DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12664#0265
252
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
end of the world," stood the towering mountains
of Sinai. At the other end of the plain the moun-
tains contracted, and on one side was an immense
block of porphyry, which had fallen, probably, thou-
sands of years ago. I could still see where it had
come leaping and crashing down the mountain-
side, and trace its destructive course to the very
spot where it now lay, itself almost a mountain,
though a mere pebble when compared with the
giant from which it came. I pitched my tent by
its side, with the door open to the holy mountain,
as many a weary pilgrim had done before me.
The rock was covered with inscriptions; hut I
could not read them. I walked round and round
it with Paul at my elbow, looking eagerly for some
small scrap, a single line, in a language we could
read ; but all were strange, and at length we gave
up the search. In several places in the wilder-
ness of Sinai the rocks are filled with inscriptions,
supposed to have been made by the Jews ; and find-
ing those before me utterly beyond my compre-
hension, I resolved to carry them back to a re-
spectable antiquity, and in many of the worn and
faded characters to recognise the work of some
wandering Israelite. I meditated, also, a despe-
rate but noble deed. Those who had written be-
fore me were long since dead; but in this lonely
desert they had left a record of themselves and of
their language. I resolved to add one of my coun-
try's also. Dwelling fondly in imagination upon
the absorbing interest with which some future trav-
eller, perhaps from my own distant land, would
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
end of the world," stood the towering mountains
of Sinai. At the other end of the plain the moun-
tains contracted, and on one side was an immense
block of porphyry, which had fallen, probably, thou-
sands of years ago. I could still see where it had
come leaping and crashing down the mountain-
side, and trace its destructive course to the very
spot where it now lay, itself almost a mountain,
though a mere pebble when compared with the
giant from which it came. I pitched my tent by
its side, with the door open to the holy mountain,
as many a weary pilgrim had done before me.
The rock was covered with inscriptions; hut I
could not read them. I walked round and round
it with Paul at my elbow, looking eagerly for some
small scrap, a single line, in a language we could
read ; but all were strange, and at length we gave
up the search. In several places in the wilder-
ness of Sinai the rocks are filled with inscriptions,
supposed to have been made by the Jews ; and find-
ing those before me utterly beyond my compre-
hension, I resolved to carry them back to a re-
spectable antiquity, and in many of the worn and
faded characters to recognise the work of some
wandering Israelite. I meditated, also, a despe-
rate but noble deed. Those who had written be-
fore me were long since dead; but in this lonely
desert they had left a record of themselves and of
their language. I resolved to add one of my coun-
try's also. Dwelling fondly in imagination upon
the absorbing interest with which some future trav-
eller, perhaps from my own distant land, would