Читать книгу Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXIX., October, 1852 - Various - Страница 15

As has already been stated, the water of the Dead Sea, though deep in the northern part, spreads out toward the southward over an immense region of flats and shallows, so that sometimes the water is only a few feet deep over an extent of many miles. There are, moreover, southward of the sea, vast tracts of low and sandy land, which are sometimes covered with water and sometimes bare, on account of the rising and falling of the sea, the level of which seems to vary many feet in different years and in different seasons, according to the state of the snows on Mount Lebanon and the quantity of water brought down by the Jordan and other streams. The shallowness of the water becomes very marked and apparent at the peninsula, and various rumors were brought to Europe, from time to time, in the middle ages, of a fording place there, by means of which caravans, when the water was low, could cross over from the eastern shore to the western, and thus save the long detour around the southern end of the sea. The most direct and tangible evidence in respect to this ford, was given by the two celebrated travelers, Irby and Mangles, who relate that in descending from Kerak to the peninsula, they fell in with a small company of Arabs that were going down to the sea – riding upon asses and other beasts of burden. The Arabs of this caravan said that they were going to cross the sea at the ford. The travelers did not actually see them make the passage, for they were themselves engaged in exploring the eastern and northern part of the peninsula at the time, and the caravan was thus hidden from view when they approached the water, by the high land intervening between them and the travelers. After a short time, however, the travelers came over to the western side of the promontory, and there they saw the place of the ford indicated by boughs of trees set up in the water. The caravan had passed the ford, and were just emerging from the water on the western side of the sea. This evidence was considered as very direct and very conclusive, and yet other travelers who visited the same region, both before and afterward, could obtain no certain information in respect to the ford. Allusions to it exist in some very ancient records, and yet the Arabs themselves who live in the vicinity, when inquired of in respect to the subject, often denied the possibility of such a passage. The only way, apparently, of reconciling these seemingly contradictory accounts, is to suppose that the sea is subject to great changes of level, and that for certain periods, perhaps at distant intervals from each other, the water is so low that caravans can cross it – and that afterward it becomes again too deep to be passable, continuing so perhaps for a long series of years, so that the existence of the ford is for a time in some measure forgotten.