CONVENT OF MOUNT SINAI. 241 



empress was imitated by others, and in course of the 

 next century similar buildings were erected in dif- 

 ferent parts of the neighbourhood ; but the ill treat- 

 ment which the monks and hermits suffered from 

 the Bedouins induced them to apply to Justinian ; 

 and in compliance with their request, he built a for- 

 tified convent, capable of protecting them against 

 their oppressors. Monastic estabhshments had then 

 become prevalent ; and the generous emperor is 

 said to have assigned the whole peninsula in prop- 

 erty to the monks. 



It was not till some years afterward that it got 

 possession of the corpse and obtained the name of 

 St. Catherine, who had suflfered martyrdom at Alex- 

 andria, and was transported thence by angels to the 

 highest peak of the adjacent mountains. Of this 

 miracle one of the friars was informed in a vision ; 

 and search being made, the body was found and 

 entombed in the church, which thus acquired an 

 additional claim to the veneration of the Greek 

 Christians. 



At the time of the Saracen conquests the number 

 of priests and hermits belonging to this and* other 

 neighbouring establishments is said to have amounted 

 to 6000 or 7000. Notwithstanding the continued 

 danger to which they must have been exposed from 

 these bigoted zealots, they contrived to defend their 

 possessions against the attacks of the hostile tribes, 

 not by any military array, but by the more success- 

 ful arms of patience, meekness, and money. Under 

 the sultans of Egypt, they were charged with the 

 protection of the haj-caravans to Mecca, on that 

 part of the route which lay along the northern 

 frontier of their territory. The increasing power 

 of the Bedouins gradually impaired their influ- 

 ence and encroached on their possessions, until 

 they were at length confined to the walls of their 

 monastery. 

 The situation of the convent is wild and pic- 



VOL. II.— X 



