In 1555, Gabriel Giraudet, priest at Puy, journeyed through
Palestine. His faith was robust, and his attitude toward the myths
of the Dead Sea is seen by his declaration that its waters are so
foul that one can smell them at a distance of three leagues; that
straw, hay, or feathers thrown into them will sink, but that iron
and other metals will float; that criminals have been kept in them
three or four days and could not drown. As to Lot's wife, he says
that he found her "lying there, her back toward heaven, converted
into salt stone; for I touched her, scratched her, and put a piece
of her into my mouth, and she tasted salt."
At the centre of all these legends we see, then, the idea that,
though there were no living beasts in the Dead Sea, the people of
the overwhelmed cities were still living beneath its waters,
probably in hell; that there was life in the salt statue; and that
it was still curious regarding its old neighbours.
Hence such travellers in the latter years of the century as Count
Albert of Lowenstein and Prince Nicolas Radziwill are not at all
weakened in faith by failing to find the statue.
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