ead, and so friable that they crumble to pieces in
the fingers when one attempts to gather them, the spring rains annually
infuse into them new life, and bestow upon them, almost before one's
eyes, a green and perfumed youth of some days' duration. The summits of
the hills remain always naked, and no vegetation softens the ruggedness
of their outlines, or the glare of their colouring. The core of the
peninsula is hewn, as it were, out of a block of granite, in which
white, rose-colour, brown, or black predominate, according to the
quantities of felspar, quartz, or oxides of iron which the rocks
contain. Towards the north, the masses of sandstone which join on to
Gebel et-Tih assume all possible shades of red and grey, from a delicate
lilac neutral tint to dark purple. The tones of colour, although placed
crudely side by side, present nothing jarring nor offensive to the eye;
the sun floods all, and blends them in his light. The Sinaitic peninsula
is at intervals swept, like the desert to the east of Egypt, by terrible
tempests, which denude its mountains and transform its wadys into so
many ephemeral torrents. The Monitu who frequented this region from the
dawn of history did not differ much from the "Lords of the Sands;" they
were of the same type, had the same costume, the same arms, the same
nomadic instincts, and in districts where the soil permitted it, made
similar brief efforts to cultivate it. They worshipped a god and a
goddess whom the Egyptians identified with Horus and Hathor; one of
these appeared to represent the light, perhaps the sun, the other the
heavens. They had discovered at an early period in the sides of the
hills rich metalliferous veins, and strata, bearing precious stones;
from these they learned to extract iron, oxides of copper and manganese,
and turquoises, which they exported to the Delta. The fame of their
riches, carried to the banks of the Nile, excited the cupidity of the
Pharaohs; expeditions started from different points of the valley, swept
down upon the peninsula, and established themselves by main force in the
midst of the districts where the mines lay. These were situated to the
north-west, in the region of sandstone, between the western branch
of Gebel et-Tih and the Gulf of Suez. They were collectively called
Mafkait, the country of turquoises, a fact which accounts for the
application of the local epithet, lady of Mafkait, to Hathor. The
earliest district explored, that which the