4. The late Dr. Beke of England broached the theory that Sinai was not in the peninsula at all, but east of the Gulf of Akabah,a position that carries its refutation on its own face. In order to accommodate it. he did not hesitate to remove the Mizraiin.ox " Egypt" of the Bil)le, into the peninsula. He finally made a visit to the region, and imagined he discovered the requisite local-
ity in Jebel Xiira, up Wady Ithm, a short distance from Akabali ; an<l akliough the main object of his jour- nej', which was to prove " Mount Sinai a volcano," was effectually exploded by the facts on the spot, he still maintained liis general views as stoutly as ever, but without the concurrence of a single writer of note. Soon after his return he died of fatigue and disappointment, and his widow has published the notes of his journey with more affection than discretion {Sinai in Arabia [Lond. 1878]).
IV. Description of the Region. — The physical features of the peninsula are broadly and deeply marked. In form a triangle, it is shut in on two sides by the gulfs of Akabah and Suez, and on the third by the desert of Tih. Within these outer barriers are others, enclosing what may be termed the shrine. Along the southern edge of Tih runs, like a vast wall, a bare limestone ridge; and south of it again is a parallel belt of sandy plain, appro- priately termed Debbet er-Ramleh. A naked gravelly plain called El-Kaa extends along the whole shore of the Gulf of Suez. Between El-Kaa, Debbet er-Ramleh, and the Gulf of Akabah lies a group of mountains, tri- angular in shape, which forms, as it were, the nucleus of the peninsula, and is now called emphatically El-Tor, " the mountains." On the north and west the group has projecting buttresses of ruddy sandstone, on which most of the inscriptions in the "written valley" are traced ; but the main body and all the loftiest peaks are granite, and exhibit a variety of coloring — red, yellow, pur|)le, and green — making them objects of singular beauty when bathed in the bright sunshine. They are all, however, naked and desolate. As the e^'e wanders over their riven sides and up their jagged peaks, not a tree, not a shrub, not a blade of grass is seen (see Olin, Travels, \,SS9). Rugged passes, almost as bare and dry and desolate as the granite cliffs over- head, wind from the outer borders up into the centre of the group. On penetrating these ravines, a few acacias are here and there seen in a cranny of the rocks, and a clump of wild palms is occasionally met with fringing a well or fountain. In the heart of these moiuitains, in nature's profoundcst solitude, amid scener}- unsurpassed for wild and stern grandeur, history, tradition, and ge- ography have combined to locate Sinai, "the mount of the Lord," and all those wondriius events which were enacted round it.
The Sinaitic group has been arranged (Stanley, Sin. and Pal. p. 11) in tliree chief masses as follows: (1.) The north-western cluster above Wady Feiran; its greatest relief foimd in the five-peaked ridge of Serbal, at a height of 6342 feet above the sea. (For an ac- coinit of the singular natural basin into which the wa- ters of this portion of the mountain mass are received, and its probable connection with scriptural topography, see Rephidim.) (2.) The eastern and central one; its highest point the Jebel Katherin, at a height of 8063 (Rlippell) to 8168 (Russegger) feet, and including the Jebel Miisa, the height of which is variously set (by Schubert, Riippell, and Russegger) at 6796, 7033, and 7097 feet. (3.) The south-eastern one, closely connect- ed, however, with 2; its highest point, Um Sliainner, being that also of the whole. The three last-named peaks all lie very nearly in a line of about nine miles drawn from the most northerly of them, Miisa, a little to the west of south; and a perpendicular to this line, traced on the map westward for about twenty miles, nearly traverses the whole lengtli of the range of Ver- bal. These lines show the area of greatest relief for the peninsula, nearly equidistant from each of its em- bracing gulfs, and also from its northern base, the range of Et-Tih, and its southern apex, the Riis Mohammed.
The vegetation of the peninsula is most copious at El-Wady. near Tur, on the coast of the Gulf of Suez, in Wady Feiran, the two oases of its waste, and "in the nucleus of springs in the (icbel iVIousa" (Stanley, p. 19). As regards its fauna, Seetzen (iii, 20) mentions the fol- lowing animals as found at Er-Ramleh, near Sinai : the
SIXAI
772
SIXAI CODEX
ItieM uutuiis f s 11 11 (Iiomamodel
wild Roat, the wubber, hjena, fox, hare, gazelle, pan- ther (rare), tiekl-moiise (el-jurdy, like a jerboa), and a lizard called el-dsob, which is eaten. See Wilder- ness OF THK WaNDKHING.
It is a remarkable fact that Sinai never became a place of Jewish pilfjtrimago. Elijah went there, but it was at the command of God, and to escape the ven- geance of Jezebel. It has been thought possible that Paid may have visited Sinai (Gal. i, 17) and been familiar witii the name //njiir as given commonly to it, signify- ing '• a rock" (Ewald, Sendschreihcn, p. 4!)3). At a very early period, however, in the Christian icra, Sinai began to be an oljject of reverence. It ap|)ears that refugees from persecution in Egypt tirst sought an asylum amid tlifc mountains. Anchorets consecpiently Hocked to it, and convents were at length founded. The )ioor monks had hard fare, and were exposcul during a long course of ages to persecutions and fearful massacres at the hands of the wild nomads. In the early part of the Cth centur}' the emi)eror Justinian caused a church to be erected, and a fortilied convent to be built round it to protect the monks from the incursions of ilie Ish- maelites. It is the present Convent of St. t'athcrine. The number of resident monks is now usually about twenty-four, tliough in the 14th century it is said to have been as high as four hundred. They arc ruled by a prior, but there is an archbishop wlio always resides at Constantinople, and is one of the four independent archbishops of the (ireek Church. The lil)rary of the Convent contains some l.'jIlO printed books, and about 700 maimscripis. A ft^w of the latter are of great antiipiity and value. Among them Tischendorf discovered, in the year 1859, tlie celebrated Codex iSinailicus (q. v,).