9 
Ramleh, is placed on one side directly we descend Wady 
Taiyibeh to the sea). Between this and Repliidim were the 
stations of Dophkah and Alush (Numbers xxxiii. 12, 13). The 
former has been identified with some probability with Mafka, 
the name given to the sandstone district in which the turquoise- 
mines were worked. The only possible road from El Markka 
would lead past this district and up the well-known Wady 
Feiran, which still forms the great highroad through this 
portion of the desert, and leads up to Wady es Sheikh, and so 
to Jebel Musa. But where must we place Repkidim, the scene 
of the battle between the Israelites and Amalekites ? Major 
Wilson and Major Palmer, following Dean Stanley, place it 
at El Hesweh, in Wady Feiran ; but I have ventured to differ 
from them, though this is the only point on which we do differ. 
W e are thoroughly at one with regard to the Israelites' route. 
It is argued in favour of Wady Feiran as the site of Repkidim, 
that it is impossible to believe that the Amalekites would have 
yielded up without a struggle that fair oasis, with its fertile 
groves and running stream, which must have been their most 
highly-prized possession in the Peninsula ; and also that tradi- 
tion and strategical considerations support that site. 
But there is nothing to prove that the gardens of Wady Feiran 
existed before monastic times ; and the running stream which 
Major Palmer saw had not existed one year : I saw it made 
myself by a great storm in the previous year. After less than 
two hours' rain one evening a great Hood descended from the 
mountains, and in the morning the whole aspect of the valley 
was changed. A thick tamarisk-wood, two miles in length, 
had utterly disappeared; hundreds of palm-trees were washed 
away; the bed of the wady was raised several feet in some 
places, and lowered in others; and the present stream had 
taken the place of a raised bank. 
It is true that there was before a stream, though not a 
perennial one, a little higher up the valley; and from its con- 
figuration it is probable that there always has been water here 
near the surface ; for every large wady forms, in fact, a stone 
drain, and when rocks interpose, and come near the surface, 
then water appears; but the stream in Wady Feiran cannot 
be accepted as a proof that it was a prized possession of the 
Amalekites. 
There is also nothing to prove that the tradition connected 
with El Hesweh is not of monkish origin, as the greater 
number of Sinaitic traditions certainly are. 
With regard to strategical considerations, it appears to me 
that they are in favour of the pass of El Watiyeh in Wady es 
Sheikh as the site of Rephidim. 
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