Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/187

 the Mosaic narrative. The Convent itself, as an historic pile, is more interesting than any ancient castle. It is perhaps the oldest Convent in existence. Though founded only in 555 by the Emperor Justinian, yet more than two centuries before, the Empress Helena, the mother of Constantine, had erected a chapel over the site of the Burning Bush. At that early day pilgrims crossed the desert, and monks built their cells in the rocks, and made the valley resound with their anthems and their prayers. Where a church was built, of course a fortress must be built beside it for its protection. The bloody hand of Mahomet could not always protect it against the fierce tribes of the Peninsula. The Convent has always been a post of danger, as it was on the border-line between two religions — Islam and Christianity — or rather, in the territory of the enemy, where it stood as a solitary citadel of the faith. It has often had to stand a siege, when nothing but its walls and towers kept it from destruction. But if those were days of peril without, they were days of prosperity within. Looking round the interior of the Convent, I observed that it was surrounded with a corridor on each story, upon which the cells of the monks opened, and in those days there were hundreds within its walls. Ah me! how the glory of the former dispensation has departed, when now there are but little over a score to keep up its round of services, and perpetuate the traditions of many generations.

As we came back to the Convent after our excursion, it was no longer with the feeling we had the first day, when we were strangers and pilgrims. We now felt that we were coming home, for we had become quite domesticated in the ancient monastery. The good monks had done everything to make us comfortable. Beside our rooms, they had given up to us the large reception-room of the Convent, in which they left us undisturbed. They