Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/335

Rh of taking a guide, whose presence was a pledge of their safety, as he was the son of the sheikh of the tribe of Bedaween who claim the wilderness of Judea as their own. Thus breaking camp, one after another our several parties went pricking across the plain to the foot of the hills.

Before we turn our horses' heads to begin the ascent, a singular monument in the distance arrests our attention. As it lies in the direction of the Dead Sea, and is glaring white — it shines like crystal in the morning sun — we might fancy it to be Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt. But no, it looks more like a tomb, and indeed a tomb it is — a shrine which is held in great reverence by the Moslems, as it well may be, considering that it is the tomb of no less a personage than Moses himself! The tomb of Moses? But is it not written that Moses died on Mount Nebo, and that "no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day"? Ah yes, so it was, but so it is no longer. That was said in Old Testament times, when the world did not yet know all the miracles of faith and of credulity. As Sganarelle says, in the play of Molière, the Medécin Malgré Lui, to one who timidly suggests that "the heart is on the left side of the body, and the liver on the right": "Yes, it was so formerly, but we have changed all that." So with Moses. It is true he died on Mount Nebo, and no man knew of his sepulchre, but of course Moses knew himself; and if not comfortable where he was, or if any religious purpose required it, could remove at his will. Accordingly he rose out of his sepulchre, probably in the darkness of the night, and stole down the mountain side and across the plain, to put himself in a position to receive the homage of the faithful, the proof of which is, that at this very moment I see his tomb on a hillock yonder; and since the tomb of Moses is there, it were a wretched unbeliever who should dare to suggest that the body of Moses is not in it! Such is the story of the