SUNRISE AND SUNSET FROAI MOUNT SINAI 



1249 



full bloom, and their white and pink 

 blossoms mingled with the green of the 

 olive leaves and carpeted the ground, 

 filling the air with the burden of their 

 fragrance. 



No photographs that we had seen pre- 

 pared us for the beauty of the Valley of 

 Leja, in which the convent stands. The 

 broad plain of El Raha, where tradition 

 says Israel encamped, narrows to a 

 gorge. The cliffs rise on either hand, 

 sheer masses of red granite a thousand 

 feet in height, their sides furrowed and 

 seamed with massive buttresses thrust 

 out and tortuous crevices receding, the 

 crests, ragged and crenelated, cutting a 

 fantastic outline against the sky, while 

 so abrupt is the ascent their brows fairly 

 seem to overhang the valley. 



Far up on the higher crags of the 

 giant ellipse of cliffs the faintly penciled 

 outlines of the huge wooden crosses, 

 with which the monks have sentineled 

 their valley, lie against the deep blue 

 sky, thrusting their message out to all 

 the mountains clustered round about. 



the; monastery of st. Catherine's 



We spent the afternoon in the maze- 

 like gardens, which descend from the 

 convent walls in terraces, each with its 

 flight of steps, for a thousand feet or 

 more. Below the last garden are grouped 

 the ruins of the stone huts that housed 

 the soldiers brought by Abbas Pasha to 

 build his palace on the mountain and 

 the road to the summit, which still bears 

 his name. Next comes a low hill at the 

 entrance to the Wady es Sheik, the scene 

 of the worship of the golden calf, so 

 tradition asserts, and beyond that is the 

 plain of El Raha, encircled by the rugged 

 red mountains. 



The gardens flourish by virtue of irri- 

 gation, their fruit trees, flowers, and 

 vegetables making a mass of color and 

 green whose beauty is enhanced, if not 

 created, by the memory of the sands and 

 barren deserts that must be crossed to 

 reach them. 



In the meanwhile the monks had swept 

 and aired the crypt of their mortuary 

 chapel, had burned incense in its vaults, 

 and now invited us to enter. 



A monk dying at Mount Sinai is bu- 



ried in the ground for a year ; during that 

 time his grave is watered, for the atmos- 

 phere is so dry that lacking such care his 

 bones would turn utterly to dust. After 

 the year the bones are disinterred and 

 placed in the crypt of the chapel; those 

 of the higher dignitaries at one end ; 

 those of the monks and brethren at the 

 other, neatly squared and banked in 

 regular and precise lines, which are 

 broken only by the bony hands which 

 occasionally project in ghastly welcome. 



Behind the door, in velvet skull cap 

 and monkish robe, sits St. Stephen, the 

 porter of the convent nearly 350 years 

 ago. Blis bony jaw rests in one fleshless 

 palm, while the other hand rattles among 

 the keys lying in his lap — the symbols of 

 the office he vacated centuries ago. 

 When he last kept watch and ward over 

 the portals, Philip II was king in Spain, 

 the Armada was threatening the coasts 

 of England, the bells of St. Germain 

 were ringing in the day of St. Bartholo- 

 mew, and Calvin's voice had hardly 

 fallen silent in Geneva. The world has 

 traveled far since then. 



The moon rose full that evening. The 

 jagged mountain line lay in blackened 

 silhouette against the sky ; the shadows 

 of the olive leaves, gently swaying in the 

 evening breeze, fell upon the white sur- 

 face of our tents. The moonlight cast a 

 checkered pattern upon the almond blos- 

 soms lying about our feet ; it lit up the 

 opposite cliffs of Smai, throwing dark 

 shadows into the crevices, veiling yet 

 magnifying, until the mountains seemed 

 to grow and tower above us, more stern 

 and forbidding by night even than by 

 day. One cross, of all that crowned the 

 heights, stood out for a moment in pen- 

 ciled blackness against the full white sur- 

 face of the moon ; then, sinking over its 

 lower rim, it joined its brethren in ob- 

 scurity. 



I woke once during the night, just as 

 the convent bells were ringing to call the 

 brethren to prayers, for from midnight 

 until 7 in the morning the monks must 

 keep their vigils. The bells fell silent, 

 their echoes died away among the rocks, 

 but they called into momentary vision the 

 recollection of the spires of New Eng- 

 land churches rising white above their 



