Читать книгу Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXIX., October, 1852 - Various - Страница 26

The true character and condition of the whole valley of the Dead Sea having been thus fully ascertained, and all the secrets of its gloomiest recesses having been brought fully to light, it will probably now be left for centuries to come, to rest undisturbed in the dismal and death-like solitude which seems to be its peculiar and appropriate destiny. Curious travelers may, from time to time, look out over its waters from the mouth of the Jordan, or survey its broad expanse from the heights at En-gedi, or perhaps cruise along under the salt cliffs of Usdum, on its southeastern shore, in journeying to or from the Arabian deserts; but it will be long, probably, before any keel shall again indent its salt-encrusted sands, or disturb the repose of its ponderous waters. It is true that the emotion of awe which its gloomy and desolate scenery inspires has something in it of the sublime; and the religious associations connected with the past history of the sea, impart a certain dread solemnity to its grandeur, and make the spot a very attractive one to those who travel into distant climes from love of excitement and emotion. But the physical difficulties, dangers, exposures, and sufferings, which are unavoidably to be incurred in every attempt to explore a locality like this, are so formidable, and the hazard to life is so great, while the causes from which these evils and dangers flow lie so utterly beyond all possible or conceivable means of counteraction, that the vast pit will probably remain forever a memorial of the wrath and curse of God, and a scene of unrelieved and gloomy desolation.