The bitumen supplied by this singular basin affords the means of a comfortable livelihood to a considerable number of Arabs who frequent its shores. The Pasha of Damascus, who finds it a valuable article of commerce, purchases at a small price the fruit of their labours, or supplies them with food, clothing, and a few ornaments in return for it. In ancient times it found a ready market in Egypt, where it was used in large quantities for embalming the dead: it was also occasionally employed as a substitute for stone, and appeared in the walls of houses and even of temples. Associated with the Dead Sea, every reader has heard of the apples of Sodom, a species of fruit which, extremely beautiful to the eye, is bitter to the taste, and full of dust. Tacitus, in the fifth book of his history, alludes to this singular fact, but, as usual, in language so brief and ambiguous, that no light can be derived from his description, _atra et inania velut in cinerem vanescunt_. Some travellers, unable to discover this singular production, have considered it merely as a figure of speech, depicting the deceitful nature of all vicious enjoyments. Hasselquist regards it as the production of a small plant called _Solanum melongena_, a species of nightshade, which is to be found abundantly in the neighbourhood of Jericho. He admits that the apples are sometimes full of dust; but this, he maintains, appears only when the fruit is attacked by a certain insect, which converts the whole of the inside into a kind of powder, leaving the rind wholly entire, and in possession of its beautiful colour. M. Seetzen, again, holds the novel opinion, that this mysterious apple contains a sort of cotton resembling silk; and, having no pulp or flesh in the inside, might naturally enough, when sought for as food, be denounced by the hungry Bedouin as pleasing to the eye and deceitful to the palate. Chateaubriand has fixed on a shrub different from any of the others. It grows two or three leagues from the mouth of the Jordan, and is of a thorny appearance, with small tapering leaves. Its fruit is exactly like that of the Egyptian lemon, both in size and colour. Before it is ripe it is filled with a corrosive and saline juice; when dried, it yields a blackish seed that may be compared to ashes, and which in taste resembles bitter pepper. There can be little doubt that this is the true apple of Sodom, which flatters the sight while it mocks the appetite.[116]