DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12664#0301
284
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL-
out; three times it came out the head of a calf;
and then they fell down and worshipped it.
Some distance farther on we passed on our right
a Hebrew burying-ground; "The burial-place,"
said the superior, "of the Israelites who died in
their forty years wandering among the mountains
of Sinai." The old man had heard these things so
long, and had told them so often, and believed
them so firmly, that it would have broken his
heart—besides shaking his confidence in my Chris-
tian principles—if I had intimated the slightest
doubt. I asked whether the Jews ever came in
pilgrimage to the mountain of their fathers; and
.he told me that four years ago, two Asiatic Jews
had come disguised as Europeans, and attempted
to pass themselves as Christians, " but," said the
priest, with a vindictive spirit lighting his usually
mild eye, " I detected them under their sheep's
clothing, and they did not stay long in the con-
vent." Yet I remember seeing on the wall of the
convent, and with no small degree of interest, the
name of an American Jew.
Farther on, turning into a valley which opened
between the mountains on the left, we came to a
garden belonging to the convent, which presented
a strange appearance in the midst of the surround-
ing desolation, producing all kinds of fruits ; where
one might almost wonder to see a blade of grass
put forth, the orange, the date, the fig, and the
vine are growing in rich luxuriance. The soil is
formed from the debris of rocks washed from the
mountains, and though too light for strong pro-
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL-
out; three times it came out the head of a calf;
and then they fell down and worshipped it.
Some distance farther on we passed on our right
a Hebrew burying-ground; "The burial-place,"
said the superior, "of the Israelites who died in
their forty years wandering among the mountains
of Sinai." The old man had heard these things so
long, and had told them so often, and believed
them so firmly, that it would have broken his
heart—besides shaking his confidence in my Chris-
tian principles—if I had intimated the slightest
doubt. I asked whether the Jews ever came in
pilgrimage to the mountain of their fathers; and
.he told me that four years ago, two Asiatic Jews
had come disguised as Europeans, and attempted
to pass themselves as Christians, " but," said the
priest, with a vindictive spirit lighting his usually
mild eye, " I detected them under their sheep's
clothing, and they did not stay long in the con-
vent." Yet I remember seeing on the wall of the
convent, and with no small degree of interest, the
name of an American Jew.
Farther on, turning into a valley which opened
between the mountains on the left, we came to a
garden belonging to the convent, which presented
a strange appearance in the midst of the surround-
ing desolation, producing all kinds of fruits ; where
one might almost wonder to see a blade of grass
put forth, the orange, the date, the fig, and the
vine are growing in rich luxuriance. The soil is
formed from the debris of rocks washed from the
mountains, and though too light for strong pro-