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| 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 331 |
| Format (IMT) |
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| File Name | exotic_201304_015_357.jpg |
| Transcript | SINAI. the Mountain of the Law, and Feiran, near the ruins of the episcopal city (see j j\ be the scene of the great battle with the Amalekites, the Israelites would have been practicall) near and as well in sight of the mountain in an encampment placed at the foot of [ebel Tahuneh as if they had moved on six or seven miles to the head of Wady Feiran, near El Buweib, the •gate." This is a very short and apparently unnecessary march. The vin 1, and Amalek in retreat, it would seem natural-it would be almost a necessity that the \^YAr\\\< should occupy at once the whole oasis. There is no open plain, and the bed of the valley is filled even now, as we have sai'd, with flourishing groves of palms and tamarisks, which at thai date were probably much more abundant.—Some days would be spent in this encampment called Rephidim, as there were distant settlements and villages of the Amalekites to be reconnoitred. Then would come the move forward to the ground immediately surroundil [ebel Musa (which we may safely designate " the Desert of Sinai"), because [ehovah was to be worshipped there. But from Feiran proper—that is, from the episcopal city of Pharan Jebel Musa could hardly be reached by any large body of people, encumbered with baggage, in a daj h ! Ihe road is comparatively broad and open up to Nagb Hawa; it is a distance, howev< the crow flies, of some sixteen miles, which means twenty-two or twenty three through the windin of the valleys : Nagb Hawa, moreover, would have to be reckoned il ihe requirements <>i the Exodus narrative demand that the Desert of Sinai be reached the same day as Rephidim oi I < iran is left--as the gate, and so the commencement of this Sinai wilder] ( >i course all this becomes simple, if it is conceded that the principal encampments only are mentioned bj Moses, and that halting-places merely for the night are not included always in his itinerai unless some village or well-marked spot be reached. There is another way out of the difficulty, suggested by Professor Palmer, which may set at rest the scruples of those who insist on regarding the passage in the Book of Numbers as positively specifying each days cam] ground. He tells us that—" It is quite possible that Moses and the chiefs of the elder the short road through the pass (Nagb Hawa), leaving the rest of the caravan, with the heavy baggage, to follow them round Wady es Sheikh, and come into camp next morning. Captain Wilson and myself, being desirous on one occasion of pushing on to Jebel Musa bj certain day, actually adopted this expedient." —There is something like special pleading in another suggestion of his, that the Israelites may have made a forced march, and ha crowded the toil of nearly two days' march into twenty-four hours. Arabs travelling air accustomed, it is true, to make tremendous marches in their own country "a dreary land of death, beset by drought and danger." Palgrave commences the story of his great journey with a careful description of the incidents of a days march : " And now began a march during which we might have almost repented of our enterprise, had such a sentiment been any longer possible or availing. Day after day found us urging our camels to their utmost pace for fifteen or sixteen hours together out of the twenty-four, under a well-nigh vertical sun, which the Ethiopians of •l<-rodotus might reasonably be excused for cursing, with nothing either in lie landscape around |