There Was No Fly That Hummed In The
Forbidden Air, But Instead A Deep Stillness; No Grass Grew From The
Earth, no weed peered through the void sand; but in mockery of all
life there were trees borne down by
Jordan in some ancient flood,
and these, grotesquely planted upon the forlorn shore, spread out
their grim skeleton arms, all scorched and charred to blackness by
the heats of the long silent years.
I now struck off towards the debouchure of the river; but I found
that the country, though seemingly quite flat, was intersected by
deep ravines, which did not show themselves until nearly
approached. For some time my progress was much obstructed; but at
last I came across a track which led towards the river, and which
might, as I hoped, bring me to a ford. I found, in fact, when I
came to the river's side that the track reappeared upon the
opposite bank, plainly showing that the stream had been fordable at
this place. Now, however, in consequence of the late rains the
river was quite impracticable for baggage-horses. A body of waters
about equal to the Thames at Eton, but confined to a narrower
channel, poured down in a current so swift and heavy, that the idea
of passing with laden baggage-horses was utterly forbidden. I
could have swum across myself, and I might, perhaps, have succeeded
in swimming a horse over; but this would have been useless, because
in such case I must have abandoned not only my baggage, but all my
attendants, for none of them were able to swim, and without that
resource it would have been madness for them to rely upon the
swimming of their beasts across such a powerful stream. I still
hoped, however, that there might be a chance of passing the river
at the point of its actual junction with the Dead Sea, and I
therefore went on in that direction.
Night came upon us whilst labouring across gullies and sandy
mounds, and we were obliged to come to a stand-still quite suddenly
upon the very edge of a precipitous descent. Every step towards
the Dead Sea had brought us into a country more and more dreary;
and this sand-hill, which we were forced to choose for our resting-
place, was dismal enough. A few slender blades of grass, which
here and there singly pierced the sand, mocked bitterly the hunger
of our jaded beasts, and with our small remaining fragment of
goat's-milk rock by way of supper, we were not much better off than
our horses. We wanted, too, the great requisite of a cheery
bivouac - fire. Moreover, the spot on which we had been so suddenly
brought to a standstill was relatively high and unsheltered, and
the night wind blew swiftly and cold.
The next morning I reached the debouchure of the Jordan, where I
had hoped to find a bar of sand that might render its passage
possible. The river, however, rolled its eddying waters fast down
to the "sea" in a strong, deep stream that shut out all hope of
crossing.
It now seemed necessary either to construct a raft of some kind, or
else to retrace my steps and remount the banks of the Jordan. I
had once happened to give some attention to the subject of military
bridges - a branch of military science which includes the
construction of rafts and contrivances of the like sort - and I
should have been very proud indeed if I could have carried my party
and my baggage across by dint of any idea gathered from Sir Howard
Douglas or Robinson Crusoe. But we were all faint and languid from
want of food, and besides, there were no materials. Higher up the
river there were bushes and river plants, but nothing like timber;
and the cord with which my baggage was tied to the pack-saddles
amounted altogether to a very small quantity, not nearly enough to
haul any sort of craft across the stream.
And now it was, if I remember rightly, that Dthemetri submitted to
me a plan for putting to death the Nazarene, whose misguidance had
been the cause of our difficulties. There was something
fascinating in this suggestion, for the slaying of the guide was of
course easy enough, and would look like an act of what politicians
call "vigour." If it were only to become known to my friends in
England that I had calmly killed a fellow-creature for taking me
out of my way, I might remain perfectly quiet and tranquil for all
the rest of my days, quite free from the danger of being considered
"slow"; I might ever after live on upon my reputation, like
"single-speech Hamilton" in the last century, or "single sin - " in
this, without being obliged to take the trouble of doing any more
harm in the world. This was a great temptation to an indolent
person, but the motive was not strengthened by any sincere feeling
of anger with the Nazarene. Whilst the question of his life and
death was debated he was riding in front of our party, and there
was something in the anxious writhing of his supple limbs that
seemed to express a sense of his false position, and struck me as
highly comic. I had no crotchet at that time against the
punishment of death, but I was unused to blood, and the proposed
victim looked so thoroughly capable of enjoying life (if he could
only get to the other side of the river), that I thought it would
be hard for him to die merely in order to give me a character for
energy. Acting on the result of these considerations, and
reserving to myself a free and unfettered discretion to have the
poor villain shot at any future moment, I magnanimously decided
that for the present he should live, and not die.
I bathed in the Dead Sea. The ground covered by the water sloped
so gradually, that I was not only forced to "sneak in," but to walk
through the water nearly a quarter of a mile before I could get out
of my depth.
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