Читать книгу Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXIX., October, 1852 - Various - Страница 18

It was, however, now dark, and Mr. Lynch felt much solicitude in respect to the difficulty of finding the place of rendezvous on the coast where the party in the boats were to meet the caravan. They rowed along the shore to the southward, looking out on all the cliffs and headlands for lights or other signals. They had an Arab chieftain on board as a guide, and on him the party had depended for direction to the place where the fountain of Feshkah was to be found. The Arab had, however, become so bewildered by the terror which the storm had inspired, or, perhaps, by the strange and unusual aspect which the land presented to him, as seen from the side toward the sea and in the night, that he seemed to be entirely lost. At length the boatmen saw the light of a fire on the beach to the southward of them. They discharged a gun as a signal, and pulled eagerly toward the fire. The light, however, soon disappeared. The men were then at a loss again, and while resting upon their oars, awaiting another signal, they suddenly saw flashes, and heard reports of guns and sounds of voices on the cliffs, not far from them, and immediately afterward heard other reports from a considerable distance back, at a place which they had passed in coming along the shore. These various and uncertain sounds quite embarrassed the boatmen. They might indicate an attack from some hostile force upon their friends on the land, or some stratagem, to draw the boats into an ambuscade. They, however, determined, at length, that they would, at all events, ascertain the truth; so closing in with the shore, they pulled along the beach, sounding as they proceeded. About eight o'clock they arrived at the place of rendezvous, where they found their friends awaiting them at the fountain. The shouts and signal-guns which they had heard had proceeded from two portions of the caravan that had become separated on the march, and were thus attempting to communicate with each other. The party in the boats were greatly relieved on reaching the land, for the whole scene through which they had passed in approaching it, had been one of the wildest and most exciting character. The sea itself, mysterious and unknown, the lonely and desolate coast, the dark and gloomy mountains, the human voices heard in shouts and outcries on the cliffs, with the flashes of the guns, and the reports reverberating along the shore, joined to the dread uncertainty which the boatmen felt in respect to what the end of the adventure was to be, combined to impress the minds of all the party with the most sublime and solemn emotions.

The boats, they found, for some reason or other, could not land at the place which had been chosen for the encampment, but were obliged to proceed about a mile to the southward, where, at length, they were safely drawn up upon the beach. Some Arabs were placed here to guard them, while the seamen were conducted to the camp, in order that they might enjoy a night of repose. The camp was pitched in a cane-brake, not far from the shore, the vegetation which covered the spot proving that there was nothing very specially deleterious in the atmosphere of the sea. In fact, during the remainder of the excursion, Mr. Lynch's party always found, in landing along the shores, that there was always abundance of vegetation whenever there was fresh water from the mountains to sustain it. The water of the sea seems to be itself too deeply impregnated with saline solutions to nourish vegetable life; but beyond the reach of the spray, which the wind drives only to a short distance from the margin of the shore, it exerts, apparently no perceptible influence on either plants or animals. Many animals were seen at different times in the vicinity of the sea, some on the land, and others flying freely over the water. The water itself, however, seemed to produce no living thing. Some few shells were found in two or three instances on the beach, but they were of such a character, and appeared under such circumstances as to lead to the supposition that they were brought down to the sea by the torrents from the mountains, or by the current of the Jordan.

The scene which presented itself to the party as the night came on at this their first encampment on the shore of the Dead Sea, was solemn and sublime. The dark and gloomy mountains, barren and desolate – their declivities fretted and furrowed by the tooth of time, rose behind them in dismal grandeur; the waters of the sea lay reposing heavily in their vast caldron before them, covered with a leaden-colored mist; while the moon, which rose toward midnight above the mountains beyond, cast spectre-like shadows from the clouds over the broad and solemn expanse, in a wild and fantastic manner. Every thing seemed strange and unnatural, and wore an expression of unspeakable loneliness and desolation. And yet about midnight the death-like silence and repose which reigned around, was strangely broken by the distant tolling of a bell!

The tolling of the bell which the travelers heard, proceeded from the Convent of Mar Saba, a rude and lonely structure, situated in the middle of the desolate gorge which the brook Kedron forms in traversing the mountains that lie between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea. The place of the convent was seven or eight miles from the shore where our travelers were encamped, but yet the tones of the bell, calling the monks to their devotions, made their way to the spot through the still evening air. The travelers felt cheered and encouraged in their solitude, by being thus connected again, even by so slender a bond as this, with the common family of man, from which they had seemed before to have undergone an absolute and total separation.