ROCK OP MERIBAH. 281 



sued 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 in a straight line round its three sides, 

 through 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 me- 

 mory of Moses, in the same manner as they place it 

 upon the tombs of their saints ; this vegetable being 

 to them the most precious gift of nature, and that 

 upon which their existence depends. Shaw, Po- 

 cocke, and the earlier travellers, in describing this 

 rock, seem credulously to have adopted the extra- 

 vagant 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 con- 

 trivance, evidently afraid to injure the reputation 

 of the Scripture miracle. More recent visiters have 

 ventured, without impugning the truth of Sacred 

 History, to question the antiquity and identity of 

 this surprising block, and consider it one of the de- 

 ceptions invented by the brothers of the convent, 

 who have a personal interest in encouraging this 

 superstition. Every observer, Burckhardt has re- 

 marked, must be convinced, on the slightest exa- 



