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SINAI 303
"Mountain of the'Windmill "). It is not a high mountain-some seven hundred feet only of
scramble—but its position is marvellous! The beautiful valley meanders at its feet with the
limpid stream flowing past the ruins of the ancient city; beyond and right in front, over-
poweringly grand, is seen the whole form of Serbal: to the north there is a mighty basin of red
rocks, out of and above which the tall peak of Jebel el Benat rears itself; while, far away to the
south-east, is seen the long range of the Jebel Musa mountains, blue against a deeper blue sky.
Jebel Tahiineh is the mountain from which traditionally Moses viewed the battle with
Amalek, climbing up to it by a path which commences just before the grove of El Hesweh is
reached. The tradition as to this site was current in the days of Antoninus Martyr
(circ. a.d. 600), for in his Itinerary he says: "So we came to the city of Pharan" (this translation occurs in the Appendix to the "Desert of the Exodus"), "where Moses fought with
Amalek, where is an oratory whose altar is set on those stones which, while Moses was praying,
they put under him. In this very place is the city, fortified with walls of brick, and a place very
barren, except in the neighbourhood of the wells." If Feiran be Rephidim, no hill to which
Moses would have access could be so suitable. He would have before him the whole plan of
the Amalekite defence in the two valleys, Feiran and 'Aleyat, and from here he would be seen
by the advancing Israelites with his hands upraised to heaven till the sun w*ent down.
Of course there is no way of estimating the numbers of the Amalekites. At this present
time the Bedawin of Sinai number, according to their own accounts, about four thousand males ;
for the Arab does not count the females nor the younger boys of his family in a census of the
tribe. As to the arms used by them, one may make a conjecture from the descriptions of the
wars of the Egyptian kings, from the bas-reliefs, &c, of the tombs and temples of Egypt, and
from passages in the Bible itself. They had their weapons of the chase—the bow and arrow,
such as Esau used, or the sling, so commonly seen now in Upper Egypt. These were used
as weapons of war, in addition to spear and sword and shield. Swords and spears were the
principal weapons in later times, and are made memorable in the wars between the Israelites
and Philistines. The Egyptian infantry at this period (for we need not consider the horsemen
and chariots) were divided and classified as bowmen, spearmen, swordmen, clubmen, and
slingers. Their various defensive arms consisted of bow, spear, two species of javelin, sling
(the sling was a thong of leather or string, plaited like those used to drive away the birds from
the corn-fields of Upper Egypt, broad in the middle, and having a loop at one end by which
it was fixed upon and firmly held with the hand, the other extremity terminating in a lash,
which escaped from the finger as the stone was thrown), a short and straight sword, dagger,
knife, falchion, axe or hatchet, battle-axe, pole-axe, mace or club, and a curved stick, like those
in use now amongst Egyptians and Arabs, and called lissan, "tongue." The falchion, a short
sword of a curious curved shape, must have been a most formidable weapon, as also the axe,
which Ramses IL is seen so often to wield, when with gigantic force he smites his smiling enemies.
The curved stick seems the most insignificant of these arms, but it is not so. It is about two
and a half feet long, and made of tough acacia or other hard wood ; and tribes who are armed |
