[p.609] leads from its foot to Feiran, as will presently be mentioned; together with the existence of the road leading up to the peak, afford strong reasons for presuming that the Serbal was an ancient place of devotion. It will be recollected that no inscriptions are found either on the mountain of Moses, or on Mount St. Catherine; and that those which are found in the Ledja valley at the foot of Djebel Katerin, are not to be traced above the rock, from which the water is said to have issued, and appear only to be the work of pilgrims, who visited that rock. From these circumstances, I am persuaded that Mount Serbal was at one period the chief place of pilgrimage in the peninsula: and that it was then considered the mountain where Moses received the tables of the law; though I am equally convinced, from a perusal of the Scriptures, that the Israelites encamped in the Upper Sinai, and that either Djebel Mousa or Mount St. Catherine is the real Horeb. It is not at all impossible that the proximity of Serbal to Egypt, may at one period have caused that mountain to be the Horeb of the pilgrims, and that the establishment of the convent in its present situation, which was probably chosen from motives of security, may have led to the transferring of that honour to Djebel Mousa. At present neither the monks of Mount Sinai nor those of Cairo consider Mount Serbal as the scene of any of the events of sacred history: nor have the Bedouins any tradition among them respecting it; but it is possible that if the Byzantine writers were thoroughly examined, some mention might be found of this mountain, which I believe was never before visited by any European traveller.
The heat was so oppressive during the whole day, that I felt it even on the summit of the mountain; the air was motionless, and a thin mist pervaded the whole atmosphere, as always occurs in these climates, when the air is very much heated. I took from the peak the following bearings.
[p.610] El Morkha, a well near Birket Faraoun on the road from Tor to Suez, N.W. b. W.
Wady Feiran, N.W.N.
Sarbout el Djemal, N.N.W.
El Djoze, just over Feiran, N.
Mountain Dhellel, N. b. E.-N.E. b. N.
Wady Akhdar, which I passed on my road from Suez to the convent, N.E. 1/2 E.
Wady el Sheikh, where it appears broadest, and near the place where I had entered it, in coming from Suez, E.N.E.
Sheikh Abou Taleb, the tomb of a saint mentioned above, E. 1/2 S.