ARRIVAL AT MOUNT SINAI. 213 carpet, and having diwáns around them, on which we could sit by day, and recline by night. A piece of table, and a few antique chairs, were given to us to increase our luxuries. The former was speedily covered, and a comfortable dinner was set before us. For the timeous preparation of this repast, we were indebted to a premonitory note in ancient Greek, which, at the request of my companions, I had scribbled at the Wádí Feirán, and which they had jocularly forwarded by an extraordinary courier, to have, I suppose, its intelligibility tested by the critical hermits to whom it was addressed. Mr. Petros invited us in the evening to accompany him to the garden, which we entered by a long, dark, and low passage, secured by strong gates at both its extremities, by which it communicates with the convent. The garden is beautiful, and the sight of culture in the Region of Desolation itself is quite refreshing.1 The soil, which must have been accumulated with prodigious labour, is exceedingly rich, being formed of the waste of the primitive rocks, intermixed with manure. Considerable crops of vegetables are raised upon it; and it supports a large number of trees and bushes. Among these we noticed many of those which are most familiar to us in sacred history and sacred song. The fig-tree was there, ready to put forth her green figs in due season. The pomegranate had budded; and the vine was about to flourish. The tall gopher, or cypress, stood upright in its dark perennial green. The almond, the most abundant of all, was in its fullest blossom, the emblem, in its spring, of the hoary locks of man in the winter of his age. 66 1 Horeb, in Hebrew, means dry, desert, and desolation." THE day after our arrival at the convent, as a matter of course we made the ascent of Jebel Músá. We set out at half-past ten in the forenoon, taking a silent monk furnished by the superior, and two volunteer Jebelíyah serfs, as our guides. We were attended also by a band of Arab children, who made it their employment, in the hope of receiving some little present from us, to collect any beautiful crystals or pebbles which they thought might please our fancy. Our way, as far as its winding course, caused by the steepness of the mountain, permits one to state its direction, may be said to have lain to the S.S.E., commencing nearly behind the convent. Some rough steps, the remains of some thousand cut for the Empress Helena, or some other ardent devotee of ASCENT OF JEBEL MUSA. 215 the pilgrimage, facilitated our progress.1 We were exactly two hours and twenty minutes in reaching the point of our destination; but we might have accomplished this task in a shorter time, had we not ever and anon stopped to survey the interesting scene above and around us. The usual resting places are at a spring of delicious water, about twenty minutes from the convent; the chapel of the Virgin, a small and plain oratory, commemorative, it is alleged, of a ridiculous miracle, said to have been wrought by the Virgin in behalf of the monks, to deliver them from a formidable plague of vermin;2 a double gateway, formerly used as a confessional for the testing of pilgrims; and a small, but agreeable Wádí, extending across the mountain for about half an hour, and separating its northern and southern peaks, and in which are a well and cypress tree,3 and the chapel of Elijah, where, according to tradition, the prophet reposed 1 In the tract entitled Anonymus de Locis Hierosolymitanis, published in the Symmikta of Leo Allatius, (p. 93,) and supposed to belong to the thirteenth or fourteenth century, these steps are estimated at 6600. This legend is best given in the words of one of the olden travellers. Notwithstanding the gravity of the Latin, the following is sufficiently absurd:-"Venimus ad capellam que (quæ) beate Marie titulo venerabilis habetur; in memoriam subscripte rei quondam fundatam. Quodam namque tempore serpentes, vippere, buffones, et alia animalia venenosa adeo in monasterio et per ejus circumitum multiplicata increverunt que monachi hac necessitate compulsi locum penitus deserere decreverunt. Verum communi prius ordinata processione ipsi monachi montem sanctum ascendere et locis illis valedicere statuerunt anteaquam cum rebus suis inde migrarent. Quo facto cum in eum locum tristes mestique redissent ubi hodie dicta capella est sita: ecce virgo gloriosa mater domini dulcissima eis ne a loco tam sancto discederent precepit: securitateque pollicita mox disparuit. Monachi vero metuentes ne forte fantasma esset quod viderant : deum devotius exoraverunt ut si vera fuisset apparitio id aliquo ejus signo dato ostendere dignarent. Mox eis orantibus fons vivus de sub pedibus eorum emanans : ipsos majorem in modum letificavit, qui usque hodie jugitur scaturiens ascendentibus montem illum sive descendentibus multe est consolatori. Sed et vermes venenosi non modo procul inde aufugerunt sedus que in hodiernum diem nequeunt appropinquare loco eidem."-Breydenbach, fol. 72. Sir John Maundeville's version of the story is similar, and, if possible, still more ridiculous. Voiage and Travaille, i. p. 61. 3 Mr. Stephens, in his lively, but rather reckless volume, calls this a palm. when he fled from Jezabel. The steepest part of the mountain perhaps is between this place and the summit; and it usually occupies in the ascent about half an hour. The body of the mountain, like almost all the heights adjoining it, is of a deep-red or flesh-coloured granite, the grains of felspar being not so large as in the Theban granite. At the highest point, however, it terminates in white granite, extremely fine in the grain, and containing comparatively few particles of hornblende or mica. It is thus literally, as well as poetically, the "gray-topped Sinai" of Milton. A small sprinkling of the debris of porphyry or clay-slate, or thin layer of the clay-slate itself, resting upon the granite, is visible at one or two points as we go up. The mountain, when looked upon in the mass, appears to the eye almost entirely destitute of vegetation; but a good many plants and small bushes are discovered as you proceed over its surface. In some of the crevices and ravines we found patches of snow, the first on which Mr. Smith and I had trode for many years. To our young Pársí friend Dhanjibháí, it was an entire novelty. Notwithstanding all that he had read of "congealed vapour," he touched it and tasted it with extreme wonder. The summit of Jebel Músá is not many square yards in extent. It is partly covered by a small chapel, or rather open shed, belonging to the convent, and by a similar simple construction called a mosk, pertaining to the Muhammadans. We could well dispense even with the chapel on such a scene; for, occupying the place which it does, it is not fitted to facilitate the devotion of the pilgrim, who seeks to be influenced either by the contemplation of the works, or the remembrance of the ways, of God. In certain states of the weather, however, it may afford him desirable shelter. In the fifteenth century, it seems to have been a more respectable building;1 but even then its very existence on such a spot VIEW FROM JEBEL MUSA. 217 must have been a deformity. Formerly, as perhaps now, the Roman and Greek churches united in promising absolution to those who might enter this erection. "In prefata capella est plenaria olim peccatorum remissio," according to Breydenbach. A little below the chapel is shown a mark in the granite, said to be an impression of the foot of the camel of Muḥammad, who is feigned to have ascended to this height; and also a small hollow of the rock, into which the monks imagine that Moses retired when the glory of God was revealed before him. Happily, we had a perfectly clear atmosphere when we stood on Jebel Músá, and there was nothing around us, except the higher peaks of Jebel Kátherín, and the ridge of which it is a part, to the south and west of us, to interrupt our view. It was terrific and sublime beyond all our expectations. We were on the very axis, as it appeared, of the most remarkable group of primitive mountains in this remarkable peninsula. In the stability of their foundations, the depth of their chasms, the magnitude and fulness of their masses, the loftiness of their walls, and the boldness of their towering peaks, we had the architecture of nature revealed to us in all its grandeur and majesty. The general impression of the scene was so overpowering, that it was exceedingly difficult for us, for some considerable time, to fix our attention on its component parts. Still, we made the effort. Looking to the north-west, we saw a small portion of the sea of Suez at the base of the mountains, Deráj and Atáķah, on the Egyptian side; and nearer to us, in the same direction, part of the peaks and shoulders of Serbál, and other mountains contiguous to Wádí Feirán and Mukatteb. To the north of us, overlooking the sandy plain of Ramlah or Hadhrah, (Hazeroth,) we had the long range of Jebel Tíh, with its dark summits and white flanks crossing the peninsula, and sending out several secondary ridges into the great |