File:Rambles in Bible lands (1909) (14597285188).jpg

Identifier: ramblesinbiblela00neil (find matches)
Title: Rambles in Bible lands
Year: 1909 (1900s)
Authors: Neil, C. Lang
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Publisher: New York : D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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did palm and balsamgroves that Antony gave to Cleopatra. Josephusrefers to it several times in enthusiastic terms. Speakingof Jericho, he says, Now here is the most fruitful countryabout Judea, which bears a vast number of palm-trees,besides the balsam-tree, whose sprouts they cut withsharp stones, and at the incisions they gather the juice,which drops down like tears.1 He says it was anointment of all the most precious.2 He speaks of it as the most precious drug, and says it grows therealone, and says that Herod the Great farmed of Cleopatrathe revenues it brought in.3 The Dead Sea is here at the north end surroundedby a salt desert, strewn with driftwood—and nothingcould look more lifeless and desolate—but in other partsof its shore it is green and fertile. One-fourth of thisgreat recipient lake, that takes in all the water of Jordan 1 Josephus, Wars of the Jews, Bk. I. ch. vi. sec. 6. 2 Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, Bk. XIV. ch. iv. sec. i. 3 Ibid, Bk. XV. ch. iv. sec. 20.
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i9o RAMBLES IN BIBLE LANDS and yet has no outlet, is salt. So hot is the districtfor a great part of the year, that all the water pouredin by the Jordan passes away in evaporation. A peak of the mountains of Moab, called by the ArabsNeba, rising above its eastern shore at the north end,some 4,000 feet high, is probably the Nebo at Pisgah,whence Moses viewed the goodly land he might notenter.1 It commands a most extensive view. Therehe, the man of God, died, in full vigour, though hewas one hundred and twenty years old ; and somewherenear there is the mysterious grave where the hand ofGod laid Israels leader and lawgiver to rest.2 The five cities of the plain—Sodom, Gomorrah,Admah, Zeboim, and Bela, the last afterwards calledZoar—have now been identified by Dr. Selah Merril,of the American Exploration Fund, with five ancientruins at the foot of the Moab mountains on thesouth-east side of the kikkar, or round plain, ofJordan. One thing is certain, they are not beneaththe Dead Sea, f

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