228 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



On the 9th we arrived at Tor, a fmall draggling village; 

 with a convent of Greek Monks, belonging to Mount Sinai 

 Don John de Caftro * took this town when it was walled, 

 and fortified, foon after the difeovery of the Indies by the 

 Portuguefe ; it has never finee been of any connderation. It 

 ferves now, only as a watering-place for fhips going to, and 

 from Suez. From this we have a diftinet view of the points 

 of the mountains Horeb and Sinai, which appear behind 

 and above the others, their tops being often covered with 

 mow in winter. 



There are three things, (now I am at the north end of 

 the Arabian Gulf,) of which the reader will expect fome ac- 

 count, and I am heartily forry to fay, that I fear I mail be 

 obliged to difappoint him in all, by the unfatisfactory rela^ 

 tion I am forced to give. 



The firfl is, Whether the Red Sea is not higher than the 

 Mediterranean, by feveral feet or inches ? To this I anfwer, 

 That the fact has been fuppofed to be fo by antiquity, and 

 alledged as a reafon why Ptolemy's canal was made from 

 the bottom of the Heroopoiitic Gulf, rather than brought 

 due north acrofs the Lfthmus of Suez ; in which laft cafe, 

 it was feared it would fubmerge a great part of Alia Mi*- 

 nor. But who has ever attempted to verify this by experi- 

 ment ? or who is capable of fettling the difference of levels, 

 amounting, as fuppofed, to fome feet and inches, between 

 two points 120 miles diftant from each other, over a delert 

 that has no fettled furface, but is changing its height every- 

 day i 



* Vide his Journal publiflied by Abbe Vertot. 





