AT 1:45, started with the boats, the caravan making a direct line for Ain el Feshkah, on the north-west shore of the Dead Sea, the appointed place of rendezvous. The course of the river was at first S. W. In about half an hour, we were hailed from the right bank, when we stopped and took in sheikh Helu, of the tribe Huteim, his name the same as that of the ford. From 1:50 to 1:57, course varying from N.W. to S.S.W. Stopped to fill the India-rubber water-bags, having passed a small island thickly wooded. Weather close and sultry. At 2:22, started again, course from N.N.E. to S. by W.; the right bank red clay, twenty-five feet high; left bank low, with high canes and willows. 2:25, a quantity of drift-wood; and 2:36, a camel in the river, washed down by the current in attempting to cross the ford last night. Weather cloudy at intervals, river forty yards wide, twelve feet deep, bottom blue mud. The banks alternating high and low highest at the bends and lowest at the opposite points. At 2:41, passed another camel in the river, the poor beast leaning exhausted against the bank, and his owner seated despondingly above him. We could not help him! From 2:42 to 2:54, course from S. to S.E. and back; many pigeons flying about. At this time, there was a nauseous smell on the left or eastern shore-traced it to a small stream running down the Wady Hesbon; the banks very low, and covered with cane and tamarisk. The river here fifty yards wide, eleven feet deep, muddy bottom, current four knots. 2:59, sand and clay banks, with some pebbles on the right; everything indicating the vicinity of the Dead Sea. At 3, course S.E. by S., water very smooth, discoloured but sweet. Saw a heron, a bulbul, and a snipe. 3:04, a foetid smell, proceeding from a small stream on the right or western shore. At 3:07, low and sedgy banks, high mountains of the Dead Sea in sight to the southward and westward; saw many wild ducks. 3:09, both banks, about twelve feet high, bore marks of recent overflow. 3:10, a small round red clay hill on the right, bearing S.W. by S. 3:11, passed a bare channel, left by the freshet. 3:12, course south a long stretch, river seventy yards wide, left bank very low, covered with tamarisk, willow, and cane; right bank fifteen to eighteen feet high, red clay, with weeds and shrubs — the mala insana, spina Christi, and some of the agnus cactus — a few tamarisk at the water’s edge. At 3:13, the mountains to the S.E. over the Dead Sea presented a very rugged, iron-like appearance. Water of the river sweet. 3:15, the left bank low, running out to a flat cape. Right bank low with thick canes, some of them resembling the sugar-cane; twenty feet back the bank twelve feet high, red clay. 3:16, water brackish, but no unpleasant smell; banks red clay and mud, gradually becoming lower and lower; river eighty yards wide, and fast increasing in breadth, seven feet deep, muddy bottom, current three knots. Saw the Dead Sea over the flat, bearing south-mountains beyond. The surface of the water became ruffled. 3:22, a snipe flew by — fresh wind from north-west — one large and two small islands at the mouth of the river; the islands of mud six to eight feet high, evidently subject to overflow; started a heron and a white gull.
At 5:40, finding that we were losing every moment, and that, with the lapse of each succeeding one, the danger increased, kept away for the northern shore, in the hope of being yet able to reach it; our arms, our clothes and skins coated with a greasy salt; and our eyes, lips, and nostrils, smarting excessively. How different was the scene before the submerging of the plain, which was “even as the garden of the Lord!” At times it seemed as if the Dread Almighty frowned upon our efforts to navigate a sea, the creation of his wrath. There is a tradition among the Arabs that no one can venture upon this sea and live. Repeatedly the fates of Costigan and Molyneux had been cited to deter us. The first one spent a few days, the last about twenty hours, and returned to the place from whence he had embarked, without landing upon its shores. One was found dying upon the shore; the other expired in November last, immediately after his return, of fever contracted upon its waters. But, although the sea had assumed a threatening aspect, and the fretted mountains, sharp and incinerated, loomed terrific on either side, and salt and ashes mingled with its sands, and foetid sulphurous springs trickled down its ravines, we did not despair: awe-struck, but not terrified; fearing the worst, yet hoping for the best, we prepared to spend a dreary night upon the dreariest waste we had ever seen.