We turned our horses’ heads towards the Jordan, and rode on over a dry, barren plain.  The two Bedouins at first dashed ahead at full gallop, uttering cries, and whirling their long guns in the air.  The dust they raised was blown in our faces, and contained so much salt that my eyes began to smart painfully.  Thereupon I followed them at an equal rate of speed, and we left a long cloud of the accursed soil whirling behind us.  Presently, however, they fell to the rear, and continued to keep at some distance from us.  The reason of this was soon explained.  The path turned eastward, and we already saw a line of dusky green winding through the wilderness.  This was the Jordan, and the mountains beyond, the home of robber Arabs, were close at hand.  Those robbers frequently cross the river and conceal themselves behind the sand-hills on this side.  Our brave escort was, therefore, inclined to put us forward as a forlorn-hope, and secure their own retreat in case of an attack.  But as we were all well armed, and had never considered their attendance as anything more than a genteel way of buying them off from robbing us, we allowed them to lag as much as they chose.  Finally, as we approached the Pilgrims’ Ford, one of them took his station at some distance from the river, on the top of a mound, while the other got behind some trees near at hand; in order, as they said, to watch the opposite hills, and alarm us whenever they should see any of the Beni Sukrs, or the Beni Adwams, or the Tyakh, coming down upon us.

The Jordan at this point will not average more than ten yards in breadth.  It flows at the bottom of a gully about fifteen feet deep, which traverses the broad valley in a most tortuous course.  The water has a white, clayey hue, and is very swift.  The changes of the current have formed islands and beds of soil here and there, which are covered with a dense growth of ash, poplar, willow, and tamarisk trees.  The banks of the river are bordered with thickets, now overgrown with wild vines, and fragrant with flowering plants.  Birds sing continually in the cool, dark coverts of the trees.  I found a singular charm in the wild, lonely, luxuriant banks, the tangled undergrowth, and the rapid, brawling course of the sacred stream, as it slipped in sight and out of sight among the trees.  It is almost impossible to reach the water at any other point than the Ford of the Pilgrims, the supposed locality of the passage of the Israelites and the baptism of Christ.  The plain near it is still blackened by the camp-fires of the ten thousand pilgrims who went down from Jerusalem three weeks ago, to bathe.  We tied our horses to the trees, and prepared to follow their example, which was necessary, if only to wash off the iniquitous slime of the Dead Sea.  Francois, in the meantime, filled two tin flasks from the stream and stowed them in the saddle-bags.  The current was so swift, that one could not venture far without the risk of being carried away; but I succeeded in obtaining a complete and most refreshing immersion.  The taint of Gomorrah was not entirely washed away, but I rode off with as great a sense of relief as if the baptism had been a moral one, as well, and had purified me from sin.