Another great antiquarian question claimed our careful attention from the Jericho camp. It was that of the "Cities of the Plainâ or "Ciccar.â The Crusaders placed them south of the Dead Sea, and their supposed sites of Sodom (Usdum) and Zoar (Zûeirah) are easily recovered. The Moslems believe, as did also Josephus, that the wicked cities lie beneath the Sea of Lot, as they call the Lake Asphaltites; but the geological evidence all goes to prove that the Dead Sea must have existed pretty much in its present condition in the time of Abraham, and that such a convulsion as they suppose cannot have occurred within historical times. Modern scholars, therefore, have sought anew for the sites of Sodom and Gomorrah, Zoar, Zeboim, and Admah. It seems almost certain that these cities should be placed north of the lake, because the term Ciccar applies properly to the Jordan Valley and to the Jericho plain; our utmost efforts were therefore directed to the discovery of the sites of the Cities of the Plain (or Ciccar) in this direction. Over almost every acre of ground between Jericho and the Dead Sea, I rode day by day. The whole is a white desert, except near the hills, where rich herbage grows after the rains. The time of year was most favourable for such exploration, because no long grass existed to hide any ruins. In all that plain I found no ruin, except the old monastery of St. John and a little hermit's cave, and it seems to me probable that no other ruins will ever there be found.
With regard to this subject several points require to be kept in memory. The ancient record, which commences so curiously "in the days of Amraphel king of Shinarâ (Gen. xiv. 1), refers to events which occurred four thousand years ago. The cities are said to have been overwhelmed by fire, and their names were blotted out of the later topography of the time of Joshua. To expect to find their ruins is manifestly to disregard the Bible history, and even had they not been overthrown, what hope could there be of their preservation at the present time, when the buildings of Herod, twenty-one centuries later, are not now in existence?
In the second place, there is no very accurate indication in the Bible of the position of the cities: they were in the Vale of Siddim, "which is the Salt Sea,â but they may have been very far apart. One thing alone seems pretty certain. If they were near the Salt Sea they would also probably have been situated near fresh-water springs, as Engedi is situated. Such springs are few and far between in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea, and none occur along the north shore, or in the plain immediately near it. On the north-west, however, there is one fine outflow of water at 'Ain Feshkhah, and higher up the Jordan Valley springs are abundant.