Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/218

 the great wall before us rose higher as we advanced across the plain, and even its white, bare cliffs took on a sudden splendor as the setting sun tinged them with the glow of departing day.

And desolate as the region is, it derives interest from the journeyings of the children of Israel. As they moved northward from Sinai, they must have crossed this plain, and scaled that mountain range, which would have been an insurmountable barrier if it had been held by an opposing force: for it is a thousand feet in height, and so steep that, as we look up from below, the cliffs are like the battlements of a walled city. There are but four passes by which they can be ascended. We directed our course to the Pass of Er Rakineh, and when we drew near to the foot of the hills, we pitched our tents, as a prudent soldier sometimes camps for the night in full view of a fortress which he is to attack on the morrow. Here we lay down, as it were, "on our arms," to be ready to spring up at the tap of the drum. The morning brought us its new experiences, which, as we shall see, were not without a charm of their own.

The most picturesque sight on the desert is that of a caravan in motion — a long line of camels, following one another in single file, moving slowly but steadily across the waste, and disappearing on the horizon. The picturesqueness is increased when, as this morning, the camel-line moves up a height which brings it into bolder relief. As our camp was but a short distance from the mountains, we reached them at sunrise, and then took a foot-path, which, as it led directly up the steep, took us to the top in a couple of hours; while the camels, as they carried heavy loads, were obliged to take a more circuitous route, and were an hour longer in making the ascent. But this slow movement gave us one of the most striking scenes we had