the same monarch. According to Major Felix, the name of Osirtisen I. is found on one of them, whom Wilkinson supposes to have been the patron of Joseph. Not the least singularity about these monuments is the wonderful preservation of the inscriptions upon this soft sandstone, exposed as they have been to the air and weather during the lapse of so many ages. On some of the stones they are quite perfect; on others both the inscription and the stone itself have been worn away deeply by the tooth of time." Vol. I. p. 113.

What could have been the intent of these temples and monumental structures, in the midst of this voiceless solitude? They are not tombs; there is nothing in them resembling the sepulchral monuments of Egypt. Lord Prudhoe has suggested,and we give his hypothesis only from the want of a better,— that this may have been a place of pilgrimage for the ancient Egyptians, just as a mountain near Mecca is to the Mohammedans at the present day; and that to it the Egyptian kings made each his visit, and erected a column with his name. The very mystery of this lonely spot makes it deeply interesting, by "leading back the beholder into the gray mists of high antiquity, and filling him with wonder and awe, as he surveys here, far from the abodes of life, the labors of men unknown, for an object alike unknown."

But the most interesting result of this journey through the Sinaitic region is the probable identification of the spot where the law was given to the ancient people of God. It is well known that tradition early selected Jebel Musa (Mount of Moses) as the place where this august transaction occurred, and for fifteen centuries chapels, crosses and legendary tales have hallowed it in the estimation of those who were too credulous or too ignorant to doubt. On examining this spot, Robinson and Smith found it to possess none of the features most essential to meet the conditions of the sacred narrative. It is comparatively an interior summit, difficult of access even for a small party, and cut off from an extensive prospect by other mountains, and commanding no neighboring plain or other ground, where a multitude could be assembled. Abandoning, therefore, the guidance of tradition for that of the Bible, our travellers arrived at a conclusion satisfactory to themselves, and, we doubt not, to every unprejudiced reader, that the true Sinai is the mountain now called by the monks Horeb,

lying north from Jebel Musa, and overlooking the great plain er-Rahah. Their first view of this plain was when they were on their way to the convent, approaching from the N. W. As they followed the rocky ravine which led into it, the bottom opened gradually, though still shut in on either side by lofty granite ridges with ragged, shattered peaks, a thousand feet high. A fine, broad plain before them sloped gently towards the S. S. E., enclosed by venerable mountains of dark granite,stern, naked, splintered and indescribably grand,-and terminated at the distance of more than a mile, by the broad and awful front of Horeb, rising perpendicularly, in frowning majesty, from twelve to fifteen hundred feet. "It was," says Dr. R. " scene of solemn grandeur wholly unexpected, and such as I had never seen, and the associations which rushed upon our minds were almost overwhelming."

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Obeying the conviction almost forced upon them by this accidental view of the plain er-Râhah, and finding no other area in all the region capable of holding such a multitude as the assembled tribes of Israel, the travellers subsequently explored the adjacent mountain, which they regard as the true Sinai. The almost inaccessible peak which appeared to impend over the plain is called by the Arabs es-Sufsâfeh.

"This cliff rises some five hundred feet above the basin ; and the distance to the summit is more than half a mile. We first attempted to climb the side in a direct course; but found the rock so smooth and precipitous, that after some falls and more exposures, we were obliged to give it up, and clamber upwards along a steep ravine by a more northern and circuitous course. From the head of this ravine, we were able to climb around the face of the northern precipice and reach the top, along the deep hollows worn in the granite by the weather during the lapse of ages, which give to this part, as seen from below, the appearance of architectural ornament.

"The extreme difficulty and even danger of the ascent was well rewarded by the prospect that now opened before us. The whole plain er-Rahah lay spread out beneath our feet, with the adjacent Wadys and mountains; while Wady eshSheikh on the right, and the recess on the left, both connected with and opening broadly from er-Râhah, presented an area which serves nearly to double that of the plain. Our conviction was strengthened, that here or on some one of the adjacent cliffs was the spot, where the Lord 'descended in fire'

and proclaimed the law. Here lay the plain where the whole congregation might be assembled; here was the mount that could be approached and touched, if not forbidden ; and here the mountain brow, where alone the lightnings and the thick cloud would be visible, and the thunders and the voice of the trump be heard, when the Lord came down in the sight of all the people upon Mount Sinai.' We gave ourselves up to the impressions of the awful scene; and read with a feeling that will never be forgotten, the sublime account of the transaction, and the commandments there promulgated, in the original words as recorded by the great Hebrew legislator." Vol. I. pp. 157, 158.

We know of no theory of any intelligent traveller concerning Sinai, which may compete with this in probability. Burckhardt did indeed suggest that Mount Serbal, a peak west from Horeb, is the spot where the law was given, but the Arabs are unanimous in their testimony, that there are no large vallies in the neighborhood where a great multitude could be congregated.

The description given of this wonderful region makes us feel that it was constructed expressly as the grand and peculiar temple where Jehovah would come near to man in the terrors of his majesty as he never had done, nor ever would again while the earth remaineth. He had but one law to give, and he made but one Sinai. Thither he brought his people, far away from the flesh-pots of Egypt and every other human trust, into deserts where they could not get even bread or water except they came directly from heaven; where many a league of shrubless sands and craggy steeps cut them off from the world. And then, when the solemn time arrived, he led them into the inner sanctuary, the secret, holy place, in the upper, central region of Sinai, having but a single feasible entrance. There, upon the mountains whose summits pierce the sky, and whose riven sides are black with the rust of ages, he bowed the heavens and came down, and uttered in the language of mortals the eternal principles of his government.

Although the great desert of Arabia has often been crossed by travellers, and the notices of the routes of Seetzen, Burckhardt and Laborde are of great value, yet no attempt has been previously made to combine these into a general view by any person who had himself been over the ground, and could connect the isolated facts of others by means of his personal exami

nations. This important service Robinson and Smith have performed. From the extended details furnished by them we give the following brief view of the country lying between the Red Sea on the south and Palestine on the north.

The great Arabian Peninsula is divided into two portions by a range of mountains more than four thousand feet high. This range originates east of Suez and runs S. S. easterly, parallel to the coast, to about the latitude of N. 29° 20', where it turns more to the east and crosses the peninsula to the gulf of Akabah. This latter portion is called Jebel et-Tih. Midway between the two gulfs, it gives off two extensive spurs, the first, called also Jebel et-Tih, running N. E., and the other, called Jebel el-Ojmeh, N. N. E. The Desert of Shur and the Wilderness of Sin, through which the Israelites journeyed towards Sinai, lie between the western part of this chain and the gulf of Suez. On the south of et-Tîh, the country sinks down about a thousand feet into an uneven sandy plain, several miles in width, to rise again farther south, first, in broken hills of sandstone, then a belt of greenstone and porphyry, and beyond and above all, a region of granite constituting the proper mountains of Sinai. This last is a vast circular assemblage of summits, cleft and surrounded by a labyrinth of passes. Of these the Wady esh-Sheikh is the principal, and the plain, erRåhah, above mentioned, is simply an expansion of it. The most elevated point in this vicinity is Mount St. Catharine, by barometrical measurement 8068 feet above the sea. Dr. R. concludes that in the Scriptures the name Horeb is applied to this whole cluster, and that Sinai is the name of the particular summit from which the law was given,-exactly contrary to the present application of these names by most commentators.

North of Jebel et-Tih, the whole desert descends towards Palestine. This vast and desolate region has these general features. It is bounded on the east by a deep depression called Wady el-Arabah, from five to twelve miles wide, extending from the gulf of Akabah to the Dead Sea. The region west of this great valley, and north of the range et-Tîh, consists of two long basins, between which rises the spur, Jebel el-Ojmeh. The basin on the west is much the larger, and is drained by the water courses which unite in the great Wady el-Arish, running north to the Mediterranean. The other basin collects the Wadys between et-Tih on the south, el-Ojmeh on the west, and el-Mûkrâh on the north, and is drained by the Wady el

Jerâfeh, which runs N. E. into el-Arabah, towards the Dead Sea. The whole region between el-Jerâfeh and el-Arish, north of the range el-Mükråh, is filled with desolate mountains, which forbid any practicable road across them in the direction of Palestine. This is an important fact, as it goes far towards determining the route of the Israelites, and also that of the Roman road from Akabah to Gaza.

The particular stations of the Israelites cannot of course be determined; but from these volumes we derive an unexpected degree of satisfaction concerning their probable general course of travel. The sources of this probability are such as these. The physical character of a supposed station,-expressly described, or implied in the sacred narrative; its distance from some known point; the similarity of its Arabic name to the ancient Hebrew; or a concurrence of all these particulars goes to determine a few localities. These points being fixed, the progress of the Israelites from one to another is sometimes limited to certain roads by the physical character of the country,—the mountains and passes. Thus Sinai and Kadesh Barnea are two points whose relative position are known, and from the former there are two great routes leading in the direction of the latter. The western route leads over the elevated desert, and the eastern through the Wady el-Arabah. In their journey from Sinai, the third station of the Israelites was at Hazeroth. Burckhardt suggests-and Dr. Robinson concurs with him—that this name still exists, at the proper distance from Sinai, in the Arabic name of the fountain, 'Ain-Hudherâh. If this be admitted, the track of the Israelites was probably by way of the gulf of Elath, and through the Arabah, since the sacred writer seems to imply that their course led along Mount Seir (Deut. 1:2). Had they taken a route farther to the west, and passed around the range el-Mukrâh, they would have arrived on the borders of Palestine at Beersheba, instead of Kadesh Barnea, which lay on the borders of Edom. By evidence such as this, also, Dr. R. is satisfied that the Roman road from Akabah to Gaza must have led up from the Wady el-Arabah to the desert, and passed west of Jebel el-Mukrâh, and so on to Gaza. Indeed the nature of the ground compels the great routes leading north from Akabah to meet in the middle of the desert, in order to pass together around the range above mentioned. The route of the Roman road must have been determined by these physical causes. Consequently, with the distances laid down on the