5 
4,854 feet, the thermometer ranged from about 22° at night to 
70° in the shade by day. The higher mountains are fre- 
quently covered with snow. The Bedawin suffer severely 
from the cold, and in the winter move down to the lower dis- 
tricts. The ibex appear to do the same, and large herds may 
at such times be seen in the neighbourhood of Jebel Serbal. 
The summer temperature is very oppressive on the shore 
plains, and fever is common in the marshy ground about Tor, 
but on the mountains the air is always fresh and invigorating, 
and the climate exceedingly healthy. 
The Israelites coming from the warm climate of Goshen 
must have felt the cold acutely in the Sinai mountains, and it 
is remarkable that the Bible makes no reference to it, except,, 
perhaps, the command in Exodus xxii. 26, “That if thou at 
all take thy neighbour's raiment to pledge, thou slialt deliver 
it unto him by that the sun goeth down." 
The Bedawin Arabs, who inhabit the southern portion of 
the Peninsula, belong to the tribe of the Towarah, and are said 
to number about 4,000, not including the women and children. 
They are gentle and courteous in manners, and strictly 
honest, theft and fraud being almost unknown amongst them. 
Of course, if a traveller should attempt to pass through their 
country with a high hand, despising their customs, and not 
placing himself under the protection of one of their sheikhs, 
lie would probably very soon be stripped of everything, even 
to his clothes ; but once under a sheikh's protection one's pro- 
perty is absolutely safe. Their means of livelihood are scanty, 
and they depend upon Egypt for their supply of corn. A few 
of the sheikhs possess negro slaves, who are always kindly 
treated. The Arabs live in tents made of goat's-hair cloth, 
woven by the women, but the encampments are always small, 
seldom consisting of more than six or eight tents. The scanti- 
ness of the pasturage makes it necessary for them to break up 
into small bodies. Like all Bedawin, they are not continually 
on the march, but their movements are regulated by the supply 
of pasturage for their camels and flocks of sheep and goats. 
In the same way was regulated, I suppose, the stay of the 
Children of Israel at their different camping stations, when, 
after leaving Kadesh, they wandered for forty years in the wil- 
derness, and their life then must have closely resembled that of 
the modern Bedawin. It is interesting to trace out the points 
of resemblance. The rude looms used by the women in making 
their tent-cloth remind us how “ all the women of Israel 
whose heart stirred them up in wisdom spun goat's hair" for 
the curtains of the tabernacle (Exodus xxxv. 26) : the primi- 
tive millstones with which they grind their corn are doubtless 
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