DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12664#0305
288
INCIDENTS OP TRAVEL.
dome of the altar contains a coarse but antique
painting of the holy scene. In front, near the
great altar in a coffin covered with rich palls, and
a silver lid, are the bones of St. Catharine, the pa-
troness of the convent. Among the chapels, one, I
remember, is dedicated to Constantine and Helena,
and another to Justinian and his wife ; but the great
object of interest is the holy of holies, the spot
where God appeared to Moses in the burning bush.
A chapel is now erected over it, and the pilgrim, on
entering, hears at this day almost the same words
which God addressed to Moses, " Put thy shoes
from off thy feet, for the ground whereon thou
treadest is holy ground ;" I pulled off my shoes and
followed my conductor. The place is now bediz-
ened with Grecian ornaments; the rude simpli-
city of nature which beheld the interview between
God and his servant is utterly gone, and the burn-
ing bush is the last thing one would think of on the
spot where it grew. There are but few objects of
interest besides. In one of the chapels area copy
of the Evangelists, written in letters of gold by the
Emperor Theodosius, and portraits of the four
evangelists and the twelve apostles, and all the
psalms of David, written in an inconceivably small
space by a young virgin who came out and died
in the desert.
The condition and character of the monks formed
a subject of no little interest for my speculating ob-
servation, and I investigated their habits and dis-
positions as closely as bienseance and my inability
for conversing with them, except through an inter-
INCIDENTS OP TRAVEL.
dome of the altar contains a coarse but antique
painting of the holy scene. In front, near the
great altar in a coffin covered with rich palls, and
a silver lid, are the bones of St. Catharine, the pa-
troness of the convent. Among the chapels, one, I
remember, is dedicated to Constantine and Helena,
and another to Justinian and his wife ; but the great
object of interest is the holy of holies, the spot
where God appeared to Moses in the burning bush.
A chapel is now erected over it, and the pilgrim, on
entering, hears at this day almost the same words
which God addressed to Moses, " Put thy shoes
from off thy feet, for the ground whereon thou
treadest is holy ground ;" I pulled off my shoes and
followed my conductor. The place is now bediz-
ened with Grecian ornaments; the rude simpli-
city of nature which beheld the interview between
God and his servant is utterly gone, and the burn-
ing bush is the last thing one would think of on the
spot where it grew. There are but few objects of
interest besides. In one of the chapels area copy
of the Evangelists, written in letters of gold by the
Emperor Theodosius, and portraits of the four
evangelists and the twelve apostles, and all the
psalms of David, written in an inconceivably small
space by a young virgin who came out and died
in the desert.
The condition and character of the monks formed
a subject of no little interest for my speculating ob-
servation, and I investigated their habits and dis-
positions as closely as bienseance and my inability
for conversing with them, except through an inter-