DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12665#0160
144
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
eompanying these pages, he will see Burckhardt's
route ; and he will also see that mine is not open
to the critical objections made to his ; and that, be-
yond all peradventure, I did pass directly through
the land of ldumea lengthwise, and crossing its
northern and southern border ; and, unless the two
Englishmen and Italian before referred to passed
on this same route, I am the only person, except
the wandering Arabs, who ever did pass through
the doomed and forbidden Edom, beholding with
his own eyes the fearful fulfilment of the terrible
denunciations of an offended God. And, though I
did pass through and yet was not cut off, God for-
bid that I should count the prophecy a lie: no;:
even though I had been a confirmed skeptic, I have
seen enough, in wandering with the Bible in my
hand in that unpeopled desert, to tear up the very
foundations of unbelief, and scatter its fragments
to the winds. In my judgment, the words of the
prophet are abundantly fulfilled in the destruction,
and desolation of the ancient Edom, and the com-
plete and eternal breaking up of a great public
highway ; and it is neither necessary nor useful
to extend the denunciation against a passing trav-
eller.*
* Keith's celebrated treatise on the Prophecies has passed
through fourteen editions, differing in some few particulars. In
the sixth edition he says that Sir Frederick Henniker, in his notes
dated from Mount Sinai, states that Seetzen, on a vessel of paper
pasted against the wall, notifies his having penetrated the country
in a direct line between the Dead Sea and Mount Sinai (through
ldumea), a route never before accomplished. In a note to the sarau
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
eompanying these pages, he will see Burckhardt's
route ; and he will also see that mine is not open
to the critical objections made to his ; and that, be-
yond all peradventure, I did pass directly through
the land of ldumea lengthwise, and crossing its
northern and southern border ; and, unless the two
Englishmen and Italian before referred to passed
on this same route, I am the only person, except
the wandering Arabs, who ever did pass through
the doomed and forbidden Edom, beholding with
his own eyes the fearful fulfilment of the terrible
denunciations of an offended God. And, though I
did pass through and yet was not cut off, God for-
bid that I should count the prophecy a lie: no;:
even though I had been a confirmed skeptic, I have
seen enough, in wandering with the Bible in my
hand in that unpeopled desert, to tear up the very
foundations of unbelief, and scatter its fragments
to the winds. In my judgment, the words of the
prophet are abundantly fulfilled in the destruction,
and desolation of the ancient Edom, and the com-
plete and eternal breaking up of a great public
highway ; and it is neither necessary nor useful
to extend the denunciation against a passing trav-
eller.*
* Keith's celebrated treatise on the Prophecies has passed
through fourteen editions, differing in some few particulars. In
the sixth edition he says that Sir Frederick Henniker, in his notes
dated from Mount Sinai, states that Seetzen, on a vessel of paper
pasted against the wall, notifies his having penetrated the country
in a direct line between the Dead Sea and Mount Sinai (through
ldumea), a route never before accomplished. In a note to the sarau