[p.542] are a close but coarse imitation of the latest period of Egyptian sculpture, such as is seen at Philae, and in several temples in Nubia. The dome over the altar still remains as it was constructed by Justinian, whose portrait, together with that of his wife Theodora, may yet be distinguished on the dome, together with a large picture of the transfiguration, in honour of which event the convent was erected. An abundance of silver lamps, paintings, and portraits of saints adorn the walls round the altar; among the latter is a saint Christopher, with a dogs head. The floor of the church is finely paved with slabs of marble.
The church contains the coffin in which the bones of saint Catherine were collected from the neighbouring mountain of St. Catherine, where her corpse was transported after her death by the angels in the service of the monks. The silver lid of a sarcophagus likewise attracts attention; upon it is represented at full length the figure of the empress Anne of Russia, who entertained the idea of being interred in the sarcophagus, which she sent here; but the monks were disappointed of this honour. In a small chapel adjoining the church is shewn the place where the Lord is supposed to have appeared to Moses in the burning bush; it is called Alyka [Arabic], and is considered as the most holy spot in Mount Sinai. Besides the great church, there are twenty-seven smaller churches or chapels dispersed over the convent, in many of which daily masses are read, and in all of them at least one every Sunday.
The convent formerly resembled in its establishment that of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, which contains churches of various sects of Christians. Every principal sect, except the Calvinists and Protestants, had its churches in the convent of Sinai. I was shewn the chapels belonging to the Syrians, Armenians, Copts, and Latins, but they have long been abandoned by their owners; the church of the Latins fell into ruins at the close of
[p.543] the seventeenth century, and has not been rebuilt. But what is more remarkable than the existence of so many churches, is that close by the great church stands a Mahometan mosque, spacious enough to contain two hundred people at prayers. The monks told me that it was built in the sixteenth century, to prevent the destruction of the convent. Their tradition is as follows: when Selim, the Othman Emperor, conquered Egypt, he took a great fancy to a young Greek priest, who falling ill, at the time that Selim was returning to Constantinople, was sent by him to this convent to recover his health; the young man died, upon which the Emperor, enraged at what he considered to be the work of the priests, gave orders to the governor of Egypt to destroy all the Christian establishments in the peninsula; of which there were several at that period. The priests of the great convent of Mount Sinai being informed of the preparations making in Egypt to carry these orders into execution, began immediately to build a mosque within their walls, hoping that for its sake their house would be spared; it is said that their project was successful and that ever since the mosque has been kept in repair.
This tradition, however, is contradicted by some old Arabic records kept by the prior, in which I read a circumstantial account how, in the year of the Hedjra 783, some straggling Turkish Hadjis, who had been cut off from the caravan, were brought by the Bedouins to the convent; and being found to be well educated, and originally from upper Egypt, were retained here, and a salary settled on them and their descendants, on condition of their becoming the servants of the mosque. The conquest of Egypt by Selim did not take place till A.H. 895. The mosque in the convent of Sinai appears therefore to have existed long before the time
[p.544] of Selim. The descendants of these Hadjis, now poor Bedouins, are called Retheny [Arabic], they still continue to be the servants of the mosque, which they clean on Thursday evenings, and light the lamps; one of them is called the Imam. The mosque is sometimes visited by Moslim pilgrims, but it is only upon the occasion of the presence of some Mussulman of consequence that the call to prayers is made from the Minaret.
In the convent are two deep and copious wells of spring water; one of them is called the well of Moses, because it is said that he first drank of its water. Another was the work, as the monks say, of an English Lord, it bears the date 1760. There is also a reservoir for the reception of rain water.
None of the churches or chapels have steeples. There is a bell, which, I believe, is rung only on Sundays. The usual mode of calling the monks to morning prayers is by striking with a stick upon a long piece of granite, suspended from ropes, which produces a sound heard all over the convent; close by it hangs a piece of dry wood, which emits a different sound, and summons to vespers. A small tower is shewn which was built forty or fifty years ago for the residence of a Greek patriarch of Constantinople, who was exiled to this place by the orders of the Sultan, and who remained here till he died.
According to the credited tradition, the origin of the convent of Mount Sinai dates from the fourth century. Helena, the mother of Constantine, is said to have erected here a small church, in commemoration of the place where the Lord appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and in the garden of the convent a small tower is still shewn, the foundations of which are said to have been laid by her. The church of Helena drawing many visitors and monks to these mountains, several small convents were erected in different
[p.545] parts of the peninsula, in the course of the next century, but the ill treatment which the monks and hermits suffered from the Bedouins induced them at last to present a petition to the Emperor Justinian, entreating him to build a fortified convent capable of affording them protection against their oppressors. He granted the request, and sent workmen from Constantinople and Egypt, with orders to erect a large convent upon the top of the mountain of Moses; those however to whom the work was entrusted, observing the entire want of water in that spot, built it on the present site. They attempted in vain to cut away the mountain on each side of the building, with a view to prevent the Arabs from taking post there and throwing stones at the monks within. The building being completed, Justinian sent from Constantinople some slaves, natives of the shores of the Black sea, to officiate as servants in the convent, who established themselves with their families in the neighbouring valleys. The first prior was Doulas, whose name is still recorded upon a stone built into the wall of one of the buildings in the interior of the convent. The above history is taken from a document in Arabic, preserved by the monks. An Arabic inscription over the gate, in modern characters, says that Justinian built the convent in the thirtieth year of his reign, as a memorial of himself and his wife Theodora. It is curious to find a passage of the Koran introduced into this inscription; it was probably done by a Moslem sculptor, without the knowledge of the monks. A few years after the completion of the convent, one of the monks is said to have been informed in his sleep, that the corpse of St. Catherine, who suffered martyrdom at Alexandria, had been transported by angels to the summit of the highest peak of the surrounding mountains. The monks ascended the mountain in