228 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



On the 9th we arrived at Tor, a fmall draggling village,, 

 with a convent of Greek Monks, belonging to Mount Sinai. 

 Don John de Caftro * took this town when it was walled, 

 and fortified, foon after the difcovery of the Indies by the 

 Portuguefe ; it has never fmce been of any confideration. It 

 ferves now, only as a watering-place for fhips going to, and 

 from Suez. From this we have a diftinet view of the points 

 of the mountains Horeb and Sinai, which appear behind 

 a* d above the others, their tops being often covered with 

 fnow in winter. 



There are three things, (now I am at the north end of 

 the Arabian Gulf,) of which the reader will expect fome ac- 

 count, and I am heartily forry to fay, that I fear I fhall be 

 obliged to difappoint him in all, by the unfatisfactory rela^ 

 tion I am forced to give, 



The firft is, Whether the Red Sea is not higher than the 

 Mediterranean, by feveral feet or inches ? To this I anfwer, 

 That the fact has been fuppofed to be fo by antiquity, and 

 alledged as a reafon why Ptolemy's canal was made from 

 the bottom of the Heroopolitic Gulf, rather than brought 

 due north acrofs the Ifthmus of Suez ; in which laft cafe, 

 it was feared it would- fubmerge a great part of Afia Mir- 

 nor. But who has ever attempted to verify this by experi- 

 Ti ent ? or who is capable of fettling the difference of levels, 

 amounting, as fuppofed, to fome feet and inches, between 

 two points 120 miles diftant from each other, over a delert 

 that has no fettled furface, but is changing its height every 



day? 



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* Vide bis Journal published by Abbe Venct. 



