244 Captains Irby and Mangles's Account of the Necropolis 



Abou Raschid with our servants and horses where the steep- 

 ness of the ascent commences, we began to mount the tract, 

 which is extremely steep and toilsome, and affords but an in- 

 different footing. In most parts the pilgrim must pick his 

 way as he can, and frequently on his hands and knees. Where 

 by nature it would have been impassable, there are flights of 

 rude steps or inclined planes, constructed of stones laid toge- 

 ther, and here and there are niches to receive the footsteps cut 

 in the live rock ; the impression of pilgrims'* feet are scratched 

 in the rock in many places, but without inscriptions. Much 

 juniper grows on the mountain, almost to the very summit^ 

 and many flowering plants which we had not observed else- 

 where ; some of these are very beautiful ; most of them are 

 thorny. On the top there is an overhanging shelf in the rock, 

 which forms a sort of cavern. Here we found a skin of ex- 

 tremely bad water suspended for drinking, and a pallet of 

 straw, with the pitcher and the other poor utensils of the 

 shiekh who resides here. He is a decrepid old man, who has 

 lived here during the space of forty years, and occasionally 

 endured the fatigue of descending and reascending the moun- 

 tain. The tomb itself is inclosed in a small building, differing 

 not at all in external form and appearance from those of Ma- 

 homedan saints, common throughout every province of Tur- 

 key. It has probably been rebuilt at no remote period. Some 

 small columns are bedded in the walls, and some fragments 

 of granite and slabs of white marble are lying about. The 

 door is near the south-west angle, within which a constructed 

 tomb, with a pall thrown over it, presents itself immediately 

 upon entering ; it is patched together out of fragments of 

 stone and marble that have made part of other fabrics. Upon 

 one of these are 'several short lines in the Hebrew character, 

 cut in a slovenly manner. We had them interpreted at Acre, 

 and they proved to be merely the names of a Jew and his fa- 

 mily who had scratched this record. It is not probable that 

 any professed Jew has visited this spot for ages past, perhaps 

 not since the period of the Mahomedan conquest ; it may lay 

 claim, therefore, to some antiquity, and in any case it is a 

 curious appendage to the testimony of Joseph us on this sub- 

 ject. There are rags and shreds of yarn, with glass beads 



