[(13.)] “sacka.”—Literally, in Turkish, a water-carrier. A pelican is sákà koútchou.—Ed.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
[(1.)] “The Infidels call the mountain Muntagi.”—Hushan dagh, the correct name given by the Arabs, is here handed down to us as “Muntagi”, which differs so widely from the native appellation of Sinaï, that it may have been derived from the word Montagna, possibly the generic name by which the mount was known to pilgrims. In such a case, Schiltberger’s companions would have been Italians, who, on the supposition that they were mariners, supplied him with the details he gives on the Red Sea—its breadth, which is represented at double its actual extent—and the information that it had to be crossed to attain Sinai; although we know from De Lannoy that the journey from Egypt was performed “en costiant la mer”. The knight makes no mention of the wonderful supply of oil at the monastery of St. Catherine, nor of the other miracles performed by the saint; but he explains why the Infidels went to Sinai. At the foot of the mount was a church of St. Catherine, “à manière d’un chastel, forte et quarrée, où les trois lois de Jhésu-Crist, de Moyse et de Mahommet sont en trois églises représentées”.—Bruun.
(1A.) This somewhat confused description of St. Catherine’s mount and of Mount Sinaï, is to be accounted for by Schiltberger’s statement that he had not ascended the latter, and that he described the sites from hearsay only. He distinguishes, however, St. Catherine from what he calls “Muntagi, the mountain of the apparition”, upon which, as he was informed, God appeared to Moses in a burning bush; where flows the spring from the rock that Moses struck with his staff; the site where our Lord delivered to him the tables with the ten Commandments, etc., etc. “Muntagi” may therefore have been intended for Musa dagh, the Turkish, as Jabal Musa is the Arabic for Mountain of Moses, about which, in the words of Dean Stanley (Sinai and Palestine, 39) the traditions of Israel have lingered, certainly since the 6th century, and perhaps from a still earlier date. Mount Sinaï is called Tur Sina by Ibn Haukal, and Jabal Tur and Et Tur by Edrisi and Aboulfeda.—Ed.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
[(1.)] “the village of Mambertal.”—“Mambertal” for Mamre, by which name Hebron also was known (Gen. xii, 18; xxxv, 27), and was probably so called after Mamre the Amorite, the friend of Abraham (Gen. xiv, 13). Sir John Mandevile’s tradition of the Dry Tree (Voyages and Travels, etc.) as it was related to him, agrees almost word for word with the tale in the text, except that Sir John saw an oak, whereas Schiltberger’s tree was called by the Infidels “carpe” (Sir John writes Dirpe), and selvy is the Turkish for cypress. Commentators on the Holy Scriptures have said that plains of Mamre (Gen. xiii, 18; xviii, 1) is a mis-translation for oaks of Mamre, but the Turkish for oak is meyshe. The great tree seen by Robinson in 1838 (Biblical Researches, etc., ii, 81) was an oak; it measured 22-1/2 feet in circumference in the lower part, the branches extending over a diameter of 89 feet. It stood solitarily near a well in the midst of a field, and was sound and in a thriving state. A long and comprehensive note on the Arbre Sec or Arbre Sol, will be found in Yule’s Marco Polo, i, 132.—Ed.
[(2.)] “it is well taken care of.”—The distance from Hebron to Jerusalem, as given in chapter 40, is correct (Raumer, Palæstina, etc., 201); so is the statement that Hebron was the chief city of the Philistines, for Josephus (Wars, etc., xii, 10) says that it was a royal city of the Canaanites.
“Carpe” may have indicated the caroub or locust tree (Die charube von Kufin; see Rosen, Die Patriarchengruft zu Hebron, in Zeitschrift f. allg. Erdk., neue Folge, xiv, 426), or the turpentine tree, which Josephus and others have stated grew in those parts, where a small and sterile valley still bears the significant name of Sallet-el-Boutmeh—Place of the Turpentine tree. In course of time, the turpentine tree of Josephus became confounded with Abraham’s oak, mentioned in the Bible, which the Russian pilgrim Daniel (Noroff, Péler. en T. S., 77) says he found in leaf, and might have been a huge tree of the sort noticed by Robinson. The tree seen by Schiltberger must have been of another kind, because it was withered; he could not otherwise have transmitted to us the prophecy so encouraging to our own desires, and in accordance with the presentiments of the Infidels themselves, that the day will come when they shall be expelled from the holy places.