Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/127

 back, by the Angel Gabriel! Of two miracles, the true believer will always choose the greater. Some of the Christian traditions which have gathered about Mount Sinai are hardly more worthy of credit. The attempt of the monks to localize every event has led to many designations which are quite absurd. Still we cannot repress some degree of feeling as we creep into a cleft of the rock in which it is said Moses hid himself when the Lord passed by; or into the reputed cave in which Elijah hid himself when he fled from the wrath of Jezebel, after he had slain the prophets of Baal.

From Jebel Mousa we descended to a valley midway between it and another peak which is now more commonly believed to have been the Mount of the Law. Here in a pass between rocks, under a huge granite boulder, is a spring of water which the Arabs say never fails. It was very grateful in the heat of the day, especially as we found snow in a cleft of the rocks, which, added to the natural coldness of the spring, gave us ice water on Mount Sinai. Here we rested for some minutes, bathing our foreheads, before we began another mountain climb. This valley contains a remarkable willow, which gives to the mountain before us the name of Ras Sufsafeh, the Mountain of the Willow; and well entitled it is to such an honor, if what the monks tell us be true, that it is the very one from which Moses cut the rod with which he smote the rock and made the waters flow! How they know that the tree was a willow, it is for them to say, or how it should possess such remarkable vitality that it has been preserved to this day. It looks as if it might be fifty years old!

At the willow Dr. Post left me for an hour, to make a different ascent. Near to Ras Sufsafeh is a second peak which commands the same sight of Er Rahah in front, and