The air was very warm all night, with no freshening dew, and the sound of slow, rippling water on the strand, during the still starlight hours, was one to which our ears had not been of late accustomed. The Arab figures and conversation round the watch-fire were romantic enough. Thermometer at eight P.M., 90.5 degrees Fahrenheit. _April_ 10_th_.--Sunrise, Fahrenheit 70.25 degrees. In taking this last note of the thermometer at sunrise, I may observe that the marking of it at that moment gives but a feeble idea of the heat that we experienced during the days' marches throughout this excursion,--the temperature rapidly increased after sunrise, and at later hours within the confined hollows, such as Petra and the basin of the Dead Sea, rose to that of (I suppose) an Indian climate--but above all the effects of heat was that produced by the weight of atmospheric pressure at probably the lowest position in the whole surface of the globe: about 1300 feet below the Mediterranean. Before six o'clock we were on the march, over broken and precipitous rocky paths, on which the progress was slow and toilsome. Then down again upon the beach. I am sure that if the Dead Sea were already covering the ground that it now does, before the time of Chedorlaomer, the "four kings against five" could not possibly have mustered or manoeuvred their armies on any side or place between the mountains on each side of the water. {332} At a quarter past seven the thermometer stood at 86 degrees Fahrenheit. There is always a close, heavy heat in this depressed region, inducing profuse perspiration. At ten minutes past nine we were at the spot where the great eastern peninsula projects nearest to us, having in view the two extremities, north-east and south-west, now named on the maps, the former as Point Costigan, after the unfortunate explorer of 1835, and the latter, Point Molyneux, after my friend, the lieutenant of H.M.S. _Spartan_, who was there in 1847. But at that season of the year we could perceive no traces of the shallow or ford by which the Arabs occasionally pass over to it on the way to Kerak. At half-past nine we were in front of _Sebbeh_, with a view of the ruins of Masada on its summit, to which, however, we did not climb, but contented ourselves with recalling to memory the heroic events of the Jewish defenders, as related by Josephus. Here the sea, retiring towards our side, forms a semicircular bay, terminating at _'Ain Jidi_, (Engeddi,) where we arrived at two o'clock. There we were at a considerable elevation above the shore, which we now abandoned, not only because all further advance in that direction is impracticable, but because our route towards Jerusalem lay in a different direction.