36 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE 



The juniper is a well-shaped bush or small tree, with a trunk some- 

 times a foot in diameter. It gives a considerable area of shade with its 

 dark close foliage, A large specimen occurs immediately below the 

 summit, and I could see it on all the highlands around, even at the summit 

 of Mount Hor, which looked but a little distance off. 



On December lo we made the ascent of Mount Hor, returning 

 to camp the same day by Petra. Our camp was fixed near the mouth of 

 Wady Harfin. Although having made an early start (4 a.m.), the visit 

 was necessarily a very hurried one. While waiting for a cloud to lift 

 from the summit of Mount Hor for the benefit of the theodolite party, I 

 had time, however, to make a good gathering of the bulbous plants, now 

 just showing their leaves, with which the upper part of this mountain 

 abounds. 



The view from Mount Hor, whose height I estimated by aneroid at 

 4,400 feet, is a disappointing one, and bears no sort of comparison with 

 those from the Sinai peaks. This defect is due to the adjoining high and 

 monotonous tableland of Edom, which obscures one side of the horizon. 

 This tableland averages perhaps 5,000 feet in height in the eastern 

 neighbourhood of Mount Hor, and is composed of the unvarying and 

 unpicturesque white cretaceous limestone. It lowers northwards, and I 

 afterwards reached its outer edge. In some places it has quite a forest of 

 vegetation. 



With regard to Mount Hor, Irby and Mangles write : ' Much juniper 

 grows on the mountain, almost to the very summit, and many flowering 

 plants, which we had not observed elsewhere ; most of them are thorny 

 and some are very beautiful.' 



As Mount Sinai is a mountain of labiates, so Mount Hor is a mountain 

 of bulbs. The number of species and individuals of these orders respec- 

 tively vividly coloured my impression of the botanical features of each of 

 these sacred peaks. At the same time many of the Mount Sinai plants, 

 labiates included, occur on Mount Hor. On Mount Sinai I procured 

 bulbs of a single species, a total of three perhaps occurring. On Mount 

 Hor I gathered at least twenty sorts. 



In the upper 1,000 feet of Mount Hor a considerable accession of 

 Mediterranean or more northern forms appear. A more interesting group 

 is that of plants which have been considered absolutely peculiar to Sinai. 



