58 



Visit to Mount Sinai, 



[No. 33, 



„^ „ At 9h a. m. reached Wadi Hawa. Emerffiiiff from 



Wadi Hawa. . . . . ^ 



Feiran we confronted the high jagged ridge of Syed 



Musa through which lies the defile of Abu Tok or Nakb Hawa over- 

 looked by Jebel Feiran. 



The entrance to Wadi Haxva is narrow and steep ; and hes along 

 the right or S. side of a ravine called Nakb Hawa. Part of the road 

 has evidently been cut in the rock. 



Kajfer Abu ^^e top of this high pass, commanded on each 



side by naked granitic and porphyretic rocks, ris- 

 ing in a sloping surface from the edges, of the ravine, we halted to 

 breakfast, under shelter of some large detached masses of granite 

 at lOA A. M. 



These masses are covered often with basin shaped, and irregularly 

 formed cavities apparently caused by watery erosion, many of which 

 are confluent and impart a grotesque appearance to the surface on 

 which may be often traced a rude resemblance to the human face, 

 while the general contour of the mass, originally cuboidal, with its 

 rounded off-angles assumes the outline of a skull. 



This granitic Golgotha has evidently been formed by the spon- 

 taneous splitting and exfoliation of the adjacent granite rocks, and 

 many of the masses thus detached have slid down from the summit 

 as seen every day in the granite rocks of India. They are therefore 

 not boulders in the geological acceptation of the term. 



The erosions occur both on the tops and sides of some of the 

 blocks which shows that they must have shifted position more than 

 once while exposed to watery action. The lips and sides of the 

 cavities are smooth apertures, and channels of communication from 

 one to another have been made, precisely similar to those of the rock 

 basins in the beds of Indian rivers. 



Some of them contain pebbles. These at first might be taken for 

 the gravel brought down by the stream which had contributed to 

 hollowing out the cavities, but some Arabs, who brought us goats' 

 milk, said the pebbles had been deposited there for good luck by 

 Arab travellers. 



On one of these masses about 20 feet high and 40 

 Inscriptions. . t».t • i r 



long are rudely engraven on its N. h>. side, some of 



the celebrated Sinaitic characters which have so long puzzled travel- 

 lers and the literati of Europe, and which have in great measure been 

 lately deciphered by the indefatigable and learned Professor Beer of 



