same time that they thus saw the Virgin higher up the mountain, she appeared also to the Ikonomos on this spot. When the monks returned home, they found a caravan of pilgrims actually arrived; the plague has never since been here; and (according to them) fleas do not exist in the convent; though in this latter particular, our own experience did not exactly justify so unconditional a praise of the Virgin.'

The path now turns nearly West and passes up out of the ravine by a steep ascent. At the top is a portal which we reached at 8 o'clock; and ten minutes afterwards another, through which is the entrance to the small plain or basin, which here occupies the top of the lofty ridge between the valley of the convent and that of el-Leja. At these portals, in the palmy days of pilgrimage, priests were stationed to confess pilgrims on their way up the mountain; and all the old travellers relate that no Jew could pass through them. At this point we saw for the first time the peak of Sinai or Jebel Mûsa on our left, and the higher summit of St. Catharine in the S. W. beyond the deep valley el-Leja. At 9 o'clock we reached the well and tall cypress-tree in the plain or basin, where we rested for a time; the Prior distributing to all a portion of bread. After this allowance, the Arab children who had thus far hung about us, went back. Burckhardt speaks of this well as a stone tank, which receives the winter rains. We un

1) The old travellers of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Tucher, Breydenbach, F. Fabri, Wormbser, and others, relate the same story, almost as if they copied one from another; and make it refer to 66 serpents, toads, and other poisonous reptiles and vermin." But de Suchem in A. D. 1336-50, heard it of " gnats, wasps, and fleas ;" though without

any procession or vision; and so powerful was the protection afforded in those days, that although these insects were very troublesome without the walls of the convent, yet if brought within, they died immediately; Reissb. des heil. Landes, p. 840. William of Baldensel (A. D. 1336) professes to have seen them die when thus brought in, with his own eyes.

derstood it at the time to be a well of living water, and such is its appearance, being of very considerable depth and regularly stoned up in the usual form of a deep well. Near by is a rock with many Arabic inscriptions, recording the visits of pilgrims. The lone cypress-tree with its dark foliage is quite an interesting addition to this wild spot.1

This little plain is about twelve or thirteen hundred feet above the vallies below, extending quite across the ridge; and from it towards the West a path descends to the convent el-Arba'în in Wady elLeja. On the right, clusters of rocks and peaks from two to four hundred feet higher than this basin, extend for nearly two miles towards the N. N. W. and terminate in the bold front which overhangs the plain er-Râhah N. of the convent. This is the present Horeb of Christians. On the left, due S. from the well, rises the higher peak of Sinai, or Jebel Mûsa, about seven hundred feet above the basin and nearly a mile distant. A few rods from the well, where the ascent of Sinai begins, is a low rude building containing the chapels of Elijah and Elisha. Here was evidently once a small monastery; and the older travellers speak also of a chapel of the Virgin. In that of Elijah the monks show near the altar a hole just large enough for a man's body, which they say is the cave where the prophet dwelt in Horeb. Tapers were lighted and incense burnt in both these chapels. The ascent

1) In Niebuhr's time there were here two large trees; and the Prefect of the Franciscans in Cairo in 1722, mentions also here, "two cypress-trees and two olivetrees." The latter also speaks of the well as a "collection of water made by the winter snows and rains." The journal of this Prefect is first mentioned by Pococke (I. p. 147. fol.) and was afterwards

translated into English and published by Clayton, Bishop of Clogher, in a Letter to the Society of Antiquaries, Lond. 1753. It is also appended to the recent editions of Maundrell's Journey to Jerusalem, etc.

2) 1 Kings xix. 8, 9. The elevation of this building above the convent in the valley below, is given by Schubert at 1400 Paris feet.

hence is steeper, though not difficult. There are steps for a great part of the way, merely rough stones thrown together; and in no part of the ascent of the whole mountain are they hewn, or cut in the rock, as is said by Burckhardt.'

Leaving the chapels at half past 9 o'clock, we ascended slowly, not failing to see the track of Muhammed's camel in the rock by the way; and reached the summit of Jebel Mûsa at twenty minutes past ten. Here is a small area of huge rocks, about eighty feet in diameter, highest towards the East, where is a little chapel almost in ruins, formerly divided between the Greeks and Latins; while towards the S. W. about forty feet distant stands a small ruined mosk. The summit and also the body of this part of the mountain are of coarse gray granite.? On the rocks are many inscriptions in Arabic, Greek, and Armenian, the work of pilgrims. In the chapel are the names of many travellers; and I found here a pencil note of Rüppell's observations, May 7th, 1831; marking the time 12h 15'; Barom. 21′ 7."6; Therm. 13° R. or 62° F. At half past ten o'clock my Thermometer stood in the chapel at 60° F.-The height of this peak above the sea, according to the observations of Rüppell, compared with simultaneous ones at Tûr, is 7035 Paris feet; and its elevation above the convent el-Arba'în about 1670 feet. From it the peak of St. Catharine bears S. 44°

W. a thousand feet higher; and Râs es-Sufsâfeh, the highest among the peaks near the front of Horeb, N. 22° W.1

My first and predominant feeling while upon this summit, was that of disappointment. Although from our examination of the plain er-Râhah below, and its correspondence to the scriptural narrative, we had arrived at the general conviction that the people of Israel must have been collected on it to receive the law; yet we still had cherished a lingering hope or feeling, that there might after all be some foundation for the long series of monkish tradition, which for at least fifteen centuries has pointed out the summit on which we now stood, as the spot where the ten commandments were so awfully proclaimed. But Scriptural narrative and monkish tradition are very different things; and while the former has a distinctness and definiteness, which through all our journeyings rendered the Bible our best guide-book, we found the latter not less usually and almost regularly to be but a baseless fabric. In the present case, there is not the slightest reason for supposing that Moses had any thing to do with the summit which now bears his name. It is three miles distant from the plain on which the Israelites must have stood; and hidden from it by the intervening peaks of the modern Horeb. No part of the plain is visible from the summit; nor are the bottoms of the adjacent vallies; nor is any spot to be seen around it, where the people could have been assembled. The only point in which it is not immediately sur

1) Other bearings from Jebel Musa were as follows: Um Lauz, a peak beyond Wady Sebâ'iyeh, N. 40° E. Um 'Alawy, connected with smaller peaks running towards the eastern gulf, N. 73° E. Abu Mas'ud, west of Wady Wa'rah S. 36° E. Jebel Humr,

S. 87° W. Jebel Tînia, or Sumr et-Tînia, N. 62° W. Jebel Fureia', north end, N. 23° W. Jebel ed-Deir N. 21° E. Jebel ezZebîr, east end, N. 35° W. elBenât, or el-Jauzeh, N. 45° W. Island of Tîrân, S. 31° E.

rounded by high mountains, is towards the S. E. where it sinks down precipitously to a tract of naked gravelly hills. Here, just at its foot, is the head of a small valley, Wady es-Sebâ'îyeh, running toward the N. E. beyond the Mount of the Cross into Wady esh-Sheikh ; and of another not larger, called el-Wa'rah, running S. E. to the Wady Nusb of the Gulf of 'Akabah; but both of these together hardly afford a tenth part of the space contained in er-Râhah and Wady esh-Sheikh. In the same direction is seen the route to Shurm; and, beyond, a portion of the Gulf of 'Akabah and the little island Tîrân; while more to the right and close at hand is the head of el-Leja among the hills. No other part of the Gulf of 'Akabah is visible; though the mountains beyond it are seen.1

Towards the S. W. and W. tower the ridges of St. Catharine and Tînia, cutting off the view of the Gulf of Suez and the whole Western region; so that neither Serbâl on the right, nor the loftier Um Shaumer towards the left, are at all visible from this peak of Sinai. Indeed in almost every respect the view from this point is confined, and is far less extensive and imposing than that from the summit of St. Catharine. Only the table-land on the Mountain of the Cross, is here seen nearer and to better advantage across the narrow valley of Shu'eib. Neither the convent from which we had come, nor that of el-Arba'în, both

1) Brown speaks of having seen the whole length of the Gulf of 'Akabah from Sinai; but this is an impossibility. Travels, chap. XIV. p. 179.

2) Yet Laborde professes to have seen from it Serbâl, Um Shaumer, and the mountains of Africa beyond. It must have been with the mind's eye.' Voyage en Arab. Pet. p. 68. Engl. p. 252. A similar exaggerated account is given by Russegger; see Berg

haus' Annalen, März 1839, p. 420, seq.-Rüppell correctly remarks: "The prospect from the peak of Sinai is limited in the East, South, and West, by higher mountains; and only towards the North, one looks out over a widely extended landscape;" Reise in Abyssinien, I. p. 118. Burckhardt was prevented by a thick fog from seeing even the nearest mountains; Travels, etc. p. 566.