Page:The City of the Saints.djvu/347

Rh ed off by the sudden appearance of what your superior sagacity would have discovered to be a chimney.

The bathing-place is behind the Black Rock. The approach is first over the fine soft white sand, like that of the sea-shore, but shell-less, soppy where it receives the spring-water, and almost a quicksand near the lake. The foot crunches through caked and crusty salt-flakes, here white, there dark green, there dun-colored like bois de vache, and every where the reverse of aromatic, and sinks deep into the everlastingly wet sand below. This leads to the neck of broken, riven stone pavement, whose head is the Black Rock. As the lake is neared, the basalt-like surface becomes red and rusty, the points are diamonded by sparkling spiculæ, and in the hollows and crevices where the waters have dried to salt it gathers in the form of icy lumps. A dreadful shock then awaits the olfactory nerves. The black mud of peculiar drift before alluded to proves to be an aceldama of insects: banks a full foot high, composed of the larvæ, exuviæ, and mortal coils of myriads of worms, musquetoes, gnats, and gallinippers, cast up by the waves, and lining the little bay, as they ferment and fester in the burning sun, or pickle and preserve in the thick brine. Escaping from this mass of fetor, I reached the farther end of the promontory where the Black Rock stood decorously between the bathing-place and the picnic ground, and in a pleasant frame of curiosity descended into the new Dead Sea.

I had heard strange accounts of its buoyancy. It was said to support a bather as if he were sitting in an arm-chair, and to float him like an unfresh egg. My experience differs in this point from that of others. There was no difficulty in swimming, nor indeed in sinking. After sundry immersions of the head, in order to feel if it really stang and removed the skin, like a mustard plaster—as described—emboldened by the detection of so much hyperbole, I proceeded to duck under with open eyes, and smarted "for my pains." The sensation did not come on suddenly; at first there was a sneaking twinge, then a bold succession of twinges, and lastly a steady, honest burning like what follows a pinch of snuff in the eyes. There was no fresh water at hand; so, scrambling upon the rock, I sat there for half an hour, presenting to Nature the ludicrous spectacle of a man weeping flowing tears. A second experiment upon its taste was equally satisfactory; I can easily believe, with Captain Stansbury, that a man overboard has little chance against asphyxiation; vox faucibus hæsit was the least that could be said concerning its effects upon my masticators. Those who try such experiments may be warned that a jug filled at the fresh spring is necessary in more ways than one. The hair on emersion is powdered like the plastered