CONVENT OF ST. CATHERINE, MOUNT SINAI, 
LOOKING TOWARDS THE PLAIN OF THE ENCAMPMENT. 
In this title, the traditional name of the Mountain is adopted, without deciding the 
question of reality. The Artist has taken the Sketch about due South of the Convent, 
looking upon the track which he pursued from the presumed Plain of the Israelite 
Encampment. 
The general aspects of both the Plain and Mountain unquestionably give a strong 
sense of fitness for that great transaction, of which the direct purpose was to impress 
a nation of slaves, Egyptian-born, with homage for the God of Nature and of Revelation. 
The primitive wildness, the abrupt majesty, and the almost inaccessible height of the 
pinnacles, seem made for the Throne of Him who “ maketh the clouds His chariot, 
and walketh upon the wings of the wind.” Here, superior as the actual Presence 
must have been to all Imagination, the traveller can still imagine the “cloud, the 
lightning, and the trumpet.” The scene amply filled the mind of a Prophet almost 
a thousand years after. Habakkuk, in one of the most renowned bursts of Hebrew 
poetry, thus records the Descent on Sinai: “ God came from Teman, and the Holy 
One from Mount Paran. His brightness was as the light; He had horns coming 
out of His hand; and there was the hiding of His power. Before Him went the 
pestilence, and burning coals went forth at His feet. He stood, and measured the 
earth; He beheld, and drove asunder the nations, and the everlasting mountains were 
scattered, the perpetual hills did bow; His ways are everlasting .” 1 
The author of the Biblical Researches, when he entered upon the Plain, observes,— 
“As we advanced, the valley opened still wider and wider, with a gentle ascent, and 
became full of shrubs and tufts of herbs, shut in on each side by lofty granite ridges, 
with rugged, shattered peaks, a thousand feet high, while the face of Horeb rose 
directly before us. Both my companion and myself involuntarily exclaimed, ‘Here 
is room enough for a large encampment!’ As we crossed the Plain our feelings 
were strongly affected, at finding here so unexpectedly a spot so entirely adapted to 
the Scriptural account of the giving of the Law . 2 No traveller has described this 
Plain, or even mentioned it, except in a slight and general manner; probably because 
most of them have reached the Convent by another route.As we approached 
the Mountain, our head Arab, Besharah, became evidently quite excited. He prayed 
that our pilgrimage might be accepted, and bring rain; and with great earnestness 
besought, that when we ascended the Mountain, we should open a certain window 
in the Chapel there towards the South, which, he said, would certainly cause rain to 
fall. He also entreated, almost with tears, that we should induce the Monks to have 
compassion on the people, and say prayers, as they ought to do, for rain. When told 
that God alone could send rain, and that they should look to Him for it, he replied, 
‘Yes, but the Monks have the book of prayer for it; do persuade them to use it 
as they ought.’ There was an earnestness in his manner which was very affecting, 
Habakkuk, iii. 3. 
3 Exodus, xix. 20. 
