LOT'S WIFE.
The alabaster pillar called "Lot's Wife" stands in solitary grandeur
within a gloomy cave. Its sombre surroundings are in harmony with the
tragic old-world history recalled by the central figure. The nimble
thought skips over ages and ages, and in the "mind's eye" appear the
rich plains of Siddim and the flowing Jordan, and the fugitives and the
lava, and the terrible climax. As the Biblical record of the catastrophe
is supposed to teach the folly of disobedience on the part of wives, and
the perils of hankering after doubtful pleasures, the pillar which
recalls it may be contemplated with advantage by newly-married couples,
now that the caves are becoming a favourite resort of honeymooners.
Perhaps in time to come there may be religious services and
solemnisation of matrimony in these fantastic subterranean caverns. It
is related by Dr. Forwood, that a romantic marriage took place in the
Gothic chapel of the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, "which family
interference prevented occurring _on_ the earth." He says: "The fair
lady, whose lover was opposed by her parents, in a rash moment promised
them that she would never marry her betrothed 'on the face of the
earth.' Afterwards, repenting of her promise, but being unable to
retract and unwilling to violate it, she fulfilled her vow to her
parents as well as to her lover by marrying him 'under the earth.'"
How far the pillar in the caves is like that mentioned in the Book of
Genesis it is impossible to say, because the latter has been neither
minutely described nor photographed. Josephus, the great historian of
the Wars and Antiquities of the Jews, and who was not born until about
2,000 years after Lot's departure from Sodom, says he saw it. His words
are: "When Lot went away with his two maiden daughters--for those who
were betrothed to them were above the thoughts of going, and deemed that
God's words were trifling--God then cast a thunderbolt upon the city,
and set it on fire with its inhabitants.... But Lot's wife continually
turning back to view the city as she went from it, and being too nicely
inquisitive what would become of it, although God had forbidden her to
do so, was changed into a pillar of salt." And, he adds, "for I have
seen it, and it remains to this day." It is to be regretted that he did
not describe the pillar itself.
A century later Irenaeus bore testimony to the existence of the pillar,
and spoke of its lasting so long "with all its members entire." This
would lead to the inference that the original pillar retained the shape
of a female figure. If it did, then in this respect there is no
similarity between the Pillar of Warning on the Dead Sea plain and the
pillar in the Jenolan Caves. The latter is a pretty round column, about
five feet four inches high, rounded off irregularly at the top, and
built up in sections, which show separate growths, like divisions in the
stem of a cabbage-tree palm, or the joints of a bamboo. It is probable,
therefore, that there is not the slightest resemblance between the two
pillars. Bishop Patrick thinks that some of the storm which overwhelmed
the Cities of the Plain overtook Lot's wife, "and falling upon her as
she stood staring about, and minded not her way or guide, suddenly
wrapped her body in a sheet of nitro-sulphurous matter, which,
congealing into a crust as hard as stone, made her appear, they say, as
a pillar of salt, her body being candied in it."
It is about 3,800 years since the disobedient "help-meet" of the
Oriental squatter was fixed like a fly in amber, as a solemn warning to
recalcitrant spouses for all time. Had the first drip then fallen on to
the mound in the Jenolan Caves where now stands "Lot's Wife"? Query. The
Jenolan pillar is evidently of slow growth. Each joint, which looks
something like fine tallow, may, as the curator facetiously puts it,
represent a century of "dripping." In this respect it is unlike the
historic pillar whose name it bears. Dr. Kitto, in his very interesting
"Daily Biblical Illustrations," says in reference to the latter: "From
the nature of the case, and from the peculiarly bituminous and saline
character of the locality through which this phenomenon was produced, we
must not expect to discover many parallel instances which might be
quoted in illustration. Accordingly we find that the illustrative
parallels which have been diligently sought out by the old commentators
have rarely any real bearing on the subject, being for the most part
accounts of people frozen to death and long preserved in that condition
uncorrupted in the Boreal regions, or else of persons suffocated and
then petrified by the mineral vapours of the caves in which they were
hid, or otherwise of persons 'turned to stone,' and found generations
after standing in the postures wherein they found their death. The only
instance we have met with which seems appropriate, and which rests on
the authority of a contemporary of fair credit, is related by Aventinus,
who states that in his time about 50 country people, with their cows and
calves, were, in Carinthia, destroyed by strong and suffocating saline
exhalations which arose out of the earth immediately upon an earthquake
in 1348. They were by this reduced to saline statues or pillars, like
Lot's wife, and the historian tells us that they had been seen by
himself and the Chancellor of Austria."
It was, perhaps, some such incident as this which gave to Mr. Haggard
the idea as to how the Kukuana people from time immemorial preserved
their royal dead. He first of all described Twala, the last of the
Kukuana kings, as in a limestone cave, with his head perched upon his
knees and his vertebrae projecting a full inch above the shrunken flesh
of the neck. "Then," he says, "the whole surface of the body was covered
by a thin glassy film caused by the dripping of lime-water. The body was
being transformed into a stalactite." The antecedent kings were ranged
around a table in this wonderful cave, and the author continues:--"A
look at the white forms seated on the stone bench that ran around that
ghastly board confirmed this view. They were human forms indeed, or
rather had been human forms; now they were stalactites [stalagmites?].
This was the way in which the Kukuana people had from time immemorial
preserved their royal dead. They petrified them. What the exact system
was, if there was any, beyond placing them for a long period of years
under the drip, I never discovered; but there they sat, iced over and
preserved for ever by the silicious fluid. Anything more awe-inspiring
than the spectacle of this long line of departed royalties, wrapped in a
shroud of ice-like spar, through which the features could be dimly made
out (there were 27 of them, the last being Ignosi's father), and seated
round that inhospitable board, with Death himself for a host, it is
impossible to imagine. That the practice of thus preserving their kings
must have been an ancient one is evident from the number, which,
allowing for an average reign of 15 years, would, supposing that every
king who reigned was placed here--an improbable thing, as some are sure
to have perished in battle far from home--fix the date of its
commencement at four and a quarter centuries back. But the colossal
Death who sits at the head of the board is far older than that, and,
unless I am much mistaken, owes his origin to the same artist who
designed the three colossi. He was hewn out of a single stalactite
[stalagmite?], and, looked at as a work of art, was most admirably
conceived and executed." There is nothing suggestive of anything so
hideous as this in the Jenolan Caves. "Lot's wife," as she appears
there, is as straight down as a "Shaker," without the slightest
suspicion of artificial "improvement." Nor does the pillar correspond
with the result of more recent discovery made by an American expedition
to the Dead Sea, and in reference to which Dr. Kitto says:--"The course
of their survey could hardly fail to bring under notice every marked
object upon either shore, and one they did find, an obviously natural
formation, which--or others in former times like it--might readily be
taken by persons unaccustomed to weigh circumstances with the precision
we are now accustomed to exact, for the pillar of Lot's wife. Among the
salt mountains of Usdum (an apparent transposition of Sodom), on the
west side of the kind of bay which forms the southern extremity of the
Dead Sea, the party beheld, to their great astonishment, while beating
along the shore, a lofty round pillar, standing, apparently detached
from the general mass, the head of a deep, narrow, and abrupt chasm.
They landed, and proceeded towards this object over a beach of soft
slimy mud, encrusted with salt, and at a short distance from the water,
covered with saline fragments and flakes of bitumen. The pillar was
found to be of solid salt, capped with carbonate of lime, _cylindrical
in front_ and _pyramidal behind_." The italics are the Doctor's. It is
not novel to say that history repeats itself; but it is questionable
whether among the fashionable inhabitants of the Cities of the Plain in
the days of Lot the modern crinolette was a feminine artifice of that
Worthless time. According to the Koran, Lot's wife, Waila, was in
confederacy with the men of Sodom, and used to give them notice when any
strangers came to lodge with him "by a sign of smoke by day and of fire
by night." In this regard the pillar at Jenolan may be regarded as a
warning, and not as suggestive of anything, except, perhaps, the lesson
conveyed by the Apocrypha, in the Book of Wisdom x. 7, where there is a
reference to Lot's wife, "Of whose wickedness even to this day the west
land that smoketh is a testimony, and plants bearing fruits that never
come to ripeness; and the standing pillar of salt is a monument of an
unbelieving soul." Is it not a pity that so beautiful a column in the
most wonderful caves ever made by Nature should have been associated
with so much that is off-colour? True, it is itself a little crooked and
irregular, but these characteristics are accounted for by its peculiar
formation. It has not been produced in the ordinary way by drippings
from one stalactite, but, contrary to rule, owes its origin and
development to two small stalactites in the roof. Consequently, its
growth has been continually warped. It is, however, a beautiful feature
of the Imperial Cave, and may teach many useful lessons to persons of
observation and _nous_.
[Illustration: THE CRYSTAL CITY.]