according to the same critic, may be the Wady el 'Esh, where there is a spring of good water: a journey of two hours from this point ends in the Wady es Sheikh.

The correspondence of the sites and even of the names on this route, and of the circumstances of the journey, presents a strong if not conclusive argument in its favour, nor is the argument affected by any discoveries made in the late survey. The notes on the text are therefore left in their original form; the writer still retaining, though with some diffidence in face of the opinions of the explorers, his conviction that Knobel is right, so far as this part of the route is concerned.

We have now to consider the other main route. The first day's journey from Ras Abu Zenimeh southwards leads through a narrow slip of barren sand to the open plain of El Markha. From this a Wady at once opens on the east, leading to the Wady Feiran. This route is most unlikely to have been selected by the Israelites: it would have brought them into contact with Egyptians in a district occupied by that people for centuries, nor do the narrow passes present any features corresponding to the wilderness of Sin.

This

On the south, however, a very even and tolerably wide tract of desert land extends through El Markha, and at its southern extremity, by a sudden turn eastwards, through the Wady Feiran just described. tract is identified by the conductors of the survey and by Mr Holland with the wilderness of Sin. They consider it to be the route which Moses would naturally have followed having once reached the station by Ras Selima. The chief objection to this view is that there are no springs of water in the district; to which it is answered that the Israelites who had waggons (see Num. vii. 3) and oxen would of course bring with them a supply, which might suffice for a rapid march until they reached the upper part of the Wady Feiran. The march however was not rapid, since there was a considerable delay, probably a whole week, in the wilderness of Sin. The route then passes north east of Mount Serbal, till it meets the Wady Sheikh, from which point two routes lead to Er Rahah and Ras-Sufsafeh; the one direct, but rough at the upper end; the other circuitous, but well adapted for the march and encampment of the Israelites. In Wady es Sheikh about midway this route meets the upper route previously described.

The question on which the explorers differ is one of great importance. It touches the site of Rephidim, where the Israelites first suffered for want of water, and where they defeated the Amalekites. Captains Wilson and Palmer hold that the battle was fought in the Wady Feiran, under Mount Serbal. Mr. Holland places Rephidim at the pass of Al Watiyeh, at the eastern end of Wady es

Sheikh, to the north of the point where it joins the Wady ed Deir, which leads to Sinai.

If indeed the Israelites passed through Wady Feiran, it seems improbable that they should not have come into collision, with the natives. From El Hesweh it is a wellwatered district, winding for a considerable distance through defiles which could be easily defended by a people who had been trained for warfare by centuries of fierce struggles with the Egyptians: on the adjoining highlands towards Jebel Serbal remains of curious buildings, which undoubtedly belong to a very ancient period, still attest the presence of a numerous population along this route1. The site of the battle with the Amalekites is fixed by Captain Wilson near the ancient city of Feiran. The hill on which Moses witnessed the combat is supposed by Dr Stanley, 'S. and P.' p. 41, to be the rocky eminence which commands the palm-grove, on which in early Christian times stood the church and palace of the bishops of Paran. Captain Wilson holds it to be the Jebel Tahûneh, on the opposite side of the Wady. The whole of the Wady Feiran may have been cleared of the Amalekites by the decisive victory; after which the Israelites halted some time, with their head-quarters under the palm-groves, when they were visited by Jethro. This view assumes the identification of the Mount of God where Moses encamped in the wilderness, c. xviii. 5, with Mount Serbal, a conjecture of Ritter's which seems open to grave objection, since the Mount of God in Exodus is in all probability the group of Sinai, and the term "wilderness" is scarcely applicable to the palm-groves of Feiran. From this place the Israelites might have proceeded to the Wady er Rahah, either by Wady es Sheikh, the longer route, but presenting no impediments; or by the W. Solaf, which though rugged in part is not impracticable, and in Captain Wilson's opinion would most probably have been pursued.

Mr Holland, on the other hand, believes that the Israelites passed through the Wady Feiran without encountering opposition, and that they then traversed the Wady es Sheikh; Rephidim he places at the pass, called El

1 Mr Holland describes them in a paper read at the Church Congress, 1869. After careful examination he came to the conclusion that they were probably the tombs and store-houses of the ancient Amalekites. They evidently were the work of a large and powerful people who inhabited the peninsula at a very early period. There are indications that they were, to some extent, an agricultural, as well as a pastoral people, a point of great importance in its bearings upon the probable condition of the neighbourhood of Mount Sinai at the time of the Exodus. See In

troduction, p. 245. The Egyptian names of the

old inhabitants were Anu and Mentu.

Watiyeh; it is shut in by perpendicular rocks on either side. The Amalekites holding this defile would be in a position of great strength: and their choice of this point for the attack is well accounted for, supposing the Israelites to have reached it without previous molestation. It commands the entrance to the Wadys surrounding the central group of Sinai, on and about which the Bedouins pasture their flocks during the summer. All the requirements of the narrative appear to be satisfied by this assumption. On the north is a large plain destitute of water for the encampment of the Israelites; there is a conspicuous hill to the north of the defile commanding the battle

1 The engravings which accompany this note were supplied by General Sir Henry James, F.R.S.

The first is an accurate representation of a raised model of that group, together with the adjoining Wadys, which is at the Topographical department. The model is on the scale of six

field, presenting a bare cliff, such as we may suppose the rock to have been which Moses struck with his rod. On the south of the pass is another plain sufficient for the encampment of the Amalekites, within easy reach of an abundant supply of water. At the foot of the hill on which Moses most probably sat, if this be Rephidim, the Arabs point out a rock, which they call "the seat of the prophet Moses."

Taking all points into consideration we feel constrained to adopt one of the following alternatives. If, as the explorers hold, the Israelites passed through the Wady Feiran, the conflict with the Amalekites must have taken place on the spot fixed upon by Captains Wilson

inches to the mile, and represents the natural features in their true proportions.

The other is taken from a photograph, which represents the northern end of the Sinaitic group, with Ras-Sufsafeh in the centre, and the extensive plain of the Wady Rahah in front.

and Palmer. If however the battle field was at El Watiyeh the Israelites may have reached it by the upper route, which meets the lower about midway in the Wady es Sheikh. The arguments appear to the writer to preponderate in favour of this view, which accepts all the facts ascertained by the Expedition of Survey, and presents a series of coincidences of great weight in the settlement of the question.

From this point the writer accepts without hesitation the conclusion to which all the persons concerned in the Survey unanimously arrive touching the encampment of the Israelites in the wilderness of Sinai. The representation of the Sinaitic group here given will enable the reader to judge of the weight of the arguments which led to that conclusion.

The opinion which formerly appeared to the writer to be sustained by the strongest evidence identified Jebel Musa with the peak of Sinai. This view was advocated by Ritter. He supposed that on the south of Jebel Musa there is a plain of great extent, the Wady Sebaiyeh, in which the Israelites could assemble in front of the mount. The pyramidal height of Jebel Musa is described as rising over it like a monolithic wall of granite, a sheer precipice of 2000 feet; on the summit the mosque, the Christian chapel, and even the so-called stone of Moses, are seen distinctly from the plain; which Wellsted, Vol. II. p. 34, describes in terms which might have seemed conclusive.

"We crossed a large plain terminating in a broad and extensive valley. It has been objected to the identification of Jebel Musa with Mount Sinai, that the narrow valleys and ravines contiguous to it could not have contained the immense multitude of Israelites. In this valley however there is more than ample space for them: while at the same time at its termination Mount Sinai stands forth in naked majesty." A traveller who spent some time in the neighbourhood lately informed the writer of this note that the description is quite accurate, and that it is the only plain where the host could have been assembled. Tischendorf, who notices the extent of the plain, specially adapted for so great an event, observes that "the situation supplies an excellent illustration of the words in c. xix. 12, ‘that ye go not up unto the mount, nor touch the border of it; for in this plain the mountain can be touched in the literal sense, rising sheer from the plain, standing before the eye from base to summit as a whole;" and again, "Seldom could one so properly be said to stand at the nether part of the mount as in the plain at the foot of Sinai looking upwards to the granite summit 2000 feet high."

The view of Jebel Musa is admitted to be singularly striking. Lepsius says of the ascent that it lies between vast heights and rocks of the wildest and grandest character, giving the

impression of an approach to a spot of his torical interest. The ascent from the chapel of Elijah occupies about three-quarters of an hour to the summit, a height of 7,530 to 7,548 feet. On the top is a level space 70 or 80 feet in width. Travellers give different accounts of the view from this spot. Seetzen and Burckhardt could see nothing; when they visited it the whole district was covered with a dense mist. Robinson speaks slightingly of the effect: and Ruppell says that the view is shut in by higher mountains on all sides except the north, on which he looked over a vast expanse including the desert of Er Ramleh, which is identified in these notes with the wilderness of Sin. Wellsted, however, who explored the district with unusual care, gives a most impressive description of the view. Vol. 11. p. 97. He ascended the mount in very clear weather in January 1833, and took accurate trigonometrical measurements over an extent of 90 miles. "The view comprehends a vast circle. The gulphs of Suez and Akaba were distinctly visible, and from the dark blue waters of the latter the island of Tiran, sacred to Isis, rears itself. Mount Agrib on the other side points to the land of bondage. Before me is St Catherine, its bare conical peak now capped with snow. In magnificence and striking effect few parts of the world can surpass the wild naked scenery everywhere met with in the mountainchain which girds the sea-coast of Arabia. Several years wholly passed in cruising along its shores have rendered all its varieties familiar to me, but I trace no resemblance to any other in that before me: it has a character of its own. Mount Sinai itself and the hills which compose the district in its immediate vicinity, rise in sharp, isolated conical peaks. From their steep and shattered sides huge masses have been splintered, leaving fissures rather than valleys between their remaining portions. These form the highest part of the range of mountains that, spread over the peninsula, are very generally in the winter months covered with snow, the melting of which occasions the torrents which everywhere devastate the plains below. The peculiarities of its conical formation render this district yet more distinct from the adjoining heights which appear in successive ridges beyond it, while the valleys between them are so narrow that they can scarcely be perceived. No villages and castles as in Europe here animate the picture: no forests, lakes, or falls of water break the silence and monotony of the scene. All has the appearance of a vast and desolate wilderness either grey, or darkly brown, or wholly black. Few who stand on the summit of Mount Sinai, and gaze from its fearful height upon the dreary wilderness below, will fail to be impressed with the fitness of the whole scene for the sublime and awful dispensation, which an almost universal tradition declares to have been revealed there." Schubert's description,

identified with Rephidim, and immediately in front the far wider plain Er Rahah; to the left a plain of greater extent than was previously supposed, the Seil Leja. From every part of these two Wadys the granite rock of Ras Sufsafeh is distinctly visible, and there is space for the entire host of the Israelites, taking the highest calculation of their numbers. This fact, of cardinal importance in the question, is attested by the military officers who conducted the survey.

Indeed Sir Henry James concurs with those officers in the opinion that no spot in the world can be pointed out which combines in a more remarkable manner the conditions of a commanding height, and of a plain in every part of which the sights and sounds described in Exodus would reach an assembled multitude of more than two million souls. The description of Ras Sufsafeh, the central height in the subjoined engraving, taken from the photographs, presents many remarkable coincidences; and though inferior in height to the peak of Jebel Musa, it satisfies the main conditions of the narrative.

Dean Stanley, 'S. P.' p. 42-44, has drawn out, with his usual felicity of expression, the most striking characteristics of the scenery. He observes that the existence of such a plain in front of such a cliff is so remarkable a coincidence with the sacred narrative, as to furnish a strong internal argument, not only of its identity with the scene, but of the scene itself having been described by an eye-witness. He then dilates upon other not less impressive circumstances. The awful and lengthened approach as to some natural sanctuary; the plain not broken and narrowly shut in, like almost all others in the range, but presenting a long retiring sweep against which the people could remove and stand afar off; the cliff rising like a huge altar in front of the whole congregation, and visible against the sky in lonely grandeur from end to end of the whole

plain, the very image of the "mount that might be touched," and from which the "voice" of God might be heard far and wide over the stillness of the plain below, widened at that point to the utmost extent by the confluence of all the contiguous valleys; the place where beyond all other parts of the Peninsula is the adytum withdrawn as if in the end of the world from all the stir and confusion of earthly things. We are also indebted to Dean Stanley for noting other details which are fully borne out by the late exploration, and scarcely leave room for doubt as to the exact point of the delivery of the Law. A small eminence at the entrance of the convent valley is marked by the name of Aaron, from which he is believed to have witnessed the festival of the golden calf; a tradition which fixes the locality of the encamption on Wady Rahah. Two other points meet here and nowhere else; first Moses is described as descending the mountain without seeing the people, the shout strikes the ear of his companion before they ascertain the cause; the view breaks on him suddenly as he draws nigh to the camp, and he throws down the tables and dashes them in pieces "beneath the mount:" now any one descending the mountain path by which Ras Sufsafeh is accessible (according to Captain Wilson in three-quarters of an hour to a practised mountaineer) through the oblique gullies which flank it, would hear the sounds borne through the silence of the plain, but would not see the plain itself until he emerged from the lateral Wady; and when he did so he would be immediately under the precipitous cliff of Sufsafeh. The brook which came down from the mount is probably identified with that which flows through the Seil Leja.

Taking all these circumstances into consideration it seems impossible to resist the conclusion that the Law was delivered on Ras Sufsafeh, to the Israelites encamped in the plain below.