. [ 5 ,o ] 
head. This river is doubted of by Strabo, becaufe 
dried up to the fource, from the time the Ifraelites 
entered the Land of Promife, and the tradition was 
then loft. You may fee Strabo’s Afiyria, edit. Cafau- 
bon, p. 5. 10. towards the bottom. Pardon this 
bold conjecture ; but it coincides and conciliates facred 
hiftory with antient geography. This too feems a 
proof, that this is really the fecond ftruck rock. As 
to the fprings between the breach and Pharan, 
they certainly did not exift in the time of Mofes ; or, 
if they did, they would have been as nothing to fo 
many people. 
We went down a large valley to the wed, towards 
the fea, and paffed the head of a valley, a part of the 
defart of Sin, which feparates the mountains of Pharan 
from thofe which run along the coaft, and the 
fame plain, which we had paffed from Tor. We had 
fcarce entered thefe mountains, and travelled an hour, 
when after paffing a mountain, where there were 
vifible marks of an extinguilhed fubterraneous fire, 
we faw, on our left hand, a fmall rock, with fome 
unknown characters cut on it, not ftained upon it, 
as thofe hitherto met with ; and, in ten minutes, we 
entered a valley fix miles broad, running nearly North 
and South, with all the rocks, which enclofe it on the 
Weft fide, covered with characters. Thefe are what are 
called Gebel El Macaatab, the written mountins. On 
examining thefe characters, I was greatly difappointed, 
in finding them every where interlperfed with figures 
of men and beads, which convinced me they were not 
written by the Ifraelites ; for if they had been after 
the publication of the law, Mofes would not have 
permitted them to engrave images, fo immediately 
2 after 
