The travellers, at some distance from this halting-place, arrived at a camp of Jellaheen Arabs, who told them that in years of scarcity they were accustomed to retire into Egypt,--a practice which seems to have been handed down from the days of the patriarchs, or dictated by the same necessity that compelled the family of Jacob to adopt a similar expedient. At the distance of eight hours from Al-baid, in a deep barren valley, are the ruins of an old Turkish fort, standing on a solitary rock to the left of the track. Farther on the cliff is excavated, at a considerable height, into loopholes; where it is probable a barrier was formerly established for levying a certain duty on goods and travellers. The place is called El Zowar, or El Ghor. From hence a gravelly ravine, studded with bushes of acacia and other shrubs, conducts to the great plain at the southern extremity of the Dead Sea; bounded at the distance of eight or nine miles by a sandy cliff at least seventy feet high, which forms a barrier to the lake when at its greatest elevation. The existence of that long valley which extends from Asphaltites to the AElanitic Gulf was first ascertained by Burckhardt; and the prolongation of it, as connected with the hollow of the Jordan, has been considered as a proof that the river at one time discharged its waters into the eastern branch of the Red Sea. The change is attributed to that great volcanic convulsion mentioned in the nineteenth chapter of Genesis, which, interrupting the course of the river, converted into a lake the fertile plain occupied by the cities of Adma, Zeboim, Sodom, and Gomorrah, and reduced all the valley southward to the condition of a sandy waste.[109] But, having reached the shores of the Dead Sea by an unfrequented path, we have no guide to the examination of the wild country which rises on either side of it; we therefore prefer the more wonted route which leads to its northern border, near the mouth of the Jordan and the site of the ancient Jericho. Avoiding, at the same time, the track of the caravan from Jerusalem through the hilly desert which intervenes, we shall accompany the Vicomte de Chateaubriand from Bethlehem through the interesting Valley of Santa Saba.