"[[225]]
Few things could be more certain than that, in the indolent
dream-life of the East, myths and legends would grow up to account
for this as for other strange appearances in all that region. The
question which a religious Oriental put to himself in ancient times
at Usdum was substantially that which his descendant to-day puts to
himself at Kosseir. "Why is this region thus blasted?" "Whence
these pillars of salt?" or "Whence these blocks of granite?" "What
aroused the vengeance of Jehovah or of Allah to work these miracles
of desolation?"
And, just as Maxime Du Camp recorded the answer of the modern
Shemite at Kosseir, so the compilers of the Jewish sacred books
recorded the answer of the ancient Shemite at the Dead Sea; just as
Allah at Kosseir blasted the land and transformed the melons into
boulders which are seen to this day, so Jehovah at Usdum blasted
the land and transformed Lot's wife into a pillar of salt, which is
seen to this day.
No more difficulty was encountered in the formation of the Lot
legend, to account for that rock resembling the human form, than in
the formation of the Niobe legend, which accounted for a supposed
resemblance in the rock at Sipylos: it grew up just as we have seen
thousands of similar myths and legends grow up about striking
natural appearances in every early home of the human race.
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