Still higher, I picked up some tesseræ of mosaic, and morsels of marble and alabaster,—a piece of the latter now lies on the table before me.
At length we attained the highest peak, where there was scarcely more space than sufficient to contain the small weli-building, which was at the time untenanted, though we had expected to find a Moslem devotee in permanent residence there.
I utterly despair of being able to describe the prospect around us; and can only say that extensive mountain-peaks lay in lines below, and might be compared to those made upon embossed maps, but that the whole scene was vast, savage, and abandoned to sombre desolation—both the hills and the desert—in every direction.
The atmosphere was too thick and hazy to allow of very distant views. Neither of the two waters—the Red Sea or the Dead Sea—was visible.
Let those who take pleasure in doing so, doubt that on that peak lies interred Aaron, the first high priest of Israel, “the saint of the Lord,” and that there was effected the first personal transfer of the pontifical office from him to Eleazer his son. Rather let me believe that there my unworthy footsteps have been placed on the same pieces of rock with the two venerable brothers who led up the redeemed people from Egypt, “the house of bondage,” and that it was there they parted, leaving Moses to carry on the task alone.
“Three Hebrew cradles, the Nile-palms under,
Rock’d three sweet babes upon Egypt’s plain:
Three desert graves must those dear ones sunder,
Three sorrowful links of a broken chain.
Kadesh and Hor, and Nebo yonder,
Three waymarks now for the pilgrim train.” [309]
I seated myself, and wrote a brief letter to a dear relative in England.
Entering the weli, we found near the door a common-looking tomb, with an Arabic inscription,—which, however, I found too illegible to allow of its being copied; and over the tomb was spread a pall of silk, striped in red, green, and white, but much faded. Against a pillar, which supports the roof, were hung rows of coloured rags and threads of yarn, with snail-shells and sea-shells strung
among them by way of further ornament. A wooden bowl, at one end of the tomb, was probably intended to receive alms for the support of the devotee who claims the place, and who practises the curing of diseases by charms among the wild Arabs.