He can only be taken by striking him
and making him angry; then his venom flies into his head and tail."
Breydenbach calls the Dead Sea "the chimney of hell," and repeats
the old story as to the miraculous solvent for its bitumen. He,
too, makes the statement that the holy water of the Jordan does not
mingle with the accursed water of the infernal sea, but increases
the miracle which Caumont had announced by saying that, although
the waters appear to come together, the Jordan is really absorbed
in the earth before it reaches the sea.
As to Lot's wife, various travellers at that time had various
fortunes. Some, like Caumont and Breydenbach, took her continued
existence for granted; some, like Count John of Solms, saw her and
were greatly edified; some, like Hans Werli, tried to find her and
could not, but, like St. Silvia, a thousand years before, were none
the less edified by the idea that, for some inscrutable purpose,
the sea had been allowed to hide her from them; some found her
larger than they expected, even forty feet high, as was the salt
pillar which happened to be standing at the visit of Commander
Lynch in 1848; but this only added a new proof to the miracle, for
the text was remembered, "There were giants in those days.
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