Travels in Syria and the Holy Land Part 45

CONVENT OF MOUNT SINAI

[p.584] the monks and Bedouins, in order that they may multiply the objects of veneration and curiosity within the pilgrim?s tour round the convent.

On my return to the convent I could not help expressing to several of the monks my surprise at the metamorphosis of a calf into a cow, and of an idol of gold into stone; but I found that they were too little read in the books of Moses to understand even this simple question, and I therefore did not press the subject. I believe there is not a single individual amongst them, who has read the whole of the Old Testament; nor do I think that among eastern Christians in general there is one in a thousand, of those who can read, that has ever taken that trouble.

They content themselves, in general, with their prayer-books, liturgies, and histories of saints; few of them read the gospels, though more do so in Syria than in Egypt; the reading of the whole of the scripture is discountenanced by the clergy; the wealthy seldom have the inclination to prosecute the study of the Holy writings, and no others are able to procure a ma.n.u.script copy of the Bible, or one printed in the two establishments in Mount Liba.n.u.s. The well meant endeavours of the Bible Society in England to supply them with printed copies of the Scriptures in Arabic, if not better directed than they have hitherto been, will produce very little effect in these countries. The cost of such a copy, trifling as it may seem in England, is a matter of importance to the poor Christians of the east; the Society has, besides, chosen a version which is not current in the east, where the Roman translation alone is acknowledged by the Clergy, who easily make their flocks believe that the Scriptures have been interpolated by the Protestants. It would, perhaps, have been better if the Society, in the beginning at least, had furnished the eastern Christians with cheap copies of the Gospels and Psalms only, which being the books chiefly in use among them in ma.n.u.script,

[p.585] would have been not only useful to them, but more approved of by the directors of their consciences, than the entire Scripture. Upon Mohammedans, it is vain to expect that the reading of the present Arabic version of the Bible should make the slightest impression. If any of them were brought to conquer their inherent aversion to the book, they could not read a page in it without being tired and disgusted with its style. In the Koran they possess the purest and most elegant composition in their language, the rhythmical prose of which, exclusive of the sacred light in which they hold it, is alone sufficient to make a strong impression upon them. The Arabic of the greater part of the Bible, on the contrary, and especially that of the Gospels, is in the very worst style; the books of Moses and the Psalms are somewhat better.

Grammatical rules, it is true, are observed, and chosen terms are sometimes employed; but the phraseology and whole construction is generally contrary to the spirit of the language, and so uncouth, harsh, affected, and full of foreign idioms, that no Musselman scholar would be tempted to prosecute the study of it, and a few only would thoroughly understand it. In style and phraseology it differs from the Koran more than the monkish Latin from the orations of Cicero.

I will not take upon me to declare how far the Roman and the Society?s Arabic translation of the Old Testament are defective, being unable to read the original Hebrew text; but I can affirm that they both disagree, in many instances, from the English translation. The Christians of the East, who will seldom read any book written by a Moslem, and to whom an accurate knowledge of Arabic and of the best writers in that language are consequently unknown, are perfectly satisfied with the style of the Roman version which is in use among them; it is for the sake of perusing it that they undertake a grammatical study of the Arabic language, and their priests and

[p.586] learned men usually make it the model of their own style; they would be unwilling therefore to admit any other translation; and there is not, at present, either in Syria or in Egypt any Christian priest so bold and so learned as Bishop Germa.n.u.s Ferhat of Aleppo, who openly expressed his dislike of this translation, and had declared his intention of altering it himself, for which, and other reasons, he was branded with the epithet of heretic. For Arab Christians, therefore, the Roman translation will not easily be superseded, and if Mussulmans are to be tempted to study the Scriptures, they must be clothed in more agreeable language, than that which has lately been presented to them, for they are the last people upon whom precepts conveyed in rude language will have any effect.

In the present state of western Asia, however, the conversion of Mohammedans is very difficult; I have heard only of one instance during the last century, and the convert was immediately s.h.i.+pped off to Europe.

On the other hand, should an European power ever obtain a firm footing in Egypt, it is probable that many years would not elapse before thousands of Moslems would profess Christianity; not from the dictates of their conscience or judgment, but from views of worldly interest.

I was cordially greeted on my return to the convent, by the monks and the fatherly Ikonomos, one of the best-natured churchmen I have met with in the East. The safe return of pilgrims from the holy mountains is always a subject of gratulation, so great is their dread of the Arabs. I rested the following day in the convent, where several Greeks from Tor and Suez had arrived; being friends of the monks, they were invited in the evening to the private apartments of the latter, where they were plied so bountifully with brandy that they all retired tipsy to bed.

Several Bedouins had acquainted me that a thundering noise,

WADY OWASZ

[p.587] like repeated discharges of heavy artillery, is heard at times in these mountains; and they all affirmed that it came from Om Shomar.

The monks corroborated the story, and even positively a.s.serted that they had heard the sound about mid-day, five years ago, describing it in the same manner as the Bedouins. The same noise had been heard in more remote times, and the Ikonomos, who has lived here forty years, told me that he remembered to have heard the noise at four or five separate periods. I enquired whether any shock of an earthquake had ever been felt on such occasions, but was answered in the negative. Wis.h.i.+ng to ascertain the truth, I prepared to visit the mountain of Om Shomar.

As I had lost much of the confidence of the Bedouins by writing upon the mountains, and could not intimidate them by shewing a pa.s.sport from the Pasha, I kept my intended journey secret, and concerting matters with Hamd and two Djebalye, I was let down from the window of the convent a little before midnight on the 23rd of May, and found my guides well armed and in readiness below. We proceeded by Wady Sebaye, the same road I had come from Sherm. In this Wady, tradition says, the Israelites gained the victory over the Amalekites, which was obtained by the holding up of the hands of Moses (Ex. xvii. 12.), but this battle was fought in Raphidim, where the water gushed out from the rock, a situation which appears to have been to the westward of the convent, on the approach from the gulf of Suez.

I was much disappointed at being able to trace so very few of the ancient Hebrew names of the Old Testament in the modern names of the peninsula; but it is evident that, with the exception of Sinai and a few others, they are all of Arabic derivation.

On a descent from the summit of Wady Sebaye, at an hour and a half from the convent, we turned to the right from the road to Sherm, and entered Wady Owasz [Arabic], in a direction

WADY RAHABA

[p.588] S. b. W. I found here a small chain of white and red sand-stone hills in the midst of granite. The morning was so very cold that we were obliged to stop and light a fire, round which we sat till sunrise; my feet and hands were absolutely benumbed, for neither gloves or stockings are in fas.h.i.+on among Bedouins. We continued in the valley, crossing several hills, till at four hours and a half we reached Wady Rahaba [Arabic], in the lower parts of which we had pa.s.sed a very rainy night on the 17th. Rahaba is one of the princ.i.p.al valleys on this side of the peninsula; it is broad, and affords good pasturage. We halted under a granite rock in the middle of it, close by about a dozen small buildings, which are called by the Bedouins Makhsen (magazines), and which serve them as a place of deposit for their provision, clothes, money, &c. As Bedouins are continually moving about, they find it inconvenient to carry with them what they do not constantly want; they therefore leave whatever they have not immediate need of in these magazines, to which they repair as occasion requires. Almost every Bedouin in easy circ.u.mstances has one of them; I have met with them in several parts of the mountains, always in cl.u.s.ters of ten or twenty together. They are at most ten feet high, generally about ten or twelve feet square, constructed with loose stones, covered with the trunks of date trees, and closed with a wooden door and lock. These buildings are altogether so slight, and the doors so insecure, that a stone would be sufficient to break them open; no watchmen are left to guard them, and they are in such solitary spots that they might easily be plundered in the night, without the thief being ever discovered. But such is the good faith of the Towara towards each other, that robberies of this kind are almost unheard of; and their Sheikh Szaleh, whose magazine is well known to contain fine dresses, shawls, and dollars, considers his property as safe there as it would be in the best

OM SHOMAR

[p.589] secured building in a large town. The Towara are well ent.i.tled to pride themselves on this trait in their character; for I found nothing similar to it among other Bedouins. The only instance upon record of a magazine having been plundered among them, is that mentioned in page 475, for which the robber?s own father inflicted the punishment of death.

We continued our route in a side branch of the Rababa, till at the end of five hours and a half, we ascended a mountain, and then descended into a narrow valley, or rather cleft, between the rocks, called Bereika [Arabic]. The camel which I rode not being able to proceed farther on account of the rocky road, I left it here in charge of one of the Djebalye. This part of Sinai was completely parched up, no rain having fallen in it during the last winter. W.S.W. from hence, on entering a narrow pa.s.s called Wady Zereigye [Arabic], we found the ground moist, there being a small well, but almost dried up; it would have cost us some time to dig it up to obtain water, which no longer rose above the surface, though it still maintained some verdure around it. This defile was thickly overgrown with fennel, three or four feet high; the Bedouins eat the stalks raw, and pretend that it cools the blood. Farther down we came to two copious springs, most picturesquely situated among the rocks, being overshaded by large wild fig-trees, a great number of which grow in other parts of this district. We descended the Zereigye by windings, and at the end of eight hours reached its lowest extremity, where it joins a narrow valley extending along the foot of Om Shomar, the almost perpendicular cliffs of which now stood before us. The country around is the wildest I had yet seen in these mountains; the devastations of torrents are every where visible, the sides of the mountains being rent by them in numberless directions; the surface of the sharp rocks is blackened by the sun; all vegetation is dry and withered; and the whole

[p.590] scene presents nothing but utter desolation and hopeless barrenness.

We ascended S.E. in the valley of Shomar, winding round the foot of the mountain for about an hour, till we reached the well of Romhan [Arabic], at nine hours from the convent, where we rested. This is a fine spring; high gra.s.s grows in the narrow pa.s.s near it, with several date-trees and a gigantic fig-tree. Just above the well, on the side of the mountain, are the ruins of a convent, called Deir Antous; it was inhabited in the beginning of the last century, and according to the monks, it was the last convent abandoned by them. I found it mentioned in records of the fifteenth century in the convent; it was then one of the princ.i.p.al settlements, and caravans of a.s.ses laden with corn and other provisions pa.s.sed by this place regularly from the convent to Tor, for this is the nearest road to that harbour, though it is more difficult than the more western route, which is now usually followed. The convent consisted of a small solid building, constructed with blocks of granite. I was told that date plantations are found higher up in the valley of Romhan, and that the monks formerly had their gardens there, of which some of the fruit trees still remain.

May 24th.?Early this morning I took Hamd with me to climb the Om Shomar, while the other man went with his gun in pursuit of some mountain-goats which he had seen yesterday at sunset upon the summit of a neighbouring mountain; he was accompanied by another Djebalye, whom we had met by chance. I had promised them a good reward if they should kill a goat, for I did not wish to have them near me, when examining the rocks upon the mountain. It took me an hour and a half to reach the top of Shomar, and I employed three hours in visiting separately all the surrounding heights, but I could no where find the slightest traces of a volcano, or of any volcanic productions, which I have not observed in any part of

[p.591] the upper Sinai. Om Shomar consists of granite, the lower stratum is red, that at the top is almost white, so as to appear from a distance like chalk; this arises from the large proportion of white feldspath in it, and the smallness of the particles of hornblende and mica. In the middle of the mountain, between the granite rocks, I found broad strata of brittle black slate, mixed with layers of quartz and feldspath, and with micaceous schistus. The quartz includes thin strata of mica of the most brilliant white colour, which is quite dazzling in the sun, and forms a striking contrast with the blackened surface of the slate and red granite.

The mountain of Om Shomar rises to a sharp-pointed peak, the highest summit of which, it is, I believe, impossible to reach; the sides being almost perpendicular, and the rock so smooth, as to afford no hold to the foot. I halted at about two hundred feet below it, where a beautiful view opened upon the sea of Suez, and the neighbourhood of Tor, which place was distinctly visible; at our feet extended the wide plain El Kaa. The southern side of this mountain is very abrupt, and there is no secondary chain, like those on the descent from Sinai to the sea, in every other direction. I have already mentioned the low chain called Hemam, which separates the Kaa from the gulf of Suez. In this chain, about five hours from Tor, northward, is the Djebel Nakous, or mountain of the Bell. On its side next the sea a ma.s.s of very fine sand, which has collected there, rushes down at times, and occasions a hollow sound, of which the Bedouins relate many stories; they compare it to the ringing of bells, and a fable is repeated among them, that the bells belong to a convent buried under the sands. The wind and weather are not believed to have any effect upon the sound.

Bearings from Om Shomar.

Tor, W.1.S. The usual road to Tor from the upper Sinai lies through the valley of El Ghor [Arabic], not far distant to the N.W.

WADY RAHABA

[p.592] of Shomar; to the south of El Ghor extends the chain of Djed el Aali [Arabic]; and another valley called El Shedek [Arabic], entered from the Ghor, leads towards the lower plain

Djebel Serbal, N. 1/4 W.

The Djoze, over Feiran, N. 1/2 W.

Om Dhad, N.N.W.

Fera Soweyd [Arabic], a high mountain between Om Shomar and Mount St.

Catherine, N. b. E. It forms one range with the peak of Koly, which branches of from hence, N.E. b. N.

Mountain of Masaoud, E.

Mountain over Wady Kyd, E. 1/4 S.

We took a breakfast after our return to Romhan, and then descended by the same way we had come. In re-ascending Wady Zereigye we heard the report of a gun, and were soon after gratified by seeing our huntsman arrive at the place where we had left our camel, with a fine mountain goat. Immediately on killing it he had skinned it, taken out the entrails, and then put the carcase again into the skin, carrying it on his back, with the skin of the legs tied across his breast. No butcher in Europe can surpa.s.s a Bedouin in skinning an animal quickly; I have seen them strip a camel in less than a quarter of an hour; the entrails are very seldom thrown away; if water is at hand, they are washed, if not, they are roasted over the fire without was.h.i.+ng; the liver and lungs of all animals are usually eaten raw, and many of the hungry bystanders are seen swallowing raw pieces of flesh. After a hearty dinner we descended, by a different path from that we had ascended, into the upper part of Wady Rahaba, in which we continued N.E. b. E. for two or three hours, when we halted at a well called Merdoud [Arabic], at a little distance from several plantations of fruittrees.

My departure from the convent had roused the suspicions of the Bedouins; they had learnt that I was going to Om Shomar, and

WADY OWASZ

[p.593] two of them set out this morning by different routes, in order to intercept my return, intending no doubt to excite a quarrel with me respecting my visits to their mountains, in the hope of extorting money from me. We met one of them at this well, and he talked as loud and was as boisterous as if I had killed some of his kindred, or robbed his tent. After allowing him to vent his rage for half an hour, I began to speak to him in a very lofty tone, of my own importance at Cairo, and of my friends.h.i.+p with the Pasha; concluding by telling him, that the next time he went to Cairo I would have his camel seized by the soldiers.

When he found that he could not intimidate me, he accepted of my invitation to be our guest for the night, and went in search of a neighbouring friend of his, who brought us an earthen pot, in which we cooked the goat.

May 25th.?At one hour below Merdoud we again fell in with Wady Owasz, and returned by the former road to the convent. The monks were in the greatest anxiety about me, for the Bedouins who had gone in search of me, had sworn that they would shoot me; and had even refused a small present offered to them by the Ikonomos to pacify them, expecting, no doubt, to obtain much more from myself; but they now returned, and obliged him to give them what he had offered them, pretending that it was for his sake only that they had spared my life; nor would the monks believe me when I a.s.sured them that I had been in no danger on this occasion.

I pa.s.sed the following four days in the convent, and in several gardens and settlements of Djebalye at a little distance from it. I took this opportunity to look over some of the records of the convent which are written in Arabic, and I extracted several interesting doc.u.ments relative to the state of the Bedouins in former times, and their affrays with the monks. In one, of the last century, is a

CONVENT OF MOUNT SINAI

[p.594] list of the Ghafeyrs of the convent, not belonging to the Towara. These are,

El Rebabein [Arabic], a small tribe belonging to the great Djeheyne tribe of the Hedjaz; a few families of the Rebabein have settled at Moeleh on the Arabian coast, and in the small villages in the vicinity of Tor. They serve as pilots in that part of the Red sea, and protect the convent?s property about Tor.

El Heywat [Arabic], El Syayhe [Arabic], are small tribes living east of Akaba, among the dwelling-places of the Omran. El Reteymat [Arabic], a tribe about Ghaza and Hebron. El Omarein, or Omran. El Hokouk [Arabic], the princ.i.p.al tribe of he Tyaha. El Mesayd [Arabic], a small tribe of the Sherkieh province of Egypt. El Alowein, a strong tribe north of Akaba. El Sowareka [Arabic], in the desert between Sinai and Ghaza. El Terabein. El Howeytat. Oulad el Fokora [Arabic], the princ.i.p.al branch of the tribe of Wahydat near Ghaza. Individuals of all these tribes are ent.i.tled to small yearly stipends and some clothing, and are bound to recover the property of the monks, when seized by any persons of their respective tribes. In one of the ma.n.u.scripts I found the name of a Ghafeyr called Shamoul (Samuel), a Hebrew name I had never before met with among Arabs.

On the 29th, I was visited by Ha.s.san Ibn Amer [Arabic], the Sheikh of the Oulad Said, who is also one of the two princ.i.p.al Sheiks of the Towara, and in whose tent I had slept one night in my way to the convent. He begged me to lend him twenty dollars, which he promised to repay me at Cairo, as he wished to buy some sheep to be killed on the following day in honour of the saint Sheikh Szaleh. I told him that I never lent money to any body, but would willingly have made him a present of the sum if I had possessed it. He then said in many words, that if it had not been for his interference, the Bedouins would have waylaid and

[p.595] killed me in returning from Djebel Katerin. I told him that he and his tribe would have been responsible to the Pasha of Egypt for such an act; and in short that I never paid any tribute in the Pasha?s dominions. It ended by my giving him a few pounds of coffeebeans, wrapped up in a good handkerchief, a few squares of soap, and a loaf of sugar, to present to his women, and thus we parted good friends. In the evening his brother came and also received a few trifles. He had brought a fat sheep to kill in honour of El Khoudher (St. George), a saint of the first cla.s.s among Bedouins, and to whose intercession he thought himself indebted for the recovery of the health of his young wife. In the convent, adjoining to the outer wall, is a chapel dedicated to St.

George; the Bedouins, who are not permitted to enter the convent, address their vows and prayers to him on the outside, just below the chapel. I was invited to partake of the repast prepared by the brother of Sheikh Ha.s.san, and much against the advice of the monks, I let myself down the rope from the window, and sat below for several hours with the Arabs.