2 
THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE SINAITIO PENINSULA. 
By the Rev. F. W. Holland, M.A. With a Map showing 
the Author 3 s Route in 1878. 
I WILL preface my paper by a few remarks on my own 
travels in the Peninsula, in order that you may weigh 
my claim to express an opinion upon the interesting questions 
connected with its topography. 
My first visit was made in 1861, when I travelled in the 
usual way, under the direction of a dragoman, who was very 
ignorant of the country, and very much afraid of the Arabs ; 
and I returned home feeling that, although I had seen much 
more of the Peninsula than most travellers see, I really knew 
very little about it. But I felt the truth of the Dean of West- 
minster’s remark in his excellent work on “ Sinai and Palestine” 
(p. 33), that the determination of the questions relating to the 
route of the Israelites had been obscured, first by the tendency 
of every traveller to make the Israelites follow his own track, 
and secondly, by the impossibility of instituting a just com- 
parison between the facilities and the difficulties of the various 
routes, until some one person had explored the whole Penin- 
sula, and I determined that if no one else was in the field I 
would endeavour to do this. In 1864 an opportunity offered 
itself; and, accompanied by two friends but without a drago- 
man, I made a walking tour through the Peninsula, but again 
returned grieved to find it still remaining to a very great 
extent an unknown land. 
In 1867 I went out for the third time, and lived alone with 
the Arabs for four months, and succeeded in exploring care- 
fully the greater portion of the Peninsula, and in making a map 
of it, which was published by the Royal Geographical Society. 
In the following year I returned as guide to the Ordnance 
Survey expedition, and again spent several months in the 
country ; and in the spring of last year I paid it my fifth visit, 
travelling on foot and alone as in 1867, i.e. with three Arabs, 
whose camels carried my provisions for two months, tent, and 
other necessaries ; and, following the route marked in the map 
which hangs before you, I traversed a large portion of country 
that had hitherto remained unexplored, and I hope succeeded 
in throwing some additional light upon the probable position 
of Kadesh Barnea and the journeyings of the Children of 
Israel thither from Mount Sinai. I shall now describe to vou 
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what I have myself seen, and the opinions which I have 
