The Sheik of the tribe lives in Jerusalem, and it is to him that travellers look for protection.
A party is going to the Dead Sea and Jordan, and is to start to-morrow by way of Bethlehem and Mar Saba. The dragoman notifies the Governor of Jerusalem, and the Governor notifies the Sheik, who sends an escort of one, two, or four, or it may be a dozen men. And, furthermore, the Sheik comes to the dragoman and receives from him five francs for each traveller, as a sort of insurance tax.
The Sheik is thus made responsible for any loss, and if we had been robbed while in the hands of the escort, the Governor would have made the Sheik shell out, to the extent of our loss. Not long before our visit, a traveller under escort was robbed of two thousand francs; his loss was promptly made good to him on his return to Jerusalem. All travellers in the Bedouin country require an escort from the tribe of each region they pass through, and to go without such escort would be madness.
Suddenly, while we were winding among the rough hills, we came out of a little gorge, and gazed upon a mass of rough, billowy hills, spread and scattered below us, and looking bare and white in the slanting rays of a December sun. To the left lay a plain, somewhat broken, and with a line of trees winding through it; this was the valley of the Jordan, and the trees marked the course of the stream. To the right, shimmering and glistening in the sunlight, and broken at its edge into a fringe of foam, raised by the strong south wind, that was then blowing, lay the Dead Sea—that weird waste of water that buries the cities of the plain. Down, down, down, winding among the rocks and over little stretches of plain we made our way; the hills that had been below rose around, and we rapidly approached the level of the j plain, thirteen hundred feet below the waters of the Mediterranean. The distance was deceptive, and we were a long time in reaching the Dead Sea.
I had expected to find a scene of desolation, as some writers, have said that no fish live in the waters of the Dead Sea, and no, plant grows near it. It is true that there is no living thing in the Dead Sea; the fish brought into it by the Jordan are instantly killed by the salt water, but the reeds and bushes grow as near this sea as they are ordinarily found near the ocean or any of its arms. I found some within a hundred feet of it, and they seemed to be doing well. The vegetation is quite luxuriant in many places, notwithstanding the apparent lightness of the soil.
We took a hasty bath in the Dead Sea, just long enough to test its buoyant qualities. The human body cannot sink in the dense water; you float very much as a cork floats in ordinary water, and speedily lose all sense of danger from drowning. The water contains twenty-six per cent, of salt, and is clear as the | purest spring water. There is a wonderful bitterness in it, and a few drops in the mouth makes you feel as if you were trying to gulp down a drug store.
After you have been a short time in the Dead Sea, you have a prickly sensation all over the body, and if you get some of the water in your eyes, you feel anything but cheerful.
When we came out, the water stuck to us with a feeling like molasses, and until we reached the Jordan and luxuriated in its fresh water, we felt as sticky as so many postage stamps.
An hour’s gallop across the Jordan plain took us from the Dead Sea to the Jordan, which we reached at the bathing place