Helon thanked his companion for his information, dissatisfied with himself that the present and the past contended with each other for the possession of his mind. They continued their way to an eminence, from which they had a prospect scarcely to be equalled even in the Holy Land itself. They had here a view of the course of the Jordan. In its progress from its source in Antilibanus, a course of about one hundred sabbath-days’ journies, it had attained a breadth of thirty paces; it is about the depth of a man, and in the neighbourhood of Jericho it has a strong current. It abounds in fish, and its banks were overgrown with sedges, reeds, willows, and tamarisks, among which, jackals, lions,[87] and other wild beasts harboured. The river had just overflowed its banks,[88] in consequence of the melting of the snows of Lebanon, and this annual exundation greatly promoted the fertility of the adjacent fields. On the banks of Jordan lies Gilgal, the place where the people of Israel crossed over under Joshua, and erected twelve stones as a memorial. A little further on was Bethabara, where the pilgrims from Galilee crossed to the eastern side of the Jordan, in order to avoid going through the country of the Samaritans. Thus a great part of the beautiful valley of the Jordan lay before them, whose fertile fields are enclosed by hills on each side, on the east by the mountains of Judah, on the west by Abarim, with the summits of Pisgah and Nebo on Peor, followed by the mountains of Moab. Southward they beheld the plain of Jericho, ten sabbath-days’ journies in length, and almost three in breadth, extending to Engeddi, containing the celebrated grove of palms,[89] adorned with olives and balsam shrubs, and known in all the ancient world for its honey and its roses. Joining this plain the Dead Sea extended itself far to the south, called also the Sea of the Plain, from its vicinity to the plain of Jordan; the Salt Sea, from the taste of its waters; and the Eastern Sea, in contradistinction from the Mediterranean, which lay westward of Palestine. It was formed in the time of Lot and Abraham, by the destruction of the towns of Sodom, Gomorrah, Adama, and Zeboim, the place of which this lake now covers.[90] Its length amounts to eighty-three, its breadth to twenty-one sabbath-days’ journies; its waters, being impregnated with naptha and asphaltus, are salt and bitter; and all around it had the appearance of conflagration, because the frequent exundations of the lake covered the adjacent soil with a coating of salt. The fruits correspond with the water; the son of Selumiel related to Helon, that the apples of Sodom, as they are called, were beautiful to the eye, but bitter and unfit to eat, and that when they were dried, they were nothing but dust. ----- Footnote 87: Jer. xlix. 19. Footnote 88: Josh. iii. 15. Footnote 89: Deut. xxxiv. 3. Footnote 90: Gen. xix. 24-26. -----