From Dan to Beersheba / A Description of the Wonderful Land, with Maps and Engravings and a Prologue by the Author Containing the Latest Explorations and Discoveries

by John Philip Newman

To the southwest from the ruins of Zoar stood Sodom and Gomorrah, with their companion cities of the plain. Covering a large area of what was once dry land, the sea is here exceedingly shallow, and the plains bordering on the southern coast give evidence of their former fertility.These cities must have occupied this section of the vale, or it would have been impossible for Abraham to have seen the conflagration from Hebron, sixteen miles to the northwest.[313] But not a vestige of thoserenowned cities remains to designate the scene of their glory and shame. The “rain of fire” was probably a shower of nitrous particles ignited by the electric flash, which, as it fell, kindled to a flame the buildings of the cities, constructed of bituminous stones and cemented by green asphalt. Formed of such combustible materials, the conflagration of the towns must have raged with unwonted fury, and the descending fire, wrapping vale and mountain in a winding-sheet of flame, must have precluded the possibility of escape. But the preservation of Zoar amid the general burning was a miracle of the highest order. Standing within the vale and hard by the neighboring towns, but without the smell of fire about its dwellings, it must have presented a singular spectacle, surrounded by an invisible wall against which the burning waves madly dashed in vain.

The mountains on the western side of the Dead Sea, like the hills of Judea, are limestone, of a white, red, and yellow hue, and, rising from 1000 to 2000 feet high, their sides are barren and rugged, and broken into wild ravines. At intervals the hills recede, forming on the shore semicircular plains, which, being watered by brackish fountains, are converted into salt marshes. Along the western coast large quantities of pure sulphur, asphalt, and pumice-stone abound. In the southwest corner of the vale, extending five miles to the northwest, is a rugged ridge of hills composed entirely of mineral salt. From a marshy delta, coated with salt and bitumen, a grand ravine leads up to this saline ridge, called by the Arabs Jebel Usdum. The winter torrents have cut deep furrows in its sides from summit to base, and the combined action of the rains, and the burning siroccos that sweep over mountain and plain, have rounded the faces of the cliffs. The peaks rise in tiers, while their roots, in lesser hills, project toward the sea. Far up the ravine, between two higher cliffs, is a lower ridge, not unlike a pedestal, on which is a singular pillar of pure solid salt, round in front and angular behind. Resting on a pedestal sixty feet high, the solitary column rises forty feet higher, connected with the hill behind by an immense bar of salt. This is the only resemblance to “Lot’s wife” in the vale, but can not be her, as its position is in the wrong direction from Zoar. But the presence of such a mountain of salt, whose base beneath the surface is washed by the waves, and from whose summitlarge blocks of salt are carried down by the rains into the water, sufficiently accounts for the extreme saltness of the sea.On the marshy flats at its base is the “Valley of Salt,” where David slew “eighteen thousand Syrians,”[314]and where Amaziah, at a later period, slew “ten thousand Edomites.”[315]

Situated on the brow of a lofty cliff 1500 feet above the sea, and twelve miles north from Usdum, is Masada, the last refuge of the Jews after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, and the scene of the noblest heroism and of the most bloody tragedy in the annals of war. Separated by a deep ravine from the surrounding mountains on the north and south, and attached to them on the west by a narrow ridge two thirds its height, is a naked rock, having a perpendicular face toward the sea, and rising 700 feet high. Standing two miles from the shore, it is not unlike a pyramid in form. Though the summit is jagged and peaked, it contains a level area for building purposes 3000 feet in length and 1200 in width. Portions of four buildings are standing. On the south are the remains of an ancient gateway with a pointed arch; on the north stands a tower with a double wall of great strength, and near it is a quadrangular ruin. Within the ancient wall, which once completely encircled the rock, are three large cisterns, hewn in the solid rock, and covered with white cement. The largest of them is forty feet broad, 100 long, and fifty deep. Adjacent to the wall are the remains of the old Roman camps, constructed by the besieging army of Flavius Silva, apparently as complete as when abandoned centuries ago.

Reared in the second century B.C. by Jonathan Maccabæus as a strong defensive work, the fortress of Masada was enlarged and rendered impregnable by Herod the Great. Designed by him at once for a palace and a fortress, he strengthened the position, and connected with his royal apartments baths, adorned with porticoes and colonnades. Confident of its impregnability, here the Idumean king deposited his rarest treasures against the day of danger.

Prior to the fall of Jerusalem, the Sicarii, who had sworn never to submit to the Roman arms, obtained by treachery the possession of this fortress. Commanded by the bold and skillful Eleazar, 600 of these patriots, with their wives, children, and servants to the number of 967, retired to Masada as thelast refuge of the Jewish nation. The strong-holds of Machaerus and Herodium had yielded to the powerful arms of Lucilius Bassus, and now Flavius Silva, his successor, laid siege to Masada. Cutting off all hope of succor from without, and of escape from within, by circumvallation, the Romans reared for the intended assault a mound of earth and stones, on which they planted an iron-cased tower commanding the walls of the fortress, and from which they drove the Jews from their ramparts. Successful in gaining a position so advantageous, the Romans retired for the night with the intention of storming the fortress the following morning.

MASADA.

Conscious of his inability to continue a successful defense—convinced that any attempt to escape would prove disastrous—satisfied that death awaited the garrison, ravishment their wives, and slavery their children, that night Eleazar called hisfaithful band around him, and proposed self-destruction as the terrible alternative. Appalled by the thought of murder and suicide, the heroic Sicarii, whose souls had never known the sensation of fear, for a moment hesitated; but, upbraided for the want of true courage by their leader, a frenzy seized them, and, each one grasping his wife and children in his arms, after lavishing upon them the fondest tokens of affection, they plunged their daggers to their hearts, leaving the bleeding bodies lifeless upon the ground. Resolved not to survive a calamity so insupportable, they prepared for their own destruction. Gathering the immense treasures of the palace together, they consigned them to the flames; then, choosing by lot ten of their number to dispatch the rest, each soldier threw himself down by his wife and children, and, grasping them in his arms, offered his neck to the sword of his companion. Drawing lots who should be the last survivor of the ten and the executioner of the nine, the lot fell on one who in turn was to dispatch himself. The nine slain, all the victims were examined to ascertain whether life was extinct; then, applying the torch to the palace, and surveying for a moment the raging flames and the dead, in families, stretched upon the ground, he lay down beside his wife and child, and the last of the Sicarii dispatched himself.

The morning dawned; the command was given; the Romans rushed to the assault; but, on scaling the ramparts, no foe appeared, no sound was heard, and, lifting a shout of triumph, they rushed to the palace. Their approach had startled from their retreat a sister of Eleazar, an elderly woman, and five children, who, learning of the intended slaughter, had secreted themselves in the vaults of the fortress.When they refused to credit her story, the sister of Eleazar led the conquerors within the court-yard of the palace, and pointed them to the dead who were too brave to be Roman slaves.[316]

Fifteen miles to the north from the Plain of Masada is the Fountain of the Kid. This beautiful spring is four hundred feet up the mountain side. Bursting from a limestone rock, and rushing down over precipitous rocks, and amid acacias and flowers, it fertilizes a small plain extending to the beach, and cultivated by the Bedouins of the Ghôr.Near this fountain David was secreted when pursued by Saul, and in a cave nearby he “cut off the skirt of Saul’s robe privily.”[317]Up this pass the children of Ammon ascended to attack Jerusalem in the days of Jehoshaphat.[318]Originally celebrated for its vines and aromatic plants, Solomon compares his beloved to a “cluster of camphire[319] in the vineyards of Engedi.”[320] Around this fountain now grow the “apples of Sodom.” The fruit grows in clusters upon a tree fifteen feet high and two in girth, is of a yellow color, and has such a blooming appearance as to tempt the traveler’s appetite; but, on being pressed, it explodes like a puff-ball, leaving in the hand nothing but the rind and a few dry fibres.