distant northern home and joined the host of the Crusaders in
Palestine, was pacing slowly along the sandy deserts which lie in
the vicinity of the Dead Sea, or, as it is called, the Lake
Asphaltites, where the waves of the Jordan pour themselves into
an inland sea, from which there is no discharge of waters.

The warlike pilgrim had toiled among cliffs and precipices during
the earlier part of the morning. More lately, issuing from those
rocky and dangerous defiles, he had entered upon that great
plain, where the accursed cities provoked, in ancient days, the
direct and dreadful vengeance of the Omnipotent.

The toil, the thirst, the dangers of the way, were forgotten, as
the traveller recalled the fearful catastrophe which had
converted into an arid and dismal wilderness the fair and fertile
valley of Siddim, once well watered, even as the Garden of the
Lord, now a parched and blighted waste, condemned to eternal
sterility.

Crossing himself, as he viewed the dark mass of rolling waters,
in colour as in duality unlike those of any other lake, the
traveller shuddered as he remembered that beneath these sluggish
waves lay the once proud cities of the plain, whose grave was dug
by the thunder of the heavens, or the eruption of subterraneous
fire, and whose remains were hid, even by that sea which holds no
living fish in its bosom, bears no skiff on its surface, and, as
if its own dreadful bed were the only fit receptacle for its
sullen waters, sends not, like other lakes, a tribute to the
ocean. The whole land around, as in the days of Moses, was
"brimstone and salt; it is not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass