Having turned the point of the Red Sea at Suez, they proceeded towards the south, having the sea on their right, and the broken plain of the desert on the left. In the tongue of land improperly called the “Peninsula of Mount Sinai,” lying between the Sea of Suez and the Gulf of Akaba, over which they were now moving, the danger, while the whole caravan kept together, was not great, as opportunities of plunder being unfrequent, robbers had not sufficient motives for establishing themselves there. The chances of danger being thus diminished, our traveller became imboldened to overstep the limits of prudence, and yielding to his passion for collecting plants and other curiosities, lagged behind, or wandered from the caravan. Scarcely, however, had he tasted the sweets of feeling himself alone in the boundless wilderness, a pleasure more poignant and tumultuous than can be conceived by those who have never experienced it, than he beheld three robbers start up, as it were, from the sand, and rush upon him. Resistance was out of the question. The ruffians immediately seized him, and tearing off his clothes, mean and ragged as they were, two of them began to fight for the possession of them. Meanwhile he stood by, naked, a spectator of the fray, apprehensive that their natural ferocity being aggravated by strife and contention, they might terminate their quarrel by plunging their daggers in his heart. Providence, however, had otherwise determined. The third robber, taking compassion upon his forlorn and helpless condition, allowed him to escape; and after wandering about among the naked rocks and burning sands for some time, he fortunately overtook the caravan.
For several days the sky, as I have already observed, was serene, and the weather beautiful; but on their arriving at Wady Gharendel, a small stream which flows into the Red Sea, a few leagues south of Suez, they observed that the tops of the mountains, which now flanked their road on both sides, were at intervals capped with clouds, which sometimes remained stationary during the whole day. This disposition of the atmosphere was soon after succeeded by a violent tempest. A canopy of dark clouds extended itself over the earth—the lightning flashed incessantly—the thunder rolled along the sky—and the rain descended throughout the night with all the weight and fury of a tropical storm. Such tempests, however, are exceedingly rare in that part of Arabia, though they are not, as Burckhardt observes, at all uncommon in the Hejaz; nor, according to Niebuhr, is Yemen much less liable to them. But in the neighbourhood of Mount Sinai there is usually one uniform course of weather throughout the year, the winds blowing briskly during the day, and decreasing with the decrease of light. In the level parts of the desert, where the plain was as unbroken as a calm sea, our traveller observed that curious phenomenon called the mirage, or mimic lake, every object within the circumference of which appeared to be magnified in an extraordinary manner, so that a shrub might be taken for a tree, and a flock of birds for a caravan of camels. This seeming collection of waters always advanced about a quarter of a mile before the observers, while the intermediate space was one continued glow, occasioned by the quivering undulating motion of that quick succession of vapours and exhalations which were extracted from the earth by the powerful influence of the sun. The few real springs of water which occurred on the road were all of them either brackish or sulphureous; yet the water they afford is so extremely wholesome, and so provocative of appetite, that few persons are ever afflicted with sickness in traversing these wild inhospitable scenes.
Among the curiosities which are scattered by the liberal hand of nature even over these deserts may be enumerated certain beautiful flints and pebbles, which are superior to Florentine marble, and, in many instances, equal to the Mokha stone, in the variety of their figures and representations. Locusts, hornets, and vipers were numerous; and the lizards seem to have considerably amused the loitering members of the caravan by their active movements and spotted skins. Of birds the only ones seen by Shaw were the percnopterus and the dove, as the graceful and beautiful antelope was the only animal; but the ostrich, which he seems to consider neither a bird nor a beast, is the grand ranger, says he, and ubiquitarian of the deserts, from the Atlantic Ocean to the very utmost skirts of Arabia, and perhaps far beyond it to the east. Of the white hares, like those found in the Alps and other cold regions, which some travellers have observed in this peninsula, Dr. Shaw saw no specimen; neither did he meet with any badgers, though, from the frequent mention made of their skins in Exodus, this animal must formerly have abounded here. Nothing, however, seems to have kindled up a poetical fervour in the mind of our traveller like the ostrich, and the magnificent description of its nature and peculiarities which occurs in the book of Job. “When these birds,” he observes, “are surprised by coming suddenly upon them, while they are feeding in some valley, or behind some rocky or sandy eminence in the desert, they will not stay to be curiously viewed and examined. They afford an opportunity only of admiring at a distance the extraordinary agility and the stateliness likewise of their motions, the richness of their plumage, and the great propriety there was of ascribing to them ‘an expanded, quivering wing.’ Nothing certainly can be more beautiful and entertaining than such a sight! the wings, by their repeated though unwearied vibrations, equally serving them for sails and oars; while their feet, no less assisting in conveying them out of sight, are no less insensible of fatigue.”
It was at Gharendel that he supposed the Israelites to have met with those “bitter waters,” or “waters of Marah,” mentioned in Exodus; and he observes that the little rill which is still found in that place has a brackish taste, unless diluted by the dews and rains. Proceeding thirty leagues southward from this place, without meeting with any thing remarkable, they arrived at Elim, upon the northern skirts of the desert of Sin, where, as the Scriptures relate, the Israelites found twelve wells of water and seventy palm-trees. Of the wells our traveller could discern nine only remaining, the other three having been filled up by the sand; but the seventy palm-trees had multiplied to upwards of two thousand, and under their shade was the “Hummum, or Bath of Moses,” which the inhabitants of the neighbouring port of Tor held in great veneration. Here they enjoyed the first view of Mount Sinai, rearing its rugged summit above the plain, and overlooking the whole surrounding country. The traject of the desert of Sin occupied nine hours, and they were nearly twelve hours more in threading the winding and difficult ways which divide that desert from the plain of Sinai. At length, however, they reached the convent of St. Catherine, supposed to be built over the place where Moses saw the angel of the Lord in the burning bush, when he was guarding the flocks of Jethro. This convent, or rather fortress, is nearly three hundred feet square, and upwards of forty in height, constructed partly with stone, partly with earth and mortar. The more immediate place of the Shekinah is marked by a little chapel, which the monks, who are of the order of St. Basil, regard with so remarkable a degree of veneration, that, in imitation of Moses, they take their shoes from off their feet whenever they enter it. This, with many other chapels dedicated to various saints, is included within what is called the “Church of the Transfiguration,” a spacious and beautiful structure, covered with lead, and supported by a double row of marble columns.
The door of this convent is opened only when the archbishop, who commonly resides at Cairo, comes to be installed; and therefore our travellers, like all other pilgrims, were drawn up by a windlass to a window, nearly thirty feet from the ground, where they were admitted by some of the lay brothers. From a notion which prevails but too generally among mankind, that holiness consists in thrusting aside, as it were, the gifts which the hand of Providence holds out to us, the poor men who immure themselves in this wild prison condemn their bodies to extraordinary privations and hardships, not only abstaining, like Brahmins, from animal food, but likewise from the less sinful indulgences of butter, milk, and eggs. With an inconsistency, however, from which even the Pythagoreans of Hindostan are not altogether free, shellfish, crabs, and lobsters are not included within the pale of their superstitious humanity; and of these they accordingly partake as often as they can obtain a supply from their sister convent at Tor, or from Menah el Dizahab. Their ordinary food consists of bread, or biscuit, olives, dates, figs, parched pulse, salads, oil, vinegar, to which, on stated days, half a pint of date brandy is added.
From this convent to the top of Mount Sinai, a perpendicular height, according to our traveller, of nearly seven thousand two hundred feet, there was formerly a stone staircase, built by the Empress Helena; but in many places the effects of her pious munificence have disappeared, and the ascent of the mountain is now considered by the monks sufficiently difficult to be imposed as a severe penance upon their pilgrims and votaries. Dr. Shaw did not, when he had reached it, find the summit very spacious, nor does he seem to have greatly enjoyed the extensive view which it commands over scenes rendered profoundly interesting and memorable by the wanderings of the children of Israel. On descending into the desert of Rephidim, on the western side of the mountain, he was shown the rock of Meribah, from which Moses caused water to gush forth by the stroke of his wand. It was about six yards square, lying tottering, as it were, and loose near the middle of the valley, and seemed to have been formerly a part or cliff of Mount Sinai, which hangs in a variety of precipices all over this plain. The waters had now ceased to flow, but the channel they had once occupied remained, incrustated, to borrow the doctor’s expression, like the inside of a tea-kettle that has been long used, and covered with several mossy productions, whose life and verdure were preserved by the dew.
Having terminated his researches in these desert scenes, which seem to have thrown new light upon numerous points of sacred geography, our traveller returned to Cairo, descended the Nile, and proceeding by sea to Syria, arrived in that country about the commencement of December, 1721. Here he seems, for he has left no exact account of his movements, to have pursued nearly the same route with Maundrell, whose description he regarded as so accurate in general, that he merely noticed such places and things as had either been omitted or imperfectly represented by that traveller. Though it was the middle of winter when he passed through Syria and Phœnicia, the aspect of the country was verdant and cheerful, particularly the woods, which chiefly consisted of the gall-bearing oak, at the roots of which the turf was gemmed with anemones, ranunculuses, colchicums, and the dudaim or mandrakes. The air here, as in Barbary, is temperate, and the climate healthy; and, in like manner, westerly winds bring rain, while the east winds, blowing over immeasurable tracts of land, are generally dry though hazy and tempestuous.
The excursions of our traveller in this country appear to have been few and timid, and he remarks, apparently as an apology for this circumstance, that it was necessary to be upon all occasions attended by a numerous escort; for that numerous bands of Arabs, from fifty to five hundred in number, scoured the plains in every direction in search of booty. But even the presence of an escort was not always a safeguard; for the caravan with which Dr. Shaw travelled to Jerusalem, consisting of at least six thousand pilgrims, protected by three or four hundred spahis and four bands of Turkish infantry, with the mutsellim, or general, at their head, was attacked by one of the marauding parties, and treated with the greatest insult and barbarity. Scarcely was there a pilgrim out of so great a number who was not robbed of part of his clothes or of his money; and those who had not much of either to lose were beaten unmercifully with their pikes or javelins. Our traveller himself was not allowed to remain a mere spectator of the scene, for when the banditti had taken possession of the visible wealth of the party, correctly judging that there still remained a considerable portion which had been adroitly concealed, he was forcibly carried off among the hostages, which they seized upon to ensure a ransom, to Jeremiel or Anashoth. In this desperate position he remained all night, exposed to barbarities and insults, and it is exceedingly probable that his captivity would have been of much longer duration, had not the Aga of Jerusalem, with a numerous body of troops, next morning attacked his captors and set him at liberty.
Having visited the several holy places in and about Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jericho, and the Jordan, he returned, in April, 1722, towards the seacoast; and in journeying by night through the valleys of Mount Ephraim, was attended for about an hour by an ignis fatuus, which assumed a variety of extraordinary appearances. Sometimes, says the traveller, it was globular, or else pointed, like the flame of a candle; afterward it would spread itself, and involve their whole company in its pale inoffensive light; then at once contract and suddenly disappear. But in less than a minute it would begin again to exert itself as before, running along from one place to another with great swiftness, like a train of gunpowder set on fire; or else it would spread and expand itself over two or three acres of the adjacent mountains, discovering every shrub and tree which grew upon them. The atmosphere from the beginning of the evening had been remarkably thick and hazy, and the dew, as they felt upon their bridles, was unusually clammy and unctuous. This curious meteor our traveller supposes to be of the same nature with those luminous bodies which skip about the masts and yards of ships at sea, and known among sailors by the name of corpo santo, as they were by that of Castor and Pollux among the ancients.
While the ship in which he had embarked was lying under Mount Carmel, about the middle of April, he beheld three extraordinary flights of storks, proceeding from Egypt towards the north-east, each of which took up more than three hours in passing, while it was at the same time upwards of half a mile in breadth![[1]] During cloudy weather, and when the winds happen, as they frequently do, to blow from different quarters at the same time, waterspouts are often seen upon the coast of Syria, particularly in the neighbourhood of Capes Latikea, Grego, and Carmel. Those which Dr. Shaw had an opportunity of observing seemed, he says, to be so many cylinders of water falling down from the clouds, though by the reflection, as he imagined, of the descending columns, as from the actual dropping of the water contained in them, they sometimes appeared, especially at a distance, to be sucked up from the sea. Before we return with our traveller to Barbary, it may be worth the while to notice a remark which he made upon the economy of silk-worms in Syria: there being some danger that, owing to the heat of the climate in the plains, the eggs should be hatched before nature has prepared their proper food, the inhabitants regularly send them, as soon as they are laid, to Conobine, or some other place on Mount Libanus, where their hatching is delayed by the cold until the mulberry buds are ready for them in the spring. In Europe, on the contrary, the mulberry leaves put forth before the eggs of the silk-worm feel the influence of the sun; and at Nice, where many silk-worms are bred, it is the custom, as Dr. Smollet informs us, in order to hasten the process of hatching, to enclose the eggs in small linen bags, which are worn by the women in their bosoms until the worms begin to appear.