Om Dhad [Arabic], N.W. This is the head of a Wady, called Wady Kebryt, on the outside of the Sinai chain.
Of the upper Sinai, the peaks of Djebel Mousa, of St. Catherine, of Om
Thoman, of Koly, and of Fereya are the highest.
In making the preceding observations I was obliged to take out my compass and pencil, which greatly surprised the Arabs, who, seeing me in an Arab dress, and speaking their language, yet having the same pursuits as the Frank travellers whom they had seen here, were quite at a loss what to make of me. The suspicion was immediately excited, that I had ascended this mountain to practise some enchantment, and it was much increased by my further proceedings. The Bedouins supposed that I had come to carry off the rain, and my return to Cairo was, in consequence, much less agreeable than my journey from thence; indeed I might have been subjected to
EL LEDJA
[p.578] some unpleasant occurrences had not the faithful Hamd been by my side, who in the route back was of more service to me than all the Firmahns of the Pasha could have been.
We returned from Mount St. Catherine to the place where we had passed the night, and breakfasted with the Djebalye, for which payment was asked, and readily given. The conveying of pilgrims is one of the few modes of subsistence which these poor people possess, and at a place where strangers are continually passing, gratuitous hospitality is not to be expected from them, though they might be ready to afford it to the helpless traveller. The two days excursion to the holy places cost me about forty piastres, or five dollars.
Before mid-day we had again reached the convent El Erbayn, in the garden of which I passed a most agreeable afternoon. The verdure was so brilliant and the blossoms of the orange trees diffused so fine a perfume that I was transported in imagination from the barren cliffs of the wilderness to the luxurious groves of Antioch. It is surprising that the Europeans resident at Cairo do not prefer spending the season of the plague in these pleasant gardens, and this delightful climate, to remaining close prisoners in the infected city.
We returned in the evening to the convent, by following to the northward the valley in which the Erbayn stands. This valley is very narrow, and extremely stony, many large blocks having rolled from the mountains into it; it is called El Ledja [Arabic], a name given to a similar rocky district, described by me, in the Haouran. At twenty minutes walk from the Erbayn we passed a block of granite, said to be the rock out of which the water issued when struck by the rod of Moses. It lies quite insulated by the side of the path, which is about ten feet higher than the lowest bottom of the valley. The rock is about twelve feet in height, of an irregular shape approaching to a cube. There are some apertures upon its surface, through which the water is said to have burst out; they are
[p.579] about twenty in number, and lie nearly in a straight line round the three sides of the stone. They are for the most part ten or twelve inches long, two or three inches broad, and from one to two inches deep, but a few of them are as deep as four inches. Every observer must be convinced, on the slightest examination, that most of these fissures are the work of art, but three or four perhaps are natural, and these may have first drawn the attention of the monks to the stone, and have induced them to call it the rock of the miraculous supply of water. Besides the marks of art evident in the holes themselves, the spaces between them have been chiselled, so as to make it appear as if the stone had been worn in those parts by the action of the water; though it cannot be doubted, that if water had flowed from the fissures it must generally have taken quite a different direction. One traveller saw on this stone twelve openings, answering to the number of the tribes of Israel; [Breydenbach.] another [Sicard, Mémoires des Missions.] describes the holes as a foot deep. They were probably told so by the monks, and believed what they heard rather than what they saw.
About one hundred and fifty paces farther on in the valley lies another piece of rock, upon which it seems that the work of deception was first begun, there being four or five apertures cut in it, similar to those on the other block, but in a less finished state; as it is somewhat smaller than the former, and lies in a less conspicuous part of the valley, removed from the public path, the monks probably thought proper in process of time to assign the miracle to the other. As the rock of Moses has been described by travellers of the fifteenth century, the deception must have originated among the monks of an earlier period. As to the present inhabitants of the convent and of the peninsula, they must be acquitted of any fraud respecting it, for they conscientiously believe that it is the very rock from whence the water gushed forth. In this part of