SUNRISE AND SUNSET FROM MOUNT SINAI 



1257 



church-yard trees, and the sound of their 

 TdcIIs ringing faintly down the valleys of 

 the Green Mountains. 



CUMBING THE SACRED MOUNTS 



It was broad daylight when I next 

 -awoke ; the sun was shining in under the 

 tent, and voices in Arabic were sounding 

 without. After breakfast our tents were 

 packed on three camels and sent up the 

 road of Abbas Pasha to the plain of the 

 cypress tree, near the summit of Sinai, 

 while we, with a monk as guide and a 

 Bedouin for a porter, set out to climb 

 the pilgrim steps. While we were wait- 

 ing for our guide, I searched the face of 

 the great precipice of Sinai with a field 

 glass for some evidence of a practicable 

 pathway, for some break in the mass of 

 rock, but though I searched almost inch 

 by inch, I could detect no possible en- 

 trance through the cliff. 



Leaving the convent, we walked up 

 the valley for perhaps a third of a mile, 

 picking our way over a boulder-strewn 

 slope, until we came to a crack in the 

 face of the cliff, a mere seam down the 

 mountain side, where we found the first 

 •of the steps. There are some 7,000 of 

 these, which lead up a gorge 12 to 15 

 feet wide, zigzagging from side to side. 

 The cliffs rise sheer on either hand, 

 water-washed and time-worn, cracked 

 and fractured by the extremes of heat 

 and cold. Fragments of rock project 

 and overhang the path, looking as if the 

 lightest touch would send them flying. 

 In fact the pilgrim steps have suffered 

 severely from falling boulders ; they are 

 chipped, cracked, and smashed, in places 

 titterly destroyed, and the path is thickly 

 strewn with the fragments. 



Few things testify so eloquently to the 

 vitality of the spirit of ancient monasti- 

 cism as the paved road which leads into 

 the Sinai range through the Nakb el 

 Howi Pass and these steps up Mount 

 Sinai. The labor of cutting, carrying, 

 and placing such stones must have been 

 enormous. 



Early in the ascent we came to a 

 spring of clear, cold water, issuing from 

 beneath a gigantic boulder. Here, the 

 Bedouins say, Moses watered his sheep. 

 For some time after leaving the spring 



we kept the convent in sight ; it seemed 

 to come nearer and nearer to the moun- 

 tain as we climbed and to lie more im- 

 mediately below us, until a curtain of 

 rock crept out and hid it from our sight. 



The path led steeply up between high 

 and narrow walls of rock, the sky a mere 

 slit above our heads, until we halted for 

 a moment's rest at the Chapel of the Vir- 

 gin, and here, tradition says, a plague of 

 fleas once so harassed the monks that 

 they decided in desperation to abandon 

 the convent. They took their way up the 

 mountain on a final pilgrimage to its 

 holy places, when the Virgin met them 

 at this spot and commanded their re- 

 turn. On again reaching the convent 

 they found it utterly deserted by the in- 

 sects. Presumably they had gone out 

 in a body to find the monks, but how 

 they had missed them in the narrow path 

 the legend does not say. 



The path grew steeper after leaving 

 the chapel until we came to an archway, 

 where formerly pilgrims were confessed ; 

 then we mounted a flight of a hundred 

 perfect steps to a second archway, where 

 they received their certificates of abso- 

 lution and were permitted to pass on. 

 Just beyond lay the Plain of the Cypress 

 Tree. A few hundred square feet of 

 coarse grass, a pond a hundred feet 

 across, and a huge cypress tree lay be- 

 neath a circle of low cliffs. Such a spot 

 would be passed unnoticed anywhere in 

 our Eastern States, but in these wastes 

 of sands and barren rocks, grass, how- 

 ever coarse, water, and a tree halt the 

 attention and haunt the memory. 



THE SUMMIT OF SAFSAEAH 



Leaving the ladies here to rest, F. and 

 I set off to climb Jebel Safsafah, one of 

 the horns of Mount Sinai. The path was 

 long and rough. It led us up and down 

 through a succession of valleys until we 

 came to the final ascent of Safsafah, 

 when a rough climb of 20 minutes 

 brought us to a narrow crevice with an 

 abysmal precipice at our feet. Nearly 

 2,000 feet below was one of the farms 

 belonging to the convent, surrounding 

 the house where the brother lives whom 

 the convent has placed in charge, a rest- 

 ful touch of green against the wilderness 



