They were then occupying the center of a rocky plain, which the sun scorched with its
parching rays.
Heaven seems to have made this place on purpose for the repose of weary travellers, who here exchange the tortures of
parching thirst, burning sands, and a sultry climate, for the pleasures of shady trees, the refreshment of a clear stream, and the luxury of a cooling breeze.
The atmosphere became dry and surcharged with murky vapor,
parching to the skin, and irritating to the eyes.
Where Sodom and Gomorrah reared their domes and towers, that solemn sea now floods the plain, in whose bitter waters no living thing exists--over whose waveless surface the blistering air hangs motionless and dead-- about whose borders nothing grows but weeds, and scattering tufts of cane, and that treacherous fruit that promises refreshment to
parching lips, but turns to ashes at the touch.