Page:Buried cities and Bible countries (1891).djvu/92

 so far as they relate to discoveries of ruins and relics of the past.

The mining district of the peninsula of Sinai became subject to Egyptian rule at a very early time—probably some 3200 years before the Christian era—and the sculptured records of their occupation spread over a period of some 2000 years. On tablets at the mouth of one of the caves at Maghárah, King Senefru and his successor Cheops (who built the Great Pyramid) are represented, the one conquering a shepherd of the East, the other striking to the earth an Asiatic foe. "On the opposite cliffs" (says Major Palmer) "are the remains of the ancient settlement, comprising the dwellings of the miners, who probably were prisoners of war, and the barracks of their military guards. Flint and stone implements, such as arrow-heads and spear-heads, flint chisels and knives, and rude hammer-heads of greenstone, are found amongst these ruins."

At Sarábit el Khádim, ten or twelve miles further inland, where a new field of mining was discovered about the time that Maghárah began to show signs of exhaustion, there are ruins of two temples, built of well-cut stone, without mortar, the walls and vestibule being covered with Egyptian scenes.

But we are chiefly concerned to know whether any traces emain of the Israelitish Sojourn, and especially any of a character to throw additional light on Scripture. Of course a wandering people, dwelling in tents, would not leave evidence of their passage in buried cities; and what we have rather to look for is deserted camps. One such camp at least is reasonably identified now as Kibroth Hattaavah, where the people were fed with quails (Num. xi. 33). The Scripture narrative says that they journeyed thence to Hazeroth, and abode there. About thirty miles north-east of Jebel Musa, at a spot called Erweis el Ebeirig, are some old stone remains to which a legend attaches