284 PHILOSOPHICAL TBANSACTI0N6. [aNNO I766. 



400 sequins, .^200. These have not the least resemblance to them: 

 Saracen characters are very unlike: besides, he places them higher than the 

 Hegira. He thinks it then not unprobable, that they were written in the first 

 ages of Christianity, and perhaps the very first ; when probably pilgrimages from 

 Jerusalem to Mount Sinai were fashionable, consequently frequent and numerous, 

 by the new Christian Jews, who believed in Christ; therefore he believes them 

 Hebrew characters, used vulgarly by the Jews about the time of Christ. He 

 showed them when at Jerusalem to the Rabins; and they were of the same 

 opinion. Here are on other parts of this rock, some Greek, and Arabic, as well 

 as some Saracen inscriptions, and a Hebrew one, which is -^rtN lOK'l- The 

 Saracens and Arabic only say, " such a one was here at such a time;" the same 

 say the Greek ones, except one, which says, " The evil genius of the army wrote 

 this," which can only prove, that some body of Greeks was worsted here, after 

 the characters were written, and that they attributed their defeat to some magic 

 power in these characters. The characters seem to be of the very same kind 

 with those stained on different parts of Mount Sinai, Meribah, &c. which the 

 Bishop of Ossory has given. 



The third day from this place, travelling westward, they encamped at Sarondou, 

 or Korondel, where are the bitter waters, Marah. He tried if the branches of 

 any of the trees had any effect on the waters; but found none: so the effect 

 mentioned in scripture must have been miraculous. These waters at the spring 

 are somewhat bitter and brackish, but as every foot they run over the sand is 

 covered with bituminous salts, grown up by the excessive heat of the sun, they 

 acquire much saltness, and bitterness, and very soon become not potable. This 

 place, off which the ships cast anchor, is below a shoal sand, near the Birque 

 Korondel. After Q hours and a half march they arrived and encamped at the 

 Desert of Shur, or Sour. The constant tradition is, that the Israelites ascended 

 from the sea here; this is opposite to the plain Badeah, to which the above- 

 mentioned pass in the mountains leads. From this place the openings in the 

 mountains appear a wide crack, and may be called a mouth, taking Hiroth for 

 an appellative. It would hardly have been necessary for the Israelites to pass 

 the sea, if they were within 1 or 3 miles of the northern extremity of the gulf; 

 the space of at most '2 miles, the breadth of the gulf at Suez, and at most 3 feet 

 deep at low water, for it is then constantly waded over, could not have contained 

 so many people, or drowned Pharaoh's army. There would have been little 

 necessity for his cavalry and chariots to precipitate themselves after a number of 

 people on foot; incumbered with their wives, children, and baggage; when they 

 could soon have overtaken them with going so little about. These reasons, 

 added to the significant names of the places, Tauriche Beni Israel, road of the 

 children of Israel ; Attacah, Deliverance, Pihahiroth, whether an appellative or 



