because some scores of Arabs are always to be found stationed here because it is traversed by numerous travellers and pilgrims, and their Arab attendants-because many natives come to it from distant places for supplies of food-and because it is tolerably suitable as a place of residence for a European. A considerable quantity of grain may be raised on the fertile, though stony, patches which here and there can be brought under culture. The rivulet does not fail for more than half the year; and even when it proves "like a brook that passeth away," the wells furnish abundance of good water. The milk of the goat and sheep can here be procured in any needful quantity.1 It would be glorious, indeed, to see our holy faith reinstated in more than its former dominion in this interesting place.2

1 In connexion with these notices, which contain the result of my own observation and inquiry at the place, I think it right to give the following passage from Burckhardt. "The narrowness of the valley of Feirán, which is not more than a hundred paces across the high mountains on each side, and the thick woods of date trees, render the heat extremely oppressive, and the unhealthiness of the situation is increased by the badness of the water. The Tebna are far from being as robust and healthy as their neighbours, and in spring and summer dangerous fevers reign here. The few among them who have cattle, live during those seasons under tents in the mountains, leaving a few persons in care of the trees."-Travels in Syria, p. 604. Burckhardt visited the place in the beginning of June. The central part of the valley where the Wádí'Aleikát joins it, is not only an open, but apparently a healthy place, and the part chosen for the ancient town, is the best place of residence

at present. Burckhardt says of the valley here" It widens considerably where it is joined by Wádí 'Aleyát, (Aleikát) and is about a quarter of an hour in breadth. Upon the mountains on both sides of the road, stand the ruins of an ancient city."-P. 616.

2 Le Quien has devoted several pages of his large work, (Oriens Christianus, tom. iii. fol. 747-758,) to a notice of the bishops of Pharan or Mount Sinai. The sum of his references to the former place, compared with Tillemont, Mémoires, x. p. 453, and Cosmas Indicopleust. in Montfaucon's Nov. Coll. Pat., is thus given by Dr. Robinson. During the earlier centuries of this monastic possession of the peninsula, the seat of the bishop appears to have been at Pharan or Faran, the present Feirán; where was likewise a Christian population, and a senate or council, so early as the time of Nilus, about A.D. 400. About this time, too, Naterus or Nathyr is mentioned as its bishop. The Bishop Macarius . .

PARAN OF SCRIPTURE.

Is there any connexion between Feirán, and the wilderness and mountain of Paran of the sacred Scripture? This is a question which we anxiously put to one another when in this valley. Travellers have not been agreed about the answer to be given. Niebuhr is disposed to reply to it in the affirmative, and Burckhardt in the negative. As far as the Hebrew and Arabic denominations of Feirán and Paran go, they may be identical. Paran is mentioned in Scripture in several historical and poetical passages,1 in which it seems to be used in a comprehensive sense, as applicable, not merely to some particular part or parts of the desert, contiguous to

Mount Sinai and south of Judah, but to a large portion, if not the whole, of Arabia Petræa; and it may include this district, from which it may probably have derived its name. If this conclusion be correct-and I see no objection to itit suggests a very sublime interpretation of the most sublime poetry of Habakkuk :

:

"God came from Teman,

And the Holy One from Mount Paran,

His glory covered the heavens,

And the earth was full of his praise,

And his brightness was as the light:

He had horns (rays) coming out of his hand :
And there was the hiding of his power."

When God descended to give the law to his people, the divine glory was revealed from Teman, or Måan, in the east of Edom, to Paran, or Serbál in the west. It literally covered the heavens over this extent. His majestic presence shook a large portion of the globe.

"He stood and measured the earth;

He beheld and drove asunder the nations.

And the everlasting mountains were scattered,

The perpetual hills did bow;

His ways are everlasting.

I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction;

And the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble."

HABAKKUK, iii. 3-7.1 These curtains were probably the tabernacles, or tents, of the Midian Cushites, the flock of the priest of whom Moses kept in these very parts, where he obtained the daughter of his master, called an Ethiopian, or Cushite, as his wife.2

After mid-day we found it rather hot in our tents; and we left them to take a walk together along the porphyritic ridge, forming the eastern side of the Wádí Aleikát, and part of the lower heights of Jebel Serbál. Our movement here, in the circumstances in which we were placed, was not

1 Lord Lindsay quotes this passage in connexion with Wádí Feirán. Letters, i. p. 278.

2 Compare Exod. iii. 1, with Numbers, xii. 1.

ATTEMPT TO ASCEND JEBEL SERBAL.

203

only necessary for our refreshment, but favourable to our meditation on the wondrous works of God, around and above us. I was unwilling, for myself, that it should be continued to an extent incompatible with the day as one appointed for sacred "rest;" but the excitement of the scene acting upon some of my companions, perhaps more willing and able to endure fatigue at this time than myself, led them to aspire at ascending the very summits of Serbál, which have not in modern times, so far as I am aware, been reached by any European except the enterprising Burckhardt and Rüppell. Mr. Smith aimed at the western peak; and he supposed that he got about two-thirds up. He did not find it practicable, however, to continue to scale the heights which were then before him, as they were formed of almost perpendicular walls and masses of bare granite rock. The prospect, he represented, as "on all sides, of sublime, gloomy, desolate grandeur, unparalleled," he believed, "in any other part of the world;" and he found the ascent and descent very dangerous in many places, particularly as he had no guide. He understood, he said, after returning, what the prophet means by the "feet stumbling upon the dark mountains,"1 for he had occasionally his fears that he should fall headlong to his own destruction. Mr. Sherlock went farther to the east, following, I afterwards found on examining Burckhardt, the track by which that distinguished traveller returned to Wádí Feirán from the eastern peninsula. He thought that he had got still higher up the mountain than Mr. Smith. He did not return to us in the evening till long after the sun had gone down, and till we had sent the Arabs in search of him in all directions, with the promise of a present if they should bring him to us in safety. He was completely knocked up by his exertions.

It is scarcely creditable to modern enterprise that these

1 Jer. xiii. 16.

heights have been so little explored. Burckhardt ascended the eastern peak, which is the highest, from Wádí Ertámah, which runs out from Wádí Feirán,1 about an hour and a half in advance of us to the south-east. At the extremity of the Wádí Ertámah, he crossed over an ascent, at the eastern side of which he found Wádí Rimm, a tributary of Wádí Șoláf, which he had observed on coming from Mount Sinai. At this place he came upon the ruins of a small village built of hewn stone, and having the foundations of a large edifice perfectly traceable. Ascending for an hour, he rested and passed the night with a Jebelíyah Arab, who, though well acquainted with the mountain, refused to be his guide, unless for a recompense which he refused to grant. His further progress is best reported in his own words. "We took our guns and our provision sack, filled our water-skin at a neighbouring well called Ain Rymm, (,) and began ascending the mountain straight before us.

We walked over sharp rocks without any path, till we came to the almost perpendicular side of the upper Serbál, which we ascended in a narrow difficult cleft. The day grew excessively hot, not a breath of wind was stirring, and it took us four hours to climb up to the lower summit of the mountain, where I arrived completely exhausted. Here is a small plain with some trees, and the ruins of a small stone reservoir for water. On several blocks of granite are inscriptions, but most of them are illegible; I copied the two following.2

.

"After reposing a little, I ascended the eastern peak, which was to our left hand, and reached its top in three quarters of an hour, after great exertions, for the rock is so

1 Burckhardt gives the name of Wádí Sheikh to the part of the valley of which Wádí Ertámah is a tributary; but, properly speaking, the

Wádí Sheikh does not commence till we come to the cross ravine called Wádí el-Bueib, or the Mouth.

2 In the Wádí Mukatteb character.