Title | Picturesque Palestine, Sinai, and Egypt, Vol. 2 |
Creator (LCNAF) |
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Publisher | D. Appleton and Company |
Date | 1883 |
Description | Index: Phoenicia and Lebanon / by the Rev. H. W. Jessup -- The Phoenician plain / by the Rev. Canon Tristram -- Acre, the key of Palestine, Mount Carmel and the river Kishon, Maritime cities and plains of Palestine / by Miss M. E. Rogers -- Lydda and Ramleh, Philistia / By Lt. Col. Warren -- The south country of Judaea / by the Rev. Canon Tristram -- The southern borderland and Dead Sea / by Professor Palmer -- Mount Hor and the cliffs of Edom, The convent of St. Catherine / by Miss M. E. Rogers -- Sinai / by the Rev. C. P. Clarke -- The land of Goshen, Cairo, Memphis, Thebes, Edfu and Philae / by S. Lane-Poole. |
Subject.Geographic (TGN) |
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Genre (AAT) |
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Language | English |
Type (DCMI) |
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Original Item Location | DS107 .W73 v.2 |
Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b1703789~S11 |
Digital Collection | Exotic Impressions: Views of Foreign Lands |
Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/exotic |
Repository | Kenneth Franzheim II Rare Books Room, William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library, University of Houston Libraries |
Repository URL | http://info.lib.uh.edu/about/campus-libraries-collections/william-r-jenkins-architecture-art-library |
Use and Reproduction | No Copyright - United States |
Identifier | exotic_201304_015 |
Title | Page 321 |
Format (IMT) |
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File Name | exotic_201304_015_347.jpg |
Transcript | SINAI. we v eking. Descending into the ravine we made a careful examination of these, and then partially retracing our steps we went out on to a projecting spur of the hill behind it another glen, still wilder and more beautiful than that which we had left, and also filled with ruined monkish dwellings and garden wall-. 1 ooking the w. too, we saw a third ravine, with palm-trees and tall rushes peeping above its winding walls, and evidently containing similar dwellings to those beneath us. since the road along the mountain-side leading to it was the counterpart of that by which we had OUI the ruins. Southward was the Wady Sigilliyeh—far awaj in the distant the narrow gorge whose difficulties we had so recently experienced ami beyond this stretched the burning plain El G&'ah. A more wildly picturesque and secluded retreat than th would be difficult to conceive, and with the luxuriant vegetation that tills the w4dj bed, and the almost inaccessible .nature of the place, it forms the very ideal of a Bedawi Happ) \ Judging from the fact that we found numerous Sinaitic inscriptions at the bott in \\ad\' er Rimm, that is, as far as camels could have been brought when th< better kept, and none at all after the part at which the real difficulties -I ih< commence, 1 should conclude that the Saracen carriers gave in at thi> point, allowing the worthy monks to fetch their stores over the mountains themselves, and wee pied in the interval with carving their autographs upon the ro ince no other mischiei for their idle hands to do." (l Desert of the Exodus," | Here, then, in a space measuring less than a square mile, are situated the ruins of t) Convents, By the difficult gorge leading from the plain into \\'.id\ Sigill 1 l.y ti through Wady er Rimm, are the only apparent approaches to them. In Principal I ullo, i "Pascal" there is a description of Port Royal, which, far removed, indeed, b) its IIO nations, suggests to us something of the life which should have animate,] ih< I 1 Serbal. "The famous valley of Port Royal lay before us. It [uiel .md , gloomy scene. The seclusion was perfect No hum of cheerful industry enlivened the desolate space. An air rather as of long-continued neglect rested on mine and terraces, on farmhouse and dovecot, and the remains as of a chapel nearer at hand. 1 he more minutely the eye took in the scene, the more sad seemed its wasted nd the monuments of its departed glories. The stillness as of a buried past lay all about, and it required an effort of imagination to people the valley with the sacred activi: the nteenth century. A rough wooden enclosure has been erected on the site ol the high altar. surmounted by a cross It was here alone that the reclu- the m Grange met the sainted sisterhood, and mingled with them the- pra Otherwise they dwelt apart each in diligent privacy, intent on their tforks of I Charity. All the ruin and decay and somewhat dreary enc COllM not Ac life of thought and faith and hope and love that ha breathed there; and I* e had I felt so deeply the enduring reality of the spiritual h ** glory of suffering and of goodness, that had made the spot » |