Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 November 1894 — Visiting the Dead Sea. [ARTICLE]

Visiting the Dead Sea.

From Jerusalem we had a thoroughly delightful trip of three days to Jericho, the Dead Sea and the Jordan. In the saddle most of the time, and under a blazing Syria sun, the fatigue was certainly great; but the interest was far greater. It was good to be out among the mountains, stern and naked as they were, and to make the descent of nearly 4,000 feet to the wilderness in which John the Baptist had preached and in which the Essene communities had wrought out so many of the peaceful tenets of the gospel. As for the Dead Sea, it will, in contradiction of the name, forever preserve a green and living memory in my mind. No fish can survive in it, we all know; hut for a place for a swim, or above all, for a float, commend me to it beyond all the Winnepesaukees in the world. How it bears you up in its arms! How it annihilates the tiresome ponderosity and dignity of tho laws of gravitation! How it introduces you into the inner consciousness of dainty Ariel and thistledown, and all other airy-fairy creatures! Tho more you weigh the less you weigh; there is the real hydrostatic paradox. An elephant in the Dead Sea would feel himself a gazelle. Then what a mirror its steely surface was that morning, and how beautiful its reflections of the mountains of Palestine on one hand and of Moab on the other! —[Christian Register