Fabri is greatly impressed by the wonders of the Dead Sea, and typical
of his honesty influenced by faith is his account of the Dead Sea fruit;
he describes it with almost perfect accuracy, but adds the statement
that when mature it is "filled with ashes and cinders."

As to the salt statue, he says: "We saw the place between the sea and
Mount Segor, but could not see the statue itself because we were too far
distant to see anything of human size; but we saw it with firm faith,
because we believed Scripture, which speaks of it; and we were filled
with wonder."

To sustain absolute faith in the statue he reminds his reader's that
"God is able even of these stones to raise up seed to Abraham," and goes
into a long argument, discussing such transformations as those of King
Atlas and Pygmalion's statue, with a multitude of others, winding up
with the case, given in the miracles of St. Jerome, of a heretic who was
changed into a log of wood, which was then burned.

He gives a statement of the Hebrews that Lot's wife received her
peculiar punishment because she had refused to add salt to the food
of the angels when they visited her, and he preaches a short sermon in
which he says that, as salt is the condiment of food, so the salt statue
of Lot's wife "gives us a condiment of wisdom."(433)

(433) For Bernard of Breydenbach, I have used the Latin edition, Mentz,
1486, in the White collection, Cornell University, also the German
edition in the Reyssbuch. For John of Solms, Werli, and the like, see
the Reyssbuch, which gives a full text of their travels. For Fabri
(Schmid), see, for his value, Robinson; also Tobler, Bibliographia, pp.
53 et seq.; and for texts, see Reyssbuch, pp. 122b et seq., but best the
Fratris Fel. Fabri Evagatorium, ed. Hassler, Stuttgart, 1843, vol. iii,
pp. 172 et seq. His book now has been translated into English by the
Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society.

There were, indeed, many discrepancies in the testimony of travellers
regarding the salt pillar--so many, in fact, that at a later period the
learned Dom Calmet acknowledged that they shook his belief in the whole
matter; but, during this earlier time, under the complete sway of the
theological spirit, these difficulties only gave new and more glorious
opportunities for faith.

For, if a considerable interval occurred between the washing of one salt
pillar out of existence and the washing of another into existence, the
idea arose that t