249 EDOM AND THE HOLY LAND. LETTER VII. Journey to Mount Sinai. Desert of Suez-Mara-Route of the Israelites-Wady Shellal-Wady Mokatteb— Wady Feiran-Ascent to the Sinaite Mountains-Ascent of Mount St. Catherine-Of Gebel Mousa--Of Gebel Minnegia, possibly the real Sinai. My dear A Convent of St. Catherine, Mount Sinai, Finding a Polish pilgrim here, about to return to Cairo, I seize the opportunity of letting you and my dear mother know, a month sooner than otherwise I could, how well we have got on hitherto, and under what peculiarly favourable auspices we are likely to continue our journey by Petra to Jerusalem. On Monday, the 6th of March, we started on our voyage through the desert, (1) a caravan of ten camels, with two tents, one for our followers, Missirie and Abdallah, the other (an Indian one, of bamboos) for ourselves. We arrived at Suez on the fourth day. The hot kamsin, or southerly wind, blew violently all Monday, bringing clouds of sand, and pelting us with small pebbles, which made our Arab gillie-comstrains skip, as they rattled against their naked legs-never was I in a heavier hail-storm; luckily, I had provided myself at Cairo with a Turkish scarf, which protected my eyes; my lips were parched and chapped for several days afterwards, and a book in my pocket was scorched as if it had been held to the fire. But we were fairly in the desert - delightful thought! pilgrims following the steps of the Israelites to the Promised Land. We halted a little before sunset, and pitched the smaller of our two tents (the wind being too high for the other) in a hollow between two mounds, which afforded a few thorns and tufts of arid grass for the camels, and tolerable shelter for ourselves. I really felt ashamed when we were fairly established in the tent, seated on our iron bedsteads, with a table, our old shipmate on the Nile, between us-far too comfortable. It blew quite a storm the first part of the night, and we thought the tent would have flown away, but it weathered it :—we were covered with sand when we awoke on Tuesday morning; much rain succeeded, but it cleared up before we started, and the day turned out delightful; there was little sun, but the wind had changed to the west, a fresh exhilarating breeze. The weather, indeed, has been charming ever since. I also commenced the day with a long walk; nothing can be more enjoyable ;--the desert, half gravel, half sand, crunches under the feet like snow ;-sometimes bounded by low hills, sometimes it stretches out into an interminable plain, but always of the same unvaried hue. We passed skeletons of camels repeatedly, and scattered bones bleached to the whiteness of snow; and, one morning, prowling about near our encampment I found an open grave and a skull grinning up into my face within it-the relic, doubtless, of some hapless pilgrim. Melancholy memorials these! but all was not death there; a frog, a species of gray lizard, some quails and vultures, were symptoms of animal-and various thorny plants, a few wild flowers, and a strongly scented plant, (a species of wild camomile we thought it,) called by the Arabs behharran—of vegetable life; nor should I forget a solitary tree, long conspicuous on the horizon with the apparent dignity of a palm, but which dwindled, long before we reached it, into a stunted thorn, covered with rags streaming in the wind, hung there by every pilgrim as he passes en chemin for Mecca. The half-eaten carcass of a camel lay beneath it, and the vultures that had been garbaging on it flew heavily away at our approach. I should have told you that the route we took was that by Mataria, north of Gebel Ataka, a long and picturesque ridge of hills, which we coasted all the third day;—of a clear pinky gray in the morning, it assumed a deep iron-gray after sunset, as the rays died away; it slants to the southward, as you approach Suez. The Israelites arriving at Etham, on the edge of the wilderness, from the north-west, the land of Goshen, turned southwards, a day's journey, to Pihahiroth," the mouth of the ridge," i. e. of this very mountain Ataka;-closed in by the mountains on each side, with the sea in front, and Pharaoh behind, they could only be saved by such a miraculous interposition as that which is still traditionally remembered in the Arabic name Ataka, or Deli verance. On Thursday we started, with the Arabian mountains, and, as we conceived, the Red Sea, in front of us; it was the mirage! A ship, too, was curiously refracted in the clouds before we came in actual sight of either ship or sea. Kodsy Manoly, a Candiote Greek, the East India Company's agent at Suez, and a shrewd, intelligent man, received us with great hospitality, and we found there—and this is the news that I think will please you the celebrated Hussein, who accompanied Laborde to Petra ten years ago. We struck a bargain with him to convey us to Sinai, and have since engaged him to accompany us during the rest of our travels in Arabia. excellent warrior and hunter," says Laborde, “An "and renowned for his generous hospitality, he |