Vegetation also existed here to a certain extent.

Not far from the shore, I noticed, in a little ravine, a group of eight acicular-leaved trees.
On this plain there were also some wild shrubs bearing capers, and a description of tall shrub, not unlike our bramble, bearing a plentiful crop of red berries, very juicy and sweet.

We all ate largely of them; and I was the more surprised at finding these plants here, as I had found it uniformly stated that animal and vegetable life was wholly extinct on the shores of the Dead Sea.
Five cities, of which not a trace now remains, once lay in the plain now filled by this sea--their names were Sodom, Gomorrah, Adama, Zeboin, and Zona.

A feeling of painful emotion, mingled with awe, took possession of my soul as I thought of the past, and saw how the works of proud and mighty nations had vanished away, leaving behind them only a name and a memory.

It was a relief to me when we prepared, after an hour's rest, to quit this scene of dreary desolation.
For about an hour and a half we rode through an enormous waste covered with trailing weeds, towards the verdant banks of the Jordan, which are known from a distance by the beautiful blooming green of the meadows that surround it.