JS47.] 



Visit to Mount Sinai. 



63 



Visit to Mount Having despatched our boat and Arab crew to 

 Sinai. await our arrival at Tor, we sailed from Suez in the 



Colombo. Our worthy Commander, Captain McKeilar, having kind- 

 ly volunteered us a passage, an offer, of which we gladly availed our- 

 selves. We weighed anchor on the 1st June at sunset after a 

 tiresome detention at Suez, and reached Tor about noon the follow- 

 ing day. 



Here we found our boat and crev/ who did good service by assist- 

 ing in getting up an anchor which the Colombo had left in a coral 

 reef on a former voyage, when she had Sir Peregrine Maitland and 

 family on board. 



We took leave of the good ship at 3 p. m. and instantly com- 

 menced preparations for starting the same evening towards Mount 

 Sinai. 



It was with great difficulty we could get the phlegmatic old Greek 

 Nicolai to bestir himself. He evidently thought pipes, coffee, a good 

 pilau, and a night's rest, indispensable preliminaries to a trip into 

 the stony Wadis ; and it was with some difficulty and personal 

 exertion that we succeeded in mustering three saddle donkeys, and 

 a baggage camel v/ith two Arab guides before sunset, for the sum 

 of 180 piastres. 



Our imposing caravan got under weigh about 7 the same evening 

 and at the rate of 2 J miles an hour. The Arabs called a halt about 

 midnight, the camels (for some others had joined us on route) went 

 down on their knees, and the donkies, wide awake to the signal stood 

 planted. We dismounted somewhat reluctantly as the night air was 

 delightfully cool, and pleasant for travelling. The tiny cups of fra- 

 grant coffee were soon prepared by our Egyptian servant Ali, and in 

 a few minutes we were stretched on the gravelly plain of El Kaa — fast 

 asleep. 



The town or rather village of Tor (or more properly speaking Tur 

 comprises the fiat roofed, half-mud, half-stone houses of a 

 few Greek Christians and the huts of one or two Arab families. The 

 Arab fort is, and was in Niebuhr's day, a ruin. It is situated on the 

 shore near the mouth of a small bay, the entrance of which is intri- 

 cate from coral reefs. Tor partly stands on a raised coral reef co- 

 vered with sand. 



Behind is a strip of low marshy ground dotted with dates and 



