According to Strabo, there were thirteen towns swallowed up in the Lake Asphaltites; Stephen of Byzantium reckons eight; the book of Genesis, while it names five as situated in the Vale of Siddim, relates the destruction of two only: four are mentioned in Deuteronomy, and five are noticed by the author of Ecclesiasticus. Several travellers, and among others Troilo and D'Arvieux, assure us, that they observed fragments of walls and palaces in the Dead Sea. Maundrell himself was not so fortunate, owing, he supposes, to the height of the water; but he relates that the Father Guardian and Procurator of Jerusalem, both men of sense and probity, declared that they had once actually seen one of these ruins; that it was so near the shore, and the lake so shallow, that they, together with some Frenchmen, went to it, and found there several pillars and other fragments of buildings. The ancients speak more positively on this subject. Josephus, who employs a poetical expression, says, that he perceived on the shores of the Dead Sea the shades of the overwhelmed cities. Strabo gives a circumference of sixty stadia to the ruins of Sodom, which are also mentioned by Tacitus.[111] It is surprising that no pains have been taken by recent travellers to throw light upon this interesting point, or even to learn whether the periodical rise and fall of the lake affords any means for determining the accuracy of the ancient historians and geographers. Should the Turks ever give permission, and should it be found practicable, to convey a vessel from Jaffa to this inland sea, some curious discoveries would certainly be made. Is it not amazing that, notwithstanding the enterprise of modern science, the ancients were better acquainted with the properties, and even the dimensions of the Lake Asphaltites, than the most learned nations of Europe in our own times? It is described by Aristotle, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus, Pliny, Tacitus, Solinus, Josephus, Galen, and Dioscorides. The Abbot of Santa Saba is the only person for many centuries who has made the tour of the Dead Sea. From his account we learn, through the medium of Father Nau, that at its extremity it is separated, as it were, into two parts, and that there is a way by which you may walk across it, being only mid-leg deep, at least in summer; that there the land rises, and bounds another small lake of a circular or rather an oval figure, surrounded with plains and hills of salt; and that the neighbouring country is peopled by innumerable Arabs.[112]