The day was very hot (33 degrees Reaum).  We encamped in the hot sand on the shore, under the shelter of our parasols, and made our breakfast of hard-boiled eggs, a piece of bad bread, and some lukewarm water.  I tasted the sea-water, and found it much more bitter, salt, and pungent than any I have met with elsewhere.  We all dipped our hands into the lake, and afterwards suffered the heat of the air to dry them without having first rinsed them with fresh water; not one of us had to complain that this brought forth an itching or an eruption on our hands, as many travellers have asserted.  The temperature of the water was 33 degrees Reaum.; in colour it is a pale green.  Near the shore the water is to a certain extent transparent; but as it deepens it seems turbid, and the eye can no longer pierce the surface.  We could not even see far across the water, for a light mist seemed to rest upon it, thus preventing us from forming a good estimate of its breadth.

To judge from what we could distinguish, however, the Dead Sea does not appear to be very broad; it may rather be termed an oblong lake, shut in by mountains, than a sea.  Not the slightest sign of life can be detected in the water; not a ripple disturbs its sleeping surface.  A boat of any kind is of course quite out of the question.  Some years since, however, an Englishman made an attempt to navigate this lake; for this purpose he caused a boat to be built, but did not progress far in his undertaking,—­a sickness came upon him, he was carried to Jerusalem, and died soon after he had made the experiment.  It is rather a remarkable fact that, up to the present moment, no Englishman has been found who was sufficiently weary of his life to imitate his countryman’s attempt.

Stunted fragments of drift-wood, most probably driven to shore by tempests, lay scattered every where around.  We could, however, discover no fields of salt; neither did we see smoke rising, or find the exhalations from the sea unpleasant.  These phenomena are perhaps observed at a different season of the year to that in which I visited the Dead Sea.  On the other hand, I saw not only separate birds, but sometimes even flights of twelve or fifteen.  Vegetation also existed here to a certain extent.  Not far from the shore, I noticed, in a little ravine, a group of eight acicular-leaved trees.  On this plain there were also some wild shrubs bearing capers, and a description of tall shrub, not unlike our bramble, bearing a plentiful crop of red berries, very juicy and sweet.  We all ate largely of them; and I was the more surprised at finding these plants here, as I had found it uniformly stated that animal and vegetable life was wholly extinct on the shores of the Dead Sea.

Five cities, of which not a trace now remains, once lay in the plain now filled by this sea—­their names were Sodom, Gomorrah, Adama, Zeboin, and Zona.  A feeling of painful emotion, mingled with awe, took possession of my soul as I thought of the past, and saw how the works of proud and mighty nations had vanished away, leaving behind them only a name and a memory.  It was a relief to me when we prepared, after an hour’s rest, to quit this scene of dreary desolation.