Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/118

 been intended for the camp of Israel, and for the hearing of the Law. The impression grows as we advance toward the foot of the Mount, for at each step we pass over the very ground where Israel stood. When my dear and honored friend, President Hitchcock of New York, with Professor Park of Andover, and Henry B. Smith of blessed memory, were here a few years since, they camped the night before reaching Sinai at a distance, but in full view of the summit, and that evening there came up a terrific storm, in which the lightnings and the thunderings vividly recalled the scene in which the Law was given. We had no such sight, neither when we stood afar off, nor yet when we drew nigh unto the Mount where God was. The sky was without a cloud, as if every token of wrath had passed away, and all was peace.

But neither sunshine nor storm could make us abide in tents, if there was a sign of a more stable habitation, and that we were now approaching in the Convent of St. Catherine. For the last hour our eyes had been divided between the mighty cliffs above us, which seemed like the battlements of the city whose walls are "great and high," and a spot of green at the base of the mountain. The Convent does not stand, as I had supposed, high up on the side of Mount Sinai (I had imagined it perched on a cliff overlooking the valley below), but at its foot, and not in front, but on one side between two mountains, where indeed it fills up almost the whole pass, leaving but a few rods more than room for the camel-path that winds around it. In this confined space the monks have made a paradise in the wilderness. As we approached, we were delighted with the sight of blossoming trees. To be sure, there were a few funereal-looking cypresses, which seemed in harmony with the general desolation. But mingled with this dark foliage were trees