A SUMMER RAMBLE AMONG THE HEBRIDES. 59 



known ones, in which what may be termed the musical sand, 

 no unmeet counterpart to the " singing water" of the tale, 

 has now been found. And as the island of Eigg is consi- 

 derably more accessible than Jabel Nakous in Arabia Petraea, 

 or Reg-Rawan in the neighbourhood of Cabul, there must be 

 facilities presented through the discovery which did not exist 

 hitherto, for examining the phenomenon in acoustics which 

 it exhibits, a phenomenon, it may be added, which some of 

 our greatest masters of the science have confessed their inabi- 

 lity to explain. 



Jabel Nakous, or the " Mountain of the Bell," is situated 

 about three miles from the shores of the Gulf of Suez, in that 

 land of wonders which witnessed for forty years the journey- 

 ings of the Israelites, and in which the granite peaks of Sinai 

 and Horeb overlook an arid wilderness of rock and sand. It 

 had been known for many ages by the wild Arab of the de- 

 sert, that there rose at times from this hill a strange, inexpli- 

 cable music. As he leads his camel past in the heat of the 

 day, a sound like the first low tones of an ^Eolian harp stirs 

 the hot breezeless air. It swells louder and louder in pro- 

 gressive undulations, till at length the dry baked earth seems 

 to vibrate under foot, and the startled animal snorts and rears, 

 and struggles to break away. According to the Arabian 

 account of the phenomenon, says Sir David Brewster, in his 

 " Letters on Natural Magic," there is a convent miraculously 

 preserved in the bowels of the hill ; and the sounds are said 

 to be those of the " Nakous, a long metallic ruler, suspended 

 horizontally, which the priest strikes with a hammer, for the 

 purpose of assembling the monks to prayer." There exists 

 a tradition that on one occasion a wandering Greek saw the 

 mountain open, and that, entering by the gap, he descended 

 into the subterranean convent, where he found beautiful gar- 

 dens and fountains of delicious water, and brought with him 

 to the upper world, on his return, fragments of consecrated 



