Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1881 — The Dead Sea. [ARTICLE]

The Dead Sea.

Our afternoon’s march over th bleak, treeless, and brown mountains of the wilderness was inexpressibly tiresome until we came in sight of the Dead sea. It lay 2,000 feet below us—a mirror of silver, set among the violet mountains of Moab. More precipitous descents over rocks a sand brought us, by sundown, to the two towers of the most unique monastery on the globe. The famous convent of Mar Saba is worth a journey to Palestine. For thirteen centuries that wonderful structure has hung against the walls of the deep, awful gorge of the Kidron. It is a colossal swallow’s nest of stone, built to the height of 300 feet against the precipice, and inhabited by sixty monks of the Greek churchgenuine Monicheans, and the followers of St. Saba and St. John of Damascus. No woman’s foot has ever entered the convent walls. Instead of woman’s society they make love to the birds, who come and feed off the monk’s hanus. Every evening they toss meat town to the wild jackals iu the gorge below. At sunset I climbed the extraordinary building—was shown into the rather hand; some chyreb, and into the chapel or cave of St. Nicholas, which contains the ghastly skulls of the monks who were slaughtered by Choe-

roes and his Pei dan soldiers—and gazed down into the awful ravine beneath the convent walls. Some monky in black gowns were perched as watchmen on the lofty towers; others wandered over the stone pavements in a sort of aimless vacuity. What an attempt to live in an exhausted i occi ver * *? » ’ The monks gave us hospitable welcome, sold us canes and wood-work, and furnished us lodgings on the divans of two large stone parlors. 1 One of the religious duties of the brotherhood Is to keep vigils, and through the night bells were ringing and clanging to call them to their devotions. The vermin in the lodging-rooms have learned ot keep up their vigils also; and as the result our party—with one exception—had a sleepless night I have such a talent for sleeping, and like Pat, “pay attention to it” so closely, that I was able to defy even the fleas and mosquitoes of- Mar Saba. By daylight the next morning we heard the great Iren door of the convent clang behhad-Us like the gate of‘Bunyan’s “Doubting Castle,” and for five hours we made'"a toilsome descent of the desolate cliffs to the shore of the Dead eea. That much maligned sea has a weird and wonderful beauty. We took a bath in its cool, clear waters, aud detected no difference from a bath at Coney Island, except that the water has such density that we floated on it like- pine shingles. No fish from the salt ocean can live" in it, but it is very attractive on a hot noon day. A scorching ride we had across the barren plain of the sacred Jordan, which disapointed me sadly. At the place where the Israelites crossed and our Lor 1 was baptized it was about 120 feet wide; it flows rapidly, and in a? tui bid current of light stone color. Its size and appearance is the perfect counterpart of the Musikingum a few miles above Zanesville. Its useless waters ought to be turned off to irrigate its barren valley, which might be changed into a garden. For oeauty the Jordan will not compare with Elijah’s brook Cherith, whose bright,'sparkling stream went flowing past our lodging-place at Jericho, We lodged over night in a Greek convent (very small), and rode text morning to see the ruins of a town made famous by-Joshua, Elijah. Zaccheus, and the of Bartimeus to sight. Squalid Arabs haunt the sacred spot.