THE ROUTE OF THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL 



1029 



THE ONLY ENTRANCE TO THE MONASTERY OF SAINT CATHARINE, SINAI 

 The door is five feet high 



feet along the other end. It also shows 

 the double group of palm trees, perhaps, 

 which get their life from the fountain 

 which eternally fights its way up through 

 the drifting white sands. The main 

 stream of the fountain comes from a 

 small tunnel, at the inner end of which is 

 a cleft in the apparently solid rock. 



Outside the cutting for some 30 feet, is 

 a deep, open cutting for some 30 feet, 

 and then begins the gardens where a deaf 

 and dumb Bedouin watched the few spots 

 sown with wheat, turning the stream 

 from place to place until it was lost in the 

 drifts of pure white sand. Because of 

 the two groups of palms it would almost 

 seem that there was a double fountain, or 

 some sort of a tunnel which carried the 

 precious water across the strip of sand 

 that lies between the two groups. 



The weary traveler coming upon this 

 delightful nook from any point of the 



compass will never forget the sight of 

 this wonderful little oasis. At least four 

 possible roads converge here. The one 

 we followed from Sinai and the one we 

 took northward to Akaba, and two others 

 up into the desert plateau above, one of 

 which leads straight to Suez and the 

 other to Gaza on the borders of Pales- 

 tine. 



Between Hazeroth and Ezion-geber lie 

 the still unsolved portions of the problem 

 and route of the Exodus. After reach- 

 ing the shore of the Red Sea, they turned 

 northward, and for 38 years roamed 

 about the neighborhood of Kadesh. Into 

 this Wilderness of the Wandering, ex- 

 plorers are now penetrating from the 

 north, the west, and the south, and a 

 few years hence we shall have as good 

 maps and details of it as we have of the 

 other sections of the route. 



Our plan carried us down from Haze- 



