THE MOUNTAINS OF MOAB. 435 



about to offer up his son Isaac as a burnt offering", 

 ascended one of the mountains of the land of Moriah. * 



So again, when Balak, king of Moab, was desirous that 

 Balaam should come with him to curse his enemies, 

 he carried him up to the top of one of the high moun- 

 tains to do so, from whence he could see the Israelitish 

 army then encamped upon the plain of Moab. But as 

 we know from the narrative, thoroughly Oriental in 

 all its developments, which probably forms one of the 

 most dramatic passages found in Scripture, Balaam, 

 instead of cursing, blessed them altogether, f Those 

 of our readers who have been travellers in Palestine 

 will doubtless remember the striking panorama of the 

 desert, and almost waterless hills, forming the range 

 of the Mountains of Moab, seen to the eastward from 

 the plain of Jericho and the shores of the Dead Sea, 

 where these incidents were enacted, which afford tour- 

 ists so fine an example of desert scenery: noble in 

 its expansive and desolate grandeur. 



But these striking, yet minor instances of mountain 

 scenery, would fade into comparative insignificance, if 

 placed where it would be possible to compare them 

 with some of the loftier ranges, as for example the 

 South American Andes, which also afford frequent 

 examples of this same sort of perfect sterility and 

 absence of animal or vegetable life. Both sorts of 

 scenery in fact panoramas of mighty wastes of barren 

 rock and sand, or of umbrageous forest and grassy 

 plains, when seen on great mountain ranges, have 

 their own special features of sublimity; and it is dif- 

 ficult to say which is most impressive. We refer at 



* See Genesis xxii 2. 



f See Numbers, Chapters xxiii and xxiv. 



