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THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN-HAVE THEIR RUINS BEEN FOUND?

AST year were startled by the

Tyre, from the village of Kefr-Burreim, he tells us he discovered the old Hazor mentioned in Joshua, and that the ruins are very extensive; but no de

La publication we M. De Sauley's narra scription, enters into no details, and pre

tive of his Travels in the East, containing accounts of the still visible ruins of the condemned cities in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, an identification of the Tombs of the Kings of the dynasty of David at Jerusalem, with many other particulars no less extraordinary than novel and interesting. Mr. Van de Velde, then on his way to the Holy Land, happened to be in Paris, and present at two stormy meetings of the French Institute on the subject. His piety was shocked at the indecent clamor. He thought the reasoning of De Sauley so anti-scriptural and absurd, that he wondered how he was listened to with patience. But he received from him a copy of his manuscript maps, with considerable personal kindness and much general information. At the same time it is quite evident he had adopted an impression that the French traveler was not a man of veracity and little to be relied This bias, as he proceeds, ripens into a conviction that De Saulcy is a credulous enthusiast, a shallow scholar, a questionable quoter, a perverter of holy writ to suit his own mistaken views, never right even by accident, and always wrong through ignorance or design. This is the substance of his charges against De Sauley, expressed in very unceremonious terms. "What," says he, "has that traveler not seen?" The accusations are heavy, and ought not to be set forward without the clearest accompanying proof. We shall see presently how far Mr. Van de Velde is to be considered an unprejudiced investigator, and the amount of testimony by which his own allegations are supported.

on.

The ostensible object of Mr. Van de Velde's visit to the Holy Land was to lay down trigonometrical surveys. He landed at Beirout, and proceeded on to Sidon, whence he made an excursion across Mount Lebanon to Hâsbeiya, were he was robbed and left nearly in a state of destitution, stripped of piastres, without which the "highways and byways" of Palestine are hermetically sealed against the adventurous explorer; as the honest and patriarchal Bedouins regulate their hospitality to intruding Europeans by the extent and weight of their purses. On his way to

duces no evidence. "Its exact site," he says, "seems to have been lost for the last three hundred years, and not to have been sought for again in the right place. Perhaps an inaccurate expression of Josephus may have been the cause of this. He describes Hazor as situated about Lake Merom." Why does Mr. Van de Velde not show how this locality of Josephus, with which Dr. Robinson quotes and accords, is incorrect? De Sauley came unexpectedly upon the ruins of a very large city, in a different situation, considerably more to the north-east, and nearer the lake, agreeing with the site named by Josephus, and which he determined to be the Hazor of Joshua, on a long and clear investigation of the texts, Scriptural and profane, which bear upon the subject. He also gives general drawings of the ruins, and a minute groundplan of a remarkable building of Cyclopean construction, very much resembling the ancient temple on Mount Gerizim, and another edifice which he supposes to be a remnant of Gomorrha, on the north-east point of the Dead Sea: yet Mr. Van de Velde passes all this over without allusion or comment, as if no such discovery had ever been made by a preceding traveler. The reader who compares the two accounts will easily decide whether this is fair dealing. Van de Velde here, as in other places, admits that it is impossible to find ruins in Palestine without assistance from the natives, and places much reliance on the similarity of modern and ancient names, when it suits his purpose to do so; but whenever De Sauley adopts the same guides, he accuses the French savant of weak credulity and defective judgment.

Mr. Van de Velde visited Samaria, now Sebastieh, and Mount Gerizim, but he says very little of the remarkable ruins still remaining at both these places, and again has no allusion to De Sauley's previous examinations, or the very elaborate plan, which he was the first to give, of the great Samaritan Temple, built by Sanballat under permission of Alexander the Great. Either this survey and appropriation are authentic or imaginative, and in neither case ought to have been passed

over in silence by one who professes as a leading object of inquiry to examine closely the statements of a predecessor. After a considerable halt at Jerusalem, our author proceeds toward the Dead Sea by Bethlehem, Hebron, and a part of the route followed by De Saulcy on his return. He declares that the French party had spoiled the Bedouins by imprudent liberality, and thereby increased the difficulties of future travelers. His own caravan contained no European besides himself, and was limited altogether to nine persons, the greater proportion unprovided with arms. His escort consisted of four Djahalins of the tribe of Abu Daouk; but that renowned scheikh, who accompanied De Saulcy, and, according to Van de Velde, crammed the enthusiastic Frenchman with all manner of unfounded inventions, declined his personal service on this occasion, as the limited "backshish" comported not with his dignity and overweening expectations.

Van de Velde approached the Dead Sea in the neighborhood of Masada, and ascended that far-famed rock on the 31st of March, 1852. He accuses De Saulcy of having added a few flourishes of his own to the already exaggerated description of Josephus respecting the perilous pathway by which the platform must be scaled; but he admits, at the same time, that the undertaking was most formidable, that he had to drag himself up almost perpendicular stones by the hands and feet, and that he was only preserved from a fall that would infallibly have killed him, by the timely relief of a bottle of eau-decologne, which fortified his nerves and dispelled giddiness. He saw there what others have seen before him, the ruins of the fortress of Herod, as destroyed by the Romans under Flavius Silva, in the reign of the Emperor Vespasian. He says, "It seems not known that Masada was ever after inhabited. Yet I surmise that it must have been so, from the evident remains of a small church, with a round chancel turned to the east, just as in the case with the Christian churches met everywhere else in Palestine. I am surprised that neither Wolcott nor De Saulcy observed it." According to Van de Velde, De Saulcy sees too much at one time, and too little at another. But he has made a most unguarded assertion, and has read De Sauley's book very carelessly, or he

would have found that the French author not only mentions the building in question, but has given in his accompanying atlas of plates, a drawing, and two very minute ground-plans of the same. This is what he says of it :-" Before us, within a hundred yards, is a ruin, which resembles a church with a circular apsis. Our Bedouins inform me that this is the Qasr or Palace. I hasten to examine it. The principal chamber is terminated by this oven-like apsis, with one small round window." Now, to decide that an ancient edifice is a comparatively modern church because it resembles one in form and position, is to jump at a desired conclusion with the same baseless precipitancy which the writer charges against his literary brother. As reasonably might we assert that the Buddhist crosses, scattered over Hindostan and elsewhere, are vestiges of the more recent faith, because they present the symbol of Christianity.* But Mr. Van de Velde passes without notice the gate of Madasa and its pointed arch, (of which De Saulcy has also given a drawing and plan;) this, by a strange inconsistency, Wolcott pronounces a modern ruin, while he refers all the other remains at Masada to the epoch of King Herod. We must, on the contrary, decide that this form of arch is thus carried back some ten centuries behind the period usually assigned for its invention. There are the lines of Silva as clearly defined as when he left them; there are the crumbling ruins of the buildings he found when he stormed the ramparts on the selfimmolation of Eleazar and his Sicarii. If anything can be pronounced certain, of which we have no direct proof, it is that Masada has never been disturbed by human inhabitants since that eventful period.

Up to this point of his journey, Van de Velde has either ignored De Sauley, or scratched him gently; but he now prepares to close with him in a death-struggle, and finish him outright, even as Hercules strangled the giant Antæus. Zoar, he says, could never have stood on the site which De Saulcy has fixed for it,—namely, Es-Zuweirah. The similarity of names goes for nothing. He adds, "The travels of Irby and Mangles, De Bertou, Robinson and Smith, and not long ago of the

It will be remembered that, according to Eastern tradition, Buddha was crucified.

American investigators under Lieutenant Lynch, might have sufficiently convinced that gentleman; while the Scriptures, too, show in the clearest manner that Zoar did not lie here, but on the Moabitish or east side of the Dead Sea." In proof of this, Van de Velde refers to Gen. xix, 30-38; Isa. xv, 5; and Jer. xlviii, 34. These verses most certainly do not show anything of the kind, as all will see who examine them, and De Sauley has challenged his adversary to produce any other Biblical texts that do. Moreover he tells him that he cannot read the Scriptures in the original Hebrew, and is utterly ignorant of Arabic, while he, De Sauley, is well versed in both languages, which gives him a great advantage in the dispute. A defective scholar like Van de Velde should be more cautious in accusing another of a want of learning. De Sauley of course differs from Robinson, Irby and Mangles, as to the site of Zoar, and we think unprejudiced readers will admit his arguments to be sounder than theirs. The opinion of Captain Lynch is of little value in the matter, for he coincides with the idea that Zoar is to be found at El Mezrâah on the eastern side of the Dead Sea, while he believes that he saw the pillar of salt into which Lot's wife was transformed at a great distance from that locality, very far to the west, under the salt mountain of Esdoum. If this pillar existed at all, which it clearly does not, it could only be close to Zoar; and if Zoar is at El Mezrâah, let any one look at the map and say why it should of necessity follow, or how it even appears possible that the other cities are hidden under the sea, according to the popular delusion. Mr. Van de Velde affirms that he traversed the entire plain between the salt mountains and the sea, and that no vestiges whatever are there of the extensive ruins which De Sauley and his companions declare to be those of Sodom. He says that the rows of large stones standing generally in parallel lines, which do exist, are nothing more than débris from the mountain, washed down by the winter torrents, and that they were never placed or fashioned by the hand of man. The ruins, he declares, exist only in the excited imagination which describes them. But Van de Velde was unaccompanied by any Europeans, and his single testimony stands against the united opinion of De Sauley,

and four intelligent well-educated French gentlemen who were with him, and corroborate his description. The weight of evidence is unquestionably in favor of the French travelers. Mr. Van de Velde goes on to say :

"That M. de Sauley should have found here not only the remains of buildings and cities, but positively those of Sodom, I declare I cannot attribute to any other source than the creation of his fancy. The public seems to be charmed with his pseudo-discoveries. I have perused both the French and English editions with great care, hoping to find something to justify M. de Saulcy's conclusions. This is not the place to enter into a critical review of his work. I must also say, that contradictions, erroneous quotations, and false hypotheses are so numerous in it, that to repeat them all would require a book as large as that of Mr. de Sauley himself. So far as regards his quotations from Scripture and profane writers, I leave it to any one who feels anxious to know the truth to form an opinion for himself.”

Now all this appears to us equally illogical, suspicious, and ungenerous. No time and place can be so well fitted to receive evidence as those in which the accusation is made. It matters not to what bulk this evidence might extend; the contradictions, erroneous quotations, and false hypotheses, require to be demonstrated, and until they are, the whole charge evaporates into mere assertion, unsupported by proof. "Feeling satisfied," concludes Mr. Van de Velde, “with having found out the error with regard to Sodom and Zoar, I have not given myself any further trouble in looking for the three other cities; and indeed, one need not undertake the difficult and dangerous journey to the Dead Sea to perceive the absurdity upon which M. de Sauley bases the discovery of the pentapolic cities." Why then did he undertake it, if his mind was previously satisfied that it was a work of supererogation? Having demolished, as he supposes, the theory of the French traveler, he proceeds to give us his own; which is, that these condemned cities, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboim, stood in close neighborhood to each other, in the middle of the valley of Siddim; and that the valley of Siddim occupied what is now the southern portion of the Dead Sea, inundated by the sink

ing of the ground at or after the destruction of the cities, by the water which poured in from an upper lake formed long before, and comprising about three-fourths of the sea as it exists at present. This southern portion has an extreme depth never exceeding thirteen feet, and is in some places so shallow that it can be forded.

A reference to Scripture refutes this theory in a moment. There is no mention in any part of the Bible of water ever having been used as an agent in the destruction, or supposed consequent submersion of the cities. Moses tells us (Gen. xiv, 2, 3) that the five kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Bela (which is Zoar) joined their forces together in the Vale of Siddim, which is the Salt Sea. This verse clearly implies that what was once the Vale of Siddim had become the Salt Sea when Moses wrote, about four hundred and fifty years after the circumstance he narrates. But he neither says nor implies that the cities of the five kings were in the Vale of Siddim, or near it. It is much more likely that they were at a considerable distance, the kings having selected the Vale of Siddim as a convenient central spot for joining their armies; and this is still further corroborated by verse 10 of the same chapter, which says: "And the Vale of Siddim was full of slime pits, and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain." Surely they would have taken refuge in the cities, had the cities been near them, and in the vale to which they were driven. Moses also tells us (Gen. xiv, 17) that when Abraham returned after rescuing his brother Lot, "the King of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh, which is the King's Dale." Here we have the King's Dale nearer to Sodom than the Vale of Siddim, still existing, and not covered by the Salt Sea when Moses wrote. The expression in Hebrew respecting this Vale of Siddim is very singular and forcible. It is literally, "and the low plain of Siddim was pits of pits of pitch," meaning that it was almost entirely composed of these pits of naphtha or bitumen. A very convenient place to swallow up a defeated army, but a very unlikely and ineligible locality for the erection of large cities.

vations on the disputed sites, by asserting that what Josephus and other writers say of the still visible ruins of Sodom and her sister cities has no better foundation than hearsay. If he will take the trouble of looking at book i, chap. 11, of "Jewish Antiquities," and at book iv, chap. 8, of the "Wars of the Jews," (in the original Greek,) he will find that Josephus declares that what he describes, relative to the land of Sodom, he had seen with his own eyes.

De Sauley and his companions encamped at Ayn-el-Fechkhah, on the north-west side of the Dead Sea. Here they discovered the remains of some extraordinary buildings, which he carefully examined with the Abbé Michon, and has minutely described, giving, as usual, an accurate ground-plan. These buildings he considers to have belonged to the Scriptural Gomorrah, and, on the following day, while proceeding to Nabi-Mousa, passed through the extensive ruins of a large city, still bearing the name of KharbetGoumran. Dr. Robinson noticed the first, but did not examine them. The latter he saw not, as his route lay too close to the beach. Mr. Van de Velde, journeying from Mar-saba to the northern coast of the Dead Sea, on his way to the Jordan, must have passed very near this spot, and he had De Sauley's map to mark its exact position. But he did not care to look for it, having previously satisfied himself that De Sauley was not to be believed on any question. We were, unquestionably, taken by surprise when told that Gomorrah was situated more than fifty miles to the north of Sodom, in a direct line. We had been so habituated to couple the two names, that we persuaded ourselves the places must have stood close to each other; but the Scriptures contain no such evidence of proximity, as is clearly laid in the case of Sodom and Zoar.

Before leaving the Asphaltic lake, we shall find, on a comparison of the routes, that De Saulcy and his party traversed the shores of that mysterious water throughout three quarters of their extent, while Van de Velde touched only on two insulated points, at the extreme north and south. If the ruins last named are not those of Gomorrah, De Sauley naturally asks to be told what other city they can possibly represent; and this question has Mr. Van de Velde winds up his obser- not yet been answered.

A

THOUGHTS OF AN OLD SMOKER.

QUARTER of a century ago, I began to master two difficult attainments: I learned to shave and I learned to smoke. Of these two attainments, smoking was incomparably the hardest; but I managed it. What has it cost me? I have smoked almost all sorts of tobacco, and, as I suppose, in almost all forms. I began with cigarettes, advanced onward to cigars, then to Maryland tobacco, then to returns, thence to bird's-eye, and thence to the strongest shag. I have bought and smoked cigars at all prices, and of all manufactures, from the suspicious articles, six of which may be bought for sixpence, and which probably are innocent of any connexion with nicotiana, save a slight tinge with its juice, to the costliest Havanna. I have been fanciful in cigar tubes, and also in pipes, though to no alarming extent, having never paid more than a dollar and a half for a tube, and a dollar and a quarter for a meerschaum; and, after all attempts to be fine, preferring the naked cigar, or the half yard of clay. I have spent money, too, on instantaneous lights of many sorts. When phosphorus boxes, containing a small bottle of fiery mixture, and about a score of matches, cost seventyfive cents each, I gave that for one. When lucifer matches were invented, and sold for twelve cents a box-less in quantity than may now be bought for a cent I patronized the manufacture. I have used German tinder, fusees, and a dozen other kindred inventions; and all these, costing money, have served me only for the lighting of my pipes or cigars.

Looking at it, then, altogether, and taking into account cigars, cigar-cases, cigar-tubes, tobacco, pipes, and matches; considering, too, that I have been a constant and persevering, though not an enormous smoker, I may safely and fairly conclude that, take one time with another, smoking has cost me half a dollar a week for twenty-five years.

A half dollar a week; that is to say, twenty-six dollars a year; making for the whole period, and without reckoning interest, either compound or simple, the sum of six hundred and fifty dollars. Now this, I repeat, is keeping within compass; and a friend at my side tells me that double the amount a week would be nearer the mark; but as, during ten years past,

I have not exceeded the more moderate computation, I shall let it remain.

Six hundred and fifty dollars-setting aside the consideration of interest—is a large sum. If, twenty-five years ago, instead of a tobacco-box I had set up a money-box, and dropped into it a weekly half dollar, I cannot avoid the conclusion that I should be now six hundred and fifty dollars richer than I am and there are many things I could do with six hundred and fifty dollars. It might serve me for a year's housekeeping, for my establishment is on a humble scale; or it might set up my eldest boy; or it might refurnish my house. Or, if the half dollar a week had been devoted to a life insurance, and I were to die to-morrow, my family would be the better for my self-denial by one thousand five hundred dollars. Or if I had spent half a dollar a week on literature, my library would now be, and much to my advantage, larger than it is. Or if, laying aside selfish considerations, I had set apart the half dollar a week to works of charity and mercy, the world might have been the better for it. Many a heartache might have been relieved by the six hundred and fifty dollars which I have puffed away. I think, then, that if I had to begin life again, I would not learn to smoke.

I know it may be said that the same arguments could be raised against this, that, and the other superfluity, which might be. done without. But I am not writing about this, that, and the other superfluity; I am writing about tobacco-smoke.

To turn to another thought: I am not quite sure that smoking is a healthy practice. I know it is not necessary to health, for I see my friends who do not smoke are not troubled with diseases to which those of us who do are subject. My wife does not smoke, and, so far as I can see, she does not suffer from the privation. I might go a step further, and say, I have a strong suspicion that sometimes smoking disagrees with some of us, and is rather detrimental to health than otherwise. Certainly, excessive smoking is injurious; but who shall draw the line of demarcation between moderation and excess? As for myself, I do not know that smoking has ever hurt me. It is true, when I have a bilious head-ache, I nauseate the smell of tobacco-smoke, but so do I nauseate also the smell of roast

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