Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/186

 

LIFE IN A CONVENT.

We had been musing so long on the past that we had almost forgotten the present, when suddenly a stroke of the Convent bell recalled us to our situation. Our time at the foot of Sinai was drawing to a close. We must go out once more upon the plain, and look upon the face of the Mount that might be touched. "Yohanna, order the camels!" We mounted, and rode out to survey again the plain of Er Rahah; and every time we turned and looked upward, the impression was confirmed that the height above us was indeed the Mount of God. Approaching still nearer, we drew up at its very foot, and looked aloft at the tremendous cliffs which hung over us. Perhaps some knowledge of this was in the mind of John when in his vision of the Judgment he saw the guilty calling upon the rocks and mountains to fall upon them, and hide them from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne. Following a course round the mountain in front, as we had followed one on the other side to ascend Jebel Mousa, we entered the Wady Leja, where are traces of ancient occupation, for thither pilgrims came, and monks made their abode, as early as the fourth century, and there in time arose a monastery, which afterwards received the name of the Forty Martyrs, because of the number of those who fell in a massacre.

The region about Sinai is full of such historical associations, which give it an interest only second to that given by