Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/112

 

COMING TO THE FOOT OF SINAI.

That ascent of Serbal nearly finished me. It took about as long to descend as to ascend, and the descent was hardly less fatiguing. The next morning I awoke with not quite the elation I had the day before, but rather feeling as if I had been beaten from head to foot; as if, forsooth, one of the old monks, who had been laid to rest a thousand years ago, enraged to have his sleep disturbed, had crawled out of his cell and crept down the mountain side to administer to an intruder the discipline of flagellation. However, I "picked myself up" and began to "pull myself together," and found that there was something of me left, and none the worse for a little rough experience. I find generally that what costs nothing is worth nothing; and so, if this mountain climb had cost a good deal, it was worth it all in visions and memories which it left behind, which can hardly fade as long as mind and memory endure. Amid the lighter impressions of the scene (as a contrast and relief to those which were more grand and sombre), there was a glimpse of our Arab companions which was not unpleasing. When we first looked down from the top of Serbal, it seemed as if we were looking into the burnt-out crater of a volcano, where all animate existence was extinguished. But it was not utterly destitute of life. With a spy-glass, one could detect the signs of human habitation. In the foreground was the camp which we had left at daylight in the morning, and