The Bolivar bulletin. [volume] (Bolivar, Hardeman County, Tenn.) 1865-1888, 1873-01-24
" The Land East of the Sun and West
ofthe Moon.

Late correspondence from Moab,
where the British Exploration Commit
tee is at work, gives very interesting
details of the things brought to light
in that impressive land. liza, men
toned in the A1ltO7iRe Itinerary as the
station of a squadron of cavalry, be-
came another center for exploration,
and from here was made a most i'm
portant and remarkable discovery. The
ruins of magnificent palace, far more
perfect than anything of so early a date
hitherto discovered in Moab, were found
east of HesbOn, and furnish a new
problem for antiquaries at home A
quadrangle of freestones inclose a
palace of brick the quadrangle meas
ures 10 yards on every side, and is
furnished with semi-circular bastiOns.
On either side of the only entrance is a
facade of carved work, $50 feet in
length and II feet in height. Animals,
birds, flowers, fruit, and even men are
chiseled with great thOroughness of
work and delicacy of touch, and the
whole is in marvellous state of preser-
walton. The vaulted roofs of eight of
the chambers of the palace yet remain,
and the plan and details have led Mr..
Ferguson to conjecture that the Persian
cOnquerer ChOsroes was the founder.
Sir Henry RawlinsOn questioned the
soundness of this opinion, Oh the
ground that a military invader who
merely crossed this tract on his way to
Egypt would not have had sufficient
hold upon the country to attempt such a
work Be this as it may, the date of
the building must be somewhere about
A. D. 600. The Arabic name, & Umm
Shetttah," gives no clue to the history
of the place,
To the west of the pilgrim road
already mentioned, the gorge of the
Kallirhoe, the site of the hot baths
where Herod the great sought to obtain
a cure, was thoroughly explored. This
gorge was not unknown before, but
/ Makaur, which from its modern name
/ and the resemblance of its position to
the description given by Joseph, must
also certainly be Mach@rus, was reached
! for the first time. Other travellers have
seen it from distance, or more prob
ably have had the direction of its site
pointed out to them, and have then
marked it enormously on their map,
| but Tristram is the first who in modern
times stood upon the spot where John
| the Baptist suffered imprisonment and
! death. The names and details of other
ruined towns are far too numerous tc
be given; for as Mr.. Stanford afterward
/ expressed it, Tristram's report "per
fectly bristled" with new facts, most Of
which could only be conveyed clearly
by the aid of plans and illustrations
Neither the American explorers under
Lynch, nor the Fench under the Due de
Luynes, though both parties had boats
seemed to have observed the great dis
similarity between the Judean and the
Moabite shores of this salt lake OF the
! East. The western shore is well known
TO be a desert of glaring mari, almost
entirely destitute of vegetation of any
kind. It now appears that the eastern
shore, owing to a different geological
formation and comparatively abundant
supply of water, is not only covered
with small plants and studded by de
cidious trees, but has toward its north
ern extremity palm growing luxuriantly
in the clefts of the rocks overhangine
the sea itself, and climbing far up the
mountains.