THE ORIGIN OF THE SUEZ CANAL. 215 



which is marked upon all the maps by the name of 

 Bir-Mara, Mara signifying Utter in the Hebrew as 

 well as in Arabic. 



" Y. 25. i But Moses cried unto the Lord ; and 

 the Lord shewed him a tree, which when he had cast 

 into the waters, the waters were made sweet.' 



" Linant tells us that this practice was taught him 

 by the Arabs of Mount Sinai, with whom he spent a 

 good deal of time, and that in order to diminish the 

 bitterness of brackish water they throw into it the 

 branches of a shrub called arak, a species of thorn. 



"V. 27. * And they came to Elim, where were 

 twelve wells of water, and threescore and ten palm- 

 trees : and they encamped there by the waters.' 



" Elim is the place now known as the Fountains 

 of Moses, twelve in number, which we were twice 

 disappointed in our efforts to visit. 



" Chap. 16, v. 14. ' And when the dew that lay was 

 gone, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay 

 a small round thing, as the hoar frost on the ground.' 



" The Israelites exclaimed, < Man-hu ? ' which 

 in Hebrew means : < What is it ? ' This is the 

 etymology of manna. M. Linant saw the Arabs on 

 Mount Sinai gather up the manna which falls in the 

 morning at sunrise, when the temperature is at a par- 

 ticular point, from the leaves of the tamaris, which 

 grows wild nearly all over the desert we have just tra- 

 versed as well as upon the other side of Sinai. It is 

 in fact a sort of jelly or white froth, which forms of 



