The Artist says, “After winding through this terrific Pass for about three hours, 
night closed around us, before reaching the Plain, at the extremity of which stands 
the Convent. The effect of the setting sun upon the high peaks which overhung 
the Pass, whilst the ravine below was enveloped in shadow, was a sight of remarkable 
beauty. The pathway which wound up the face of the Mountain, the work of a 
remote age, and which must have been one of prodigious labour, was now neglected 
and broken by the mountain-torrents. . Other parts were overgrown, and displaced 
by the roots of the wild plants, which everywhere projected from the cliffs and hollows 
of the rocks. Huge fragments, which had been loosened by the rains of winter, had 
rolled down, and choked the narrow pathway, rendering it difficult for our small caravan 
to thread its course, especially when darkness overtook us.” 1 
1 Roberts’s Journal. 
ASCENT TO THE SUMMIT OF SINAI. 
Laborde describes his course, towards the summit of Sinai, as lying through a ravine 
to the south-west. The Monks had originally arranged a series of slabs in tolerably 
regular order, which once formed a convenient staircase to the top of the Mountain. 
The rains, however, disturbed them, and as no repairs have for a long time been 
attended to, the stairs are in many places in ruins. On approaching the foot ofi 
Sinai, and immediately before quitting Horeb, the traveller sees a door built in the 
form of an arch; on the key-stone of the arch, a cross has been carved. An affecting 
custom used to take place near this door; one of the Monks of the Convent stationed 
himself there in prayer, and heard the confessions of the pilgrims, who, when thus 
nearly at the end of their pilgrimage, were not in the habit of accomplishing it until 
after they had obtained absolution. Laborde passed a similar door before arriving at 
the spot whence he discovered the summit of Sinai, and the two edifices which surmount it. 1 
The condition of the staircase appears since to have grown more ruinous, for the 
Artist, twenty years afterwards, observes, “ In many places the steps have given way, 
and rolled down, and, at the time when we ascended, the snow lay deep in the places 
sheltered from the sun, and the way was so slippery from the ice, as to render the 
ascent not only a work of great difficulty, but of some danger.” 2 Those steps are of 
great antiquity, and appear to have been constructed at least as early as the time of 
the first devotees who established themselves in the Mountains of the Wilderness. 
1 Journey to Mount Sinai. 
2 Roberts’s Journal. 
