"Mount Sinai!" almost screamed Mrs. Blossom, who had apparently determined not to be harassed by any more doubts, for what everybody believed to be true must be so. "I should like to die on that mountain," she declared, wringing her hands in a sort of rapture.
"Don't make yourself ridiculous, Sarah," interposed Mrs. Belgrave in a whisper.
"How can a body look on Mount Sinai without being stirred up?" demanded the good woman.
But whether it was Jebel Serbal or Jebel Musa, Mount Sinai was there; and doubtless most of the company were as much impressed by the fact as the excellent lady from Von Blonk Park, though they were less demonstrative about it. Mrs. Belgrave was silent for a time; and then she struck up one of Watts's familiar hymns, in which the others joined her:—
"Not to the terrors of the Lord,
The tempest, fire, and smoke,
Not to the thunder of that word
Which God on Sinai spoke;
But we are come to Zion's hill,
The city of our God,
Where milder words declare his will,
And spread his love abroad."
As the gong sounded for lunch the ship was off Tur, but too far off to see the place, if there was anything there to see; and the commander mentioned it only as the port to which they would have sailed if they had gone to Mount Sinai. The "Big Four" were more interested in the Arabian craft they saw near the shore, for they always keep close to the land. Their captains are familiar with all the intricate reefs where large vessels never go. They are very cautious sailors, and on the least sign of foul weather they run into one of the creeks which indent the coast. They never sail at night; and if they have to cross the sea, they wait for settled weather.
At the hour appointed for the afternoon conference the passengers were all in their places; and however the report of his lectures may read, the listeners were deeply interested, partly because they were inspired by a desire for knowledge, and partly on account of their proximity to the countries described. A map of the peninsula of Arabia had been unrolled on the frame, with enough of its surroundings to enable the audience to fix its location definitely in their minds. The professor came up smiling and pleasant as he always was, and the boys saluted him with a round of applause.
"My subject this time is Arabia, which the natives call Jezirat-al-Arab, and the Turks and Persians Arabistan. It is a peninsula, the isthmus of which reaches across from the south-eastern corner of the Mediterranean to the head of the Persian Gulf," the professor began, indicating on the map the localities mentioned with the pointer. "Asia abounds in peninsulas, and Arabia is the great south-western one. From north-west to south-east it extends 1800 miles, and is about 600 wide. It has an area of 1,230,000 square miles, which is a very indefinite statement to the mind, though given in figures, and I will adopt the commander's method of giving a better idea by comparison with some of the States of your own country.
"It is nearly five times as large as the State of Texas, the most extensive of the Union, and almost twenty-six times as large as the State of New York. They do not take a census here; and estimates from the best information that could be obtained make the population five millions, which is less than that of the State of New York. Mr. Gaskette has colored a strip of it along the Red Sea, about a hundred miles wide, in green, as he has Palestine and the other parts of Turkey in Asia shown before you. A large portion of Arabia consists of deserts, the principal of which is the Syrian in the north.
"Ptolemy, not the king but the geographer, divided Arabia into three sections,—Arabia Petræa, after the city of Petra; Arabia Deserta, the interior; and Arabia Felix (Arabie Heureuse in French), which does not mean 'the happy land,' as generally translated. Milton says, 'Sabean odors from the spicy shores of Araby the blest.' The words meant the land lying to the right, or south of Mecca, the Oriental principal point of the compass being the east and not the north.