solemnity, and I seated myself to transfer some of its remarkable
features to the pages of my portfolio.

"'I remained at work until nearly sunset, when I discovered people
coming towards me through the dark ravine between the mountain of Sinai
and the craggy spurs which shoot up around its base. I feared they might
prove to be unfriendly Arabs; but, as they came nearer I discovered them
to be my companions and their guides, who were returning from Mount St.
Catharine. As the shades of evening were approaching, I shut up my
portfolio, and descending the hillside, I joined my friends, and we
returned together to the convent. After dinner, they desired to see what
I had done during the day, and my sketch-book was opened to them. They
remarked, on seeing the drawing I had made, that as there was no plain
on the southern border of the mountain, I might as well have left out
the one seen in the drawing. After my assurance that I had copied what
was before me, they laughed, and remarked that none but a painter's
imagination could have seen the plain in question, for they had passed
entirely around the mountain that day, and could assert _positively_
that there was no such plain. Here was a difference of opinion
certainly, and one that I did not relish much, as it might at some
future time be the means of creating a doubt as to the faithfulness of
my eastern drawings. I begged them, therefore, to accompany me the next
day to that side of the mountain, and be convinced of what I told them.
They remarked that all authority was against me, and time was too
precious to go over the same ground twice.'"

"It seems that one of them, however, accompanied the writer in his
further exploration of the ensuing day, for he uses the plural number,
and speaks of his 'friend.' We thus condense his statements: One day
(7th March) is described as having been spent in Wady es-Sabaiyeh, or
the plain before Mount Sinai. After having penetrated into this wady, he
says: 'We took our course along the base of Jebel Deir, until we came to
a point whence the peak of Sinai was no longer visible, because of the
intervening point of Jebel Deir; then striking across Sebaiyeh to the
right, keeping Sinai in view, we stopped to contemplate the scene. Here
the plain is very wide, and forms one with Wady Sedout, which enters it
from the south-east at a very acute angle, and in the whole of which
Sinai is plainly visible. These two wadys make a width of at least