On the Dead Sea, afloat with a parasol
U 5.37-9: Where was the chap I saw in that picture somewhere? Ah, yes, in the dead sea floating on his back, reading a book with a parasol open. Descriptions of travellers floating on their back in the Dead Sea whilst reading a book or a newspaper may be found from at least the mid nineteenth century. Edward Montague’s Narrative of the late expedition to the Dead Sea (1849) is a typical early example:
By the time W. D. McCracken’s New Palestine (pp. 224-5) was published in 1922, the idea had already become a traveller's stereotype: "One can float as though lying in bed, and, hoisting a sunshade, can read at one's ease [...]" As soon as cameras made it possible, the miraculous spectacle was revealed pictorially to the members of an incredulous public, with Leopold Bloom, or rather his inventor, among them: “Around the Dead Sea. Man floating with book
and umbrella in hands”
Enlargement from a stereograph dated 1900-20; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington (credit details) Harald Beck
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