TUESDAY, APRIL 25. Completed a set of observations, bundled up the mess things, and started, at 9:40, for a reconnoissance of the southern part of the sea; leaving Sherîf in charge of the camp, with Read and the four Turkish soldiers. Steered about south, from point to point, keeping near the Arabs along the shore, for their protection; for they dreaded an attack from marauding parties. Threw the patent log overboard; the weather fair but exceedingly hot; thermometer, 89°; little air stirring; no clouds visible; the mountains, as we passed, seemed terraced, but the culture was that of desolation. At 11:05, the patent log had marked 21 knots; depth, six feet; bottom, of brown mud; made for a current ripple, a little farther out, coloured with decomposed wood, membranes of leaves, chaff, &c.; depth, thirteen fathoms; hard bottom; resumed the course along the shore. At 12:30, abreast of a ravine, or wady, not down on the maps, with a broad, flat delta before it. These ravines all have names, among the Arabs; but the deltas, or projecting plains, are undesignated. The limestone strata of the mountain above it were horizontal. There was a line of verdure up the ravine, indicating the presence of water. The log had measured 6¼ nautical miles from Ain Jidy soundings, a musket-shot distance from the shore, one fathom; bottom, white sand and very fine gravel. At 12:40, soundings one fathom; north end of the pensula bearing east; steered towards it, to try for ford; water deepening to 2½ fathoms (fifteen feet), pulled into the shore-line again.
A small, beautiful bird, with yellow breast, flew along the shore. Occasionally sounded out to 2½ fathoms, one mile from shore, to look for ford. At 1:58, abreast of Wady Sêyâl Sebbeh (ravine of Acacias), supposed to have water in it, very high up, the log having marked 8½ nautical miles. The cliff above the ravine was that of Sebbeh, or Masada. It was a perpendicular cliff, 1200 to 1500 feet high, with a deep ravine breaking down on each side, so as to leave it isolated. On the level summit was a line of broken walls, pierced in one place with an arch. This fortalice, constructed by Herod, and successfully beleaguered by Silva, had a commanding but dreary prospect, overlooking the deep chasm of this mysterious sea. Our Arabs could give no other account of it than that there were ruins of large buildings on the cliff.
The cliff of Sebbeh is removed some distance from the margin of the sea by an intervening delta of sand and detritus, of more than two miles in width. A mass of scorched and calcined rock, regularly laminated at its summit, and isolated from the rugged strip, which skirts the western shore, by deep and darkly-shadowed defiles and lateral ravines, its aspect from the sea is one of stern and solemn grandeur, and seems in harmony with the fearful records of the past. There was that peculiar purple hue of its weather-worn rock, a tint so like that of coagulated blood that it forced the mind back upon its early history, and summoned images of the fearful immolation of Eleazar and the nine hundred and sixty-seven Sicarii, the blood of whose self-slaughter seemed to have tinged the indestructible cliff forever.