ROCK OF MERIBAir. 247 



future they would only open half the taourat, in 

 order that the rains miglit be more moderate. 



In a valley between Mount Moses and Mount 

 Catherine stands the convent of the Forty Martyrs, 

 with a good garden and an orchard of olive-trees. 

 Near it is the Fountain of the Partridge {Bir Sho- 

 ma?), so named from having been revealed by one of 

 these birds to the priests when they were removing 

 the body of their patroness, and fainting with thirst. 

 In the same valley a block of granite is shown as 

 being the Rock of Meribah, out of which water 

 issued when struck by the rod of Moses. It lies 

 quite insulated by the side of the path, and seems to 

 have formerly belonged to Mount Sinai, which hangs 

 in a variety of precipices all over the valley. Burck- 

 hardt says the block is about twelve feet in height, 

 of an irregular shape, approaching to a cube. There 

 are about twenty apertures on its surface, lying 

 nearly jn a straight line round its three sides, 

 througk which the water is said to have burst out. 

 These fissures are, for the most part, ten or twelve 

 inches long, two or three broad, and about the same 

 in depth ; some of them appearing to be incrusted 

 all over like the inside of a teakettle. 



This stone is greatly venerated by the Bedouins, 

 who put grass into the crevices as offerings to the 

 memory of Moses, in the same manner as they place 

 it upon the tombs v£ their saints ; this vegetable 

 being to theni the most precious gift of nature, and 

 that upon which their existence depends. Shaw, 

 Pococke,'and the earlier travellers, in describmg this 

 rock, seem credulously to have adopted the extrava- 

 gant legends of the monks. The former regards 

 the incrusted apertures as the lively and demon- 

 strative tokens of their having been anciently so 

 many fountains; and is of opinion that art or chance 

 could by no means be concerned in the contrivance, 

 -^evidently afraid to injure the reputation of the 

 Scripture miracle. More recent visiters have ven- 



