Page:Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile - In the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, 1771, 1772, and 1773 volume 1.djvu/340

232 country which runs all along the Red Sea; and the Israelites were ordered to encamp at Pihahiroth, opposite to Baal-zephon, between Migdol and that sea.

will be necessary to explain these names. Badeah, Dr Shaw interprets, the Valley of the Miracle, but this is forcing an etymology, for there was yet no miracle wrought, nor was there ever any in the valley. But Badeah, means barren, bare and uninhabited; such as we may imagine a valley between stony mountains, a desert valley. Jibbel Attakah, he translates also, the Mountain of Deliverance. But so far were the Israelites from being delivered on their arrival at this mountain, that they were then in the greatest distress and danger. Attakah, means, however, to arrive or come up with, either because there they arrived within sight of the Red Sea; or, as I am rather inclined to think, this place took its name from the arrival of Pharaoh, or his coming in sight of the Israelites, when encamped between Migdol and the Red Sea.

is the mouth of the valley, opening to the flat country and the sea, as I have already said, such are called Mouths; in the Arabic, Fum; as I have observed in my journey to Cosseir, where the opening of the valley is called Fum el Beder, the mouth of Beder; Fum el Terfowey, the mouth of Terfowey. Hhoreth, the flat country along the Red Sea, is so called from Hhor, a narrow valley where torrents run, occasioned by sudden irregular showers. Such we have already described on the east side of the mountains, bordering upon that narrow flat country along the Red Sea, where temporary showers fall in great abundance, while none of them touch the west side of the mountains or valley of Egypt,