deposit of carbonate of lime, with sandstone disintegrated, and with a mixture of sulphur and gypsum. Rising from 2000 to 3000 feet high, the eastern range is rugged and barren, and, from a peculiarity in the atmosphere, is perpetually veiled in a purple haze. The sides are broken by twelve ravines desolate and wild. Less than ten miles from the northeast angle of the sea, at the mouth of Wady Zŭrka Ma’in, are the warm springs of Callirrhoe, sending forth, between grand and lofty sandstone cliffs, a copious stream, in whose thermal waters Herod the Great sought, in vain, relief from his loathsome disease. It is twelve feet wide, ten inches deep, and has a temperature of 95° Fahrenheit. Its banks are lined with canes and tamarisks, and the pebbles are tinged with the sulphurous waters. The chasm is 112 feet wide, and from eighty to 150 high, through which the torrent sweeps to the sea at the rate of six knots an hour. High up the ravine is a pretty cascade, with a perpendicular fall of six feet, and below it the foaming waters rush over a succession of rapids. In this sublime glen purple flowers bloom, and ravens and butterflies wing their tireless flight.On the very brow of the northern cliff stood the famous fortressof Machaerus, where John the Baptist was beheaded.[306] Two miles to the south, on the borders of a little streamlet, is a grove of thirty date-palm-trees; three miles farther is a bright cascade, whose sparkling waters leap into the sea from the very mountain summit;and five miles beyond is the ancient river Arnon, on whose banks Balak met Balaam,[307] and which was the southern boundary-line of the Amorites, whose dominion ran northward to the Jabbok.This tract of land Moses conquered from Sihon,[308]and for it the Ammonites fought with Jephthah[309] while it was possessed by the tribes of Reuben and Gad.[310] The Arnon is a tributary to the sea, eighty-two feet wide, four deep, and one hundred wide at its mouth. The vast fissure through which it falls is ninety-seven feet wide, and varies from 100 to 400 feet high. The cliffs are red, yellow, and brown sandstone, and, worn by the winds and rains, resemble Egyptian architecture. In graceful curves the ravine winds inward, and in its profound depths are huge boulders, which have fallen from the summit above. Along the border of the torrent a few shrubs grow, and gazelles descend to drink of its limpid waters. Fifteen miles to the south, on a summit 3000 feet above the sea, stands the ancient city of Kerak, containing more than 3000 inhabitants, about equally divided into Christians and Moslems, which is renowned in the history of Jewish wars as the city whose king, in a moment of desperation,rather than surrender to King Jehoram, offered up his eldest son upon the town wall as a burnt-sacrifice, so disgusting the Israelites as to compel them to raise the siege.[311]From the mountain of Kerak a wild ravine leads down to the reputed ruins of Zoar, near the shore, to which Lot fled when commanded to fly to the mountains above.[312]