It was then that Jack did them a service. With that engaging

recklessness of consequences which is natural to youth, and so proper and

so seemly, as well, he went and led the way across the Jordan, and all

was happiness again. Every individual waded over, then, and stood upon

the further bank. The water was not quite breast deep, any where. If it

had been more, we could hardly have accomplished the feat, for the strong

current would have swept us down the stream, and we would have been

exhausted and drowned before reaching a place where we could make a

landing. The main object compassed, the drooping, miserable party sat

down to wait for the sun again, for all wanted to see the water as well

as feel it. But it was too cold a pastime. Some cans were filled from

the holy river, some canes cut from its banks, and then we mounted and

rode reluctantly away to keep from freezing to death. So we saw the

Jordan very dimly. The thickets of bushes that bordered its banks threw

their shadows across its shallow, turbulent waters ("stormy," the hymn

makes them, which is rather a complimentary stretch of fancy,) and we

could not judge of the width of the stream by the eye. We knew by our

wading experience, however, that many streets in America are double as

wide as the Jordan.

Daylight came, soon after we got under way, and in the course of an hour

or two we reached the Dead Sea. Nothing grows in the flat, burning

desert around it but weeds and the Dead Sea apple the poets say is

beautiful to the eye, but crumbles to ashes and dust when you break it.

Such as we found were not handsome, but they were bitter to the taste.

They yielded no dust. It was because they were not ripe, perhaps.

676

The Innocents Abroad