Part 46

We had another shower in the night; flying showers are frequent during the summer, but they are never sufficiently copious in that season to produce torrents.

May 18th left the tent before dawn, and proceeded along a Wady and then N.W. up an ascent, whose summit we reached in two hours. From thence a fine view opened upon a broad Wady called Sebaye [Arabic], and towards the mountain of Tyh. We crossed Wady Sebaye, and then ascended the mountain which commands the convent on the south side, and descending again, reached the convent at the end of three hours and a half. Our march during the whole of this journey had been slow, except on the day of our flight from the robbers; for our camels were weak and tired, and one of us usually walked. There is a more northern road from Sherm to the convent, which branches off from that by which we came, at Wady Orta; it passes by the two watering places of Naszeb [Arabic], and Ara- yne [Arabic]; the former, which is in a fruitful valley, where date- trees grow, must not be confounded with the western Naszeb, already mentioned.

Hamd, afraid of being liable to pay the fine of blood, if it should become known that the robber had fallen by his hand, had

CONVENT OF MOUNT SINAI

Had Hamd, whom every one knew to be the person who had stabbed the robber, refused to pay the fine, the Omran would sooner or later have retaliated upon himself or his relations, or perhaps upon some other individual of his tribe, according to the custom of these Bedouins, who have established among themselves the law of “striking sideways.”[See my remarks on the customs of blood-revenge, in the description of Bedouin manners.]

The convent contains eight or ten small court-yards, some of which are neatly laid out in beds of flowers and vegetables; a few date-trees and cypresses also grow there, and great numbers of vines. The distribution of the interior is very irregular, and could not be otherwise, considering the slope upon which the building stands; but the whole is very clean and neat. There are a great number of small rooms, in the lower and upper stories, most of which are at present unoccupied. The principal building in the interior is the great church, which, as well as the convent, was built by the Emperor Justinian, but it has subsequently undergone frequent repairs. The form of the church is an oblong square, the roof is supported by a double row of fine granite pillars, which have been covered with a coat of white plaster, perhaps because the natural colour of the stone was not agreeeble to the monks, who saw granite on every side of them. The capitals of the columns are of different designs; several of them bear a resemblance to palm branches, while others

The church contains the coffin in which the bones of saint Catherine were collected from the neighbouring mountain of St. Catherine, where her corpse was transported after her death by the angels in the service of the monks. The silver lid of a sarcophagus likewise attracts attention; upon it is represented at full length the figure of the empress Anne of Russia, who entertained the idea of being interred in the sarcophagus, which she sent here; but the monks were disappointed of this honour. In a small chapel adjoining the church is shewn the place where the Lord is supposed to have appeared to Moses in the burning bush; it is called Alyka [Arabic], and is considered as the most holy spot in Mount Sinai. Besides the great church, there are twenty-seven smaller churches or chapels dispersed over the convent, in many of which daily masses are read, and in all of them at least one every Sunday.

The convent formerly resembled in its establishment that of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, which contains churches of various sects of Christians. Every principal sect, except the Calvinists and Protestants, had its churches in the convent of Sinai. I was shewn the chapels belonging to the Syrians, Armenians, Copts, and Latins, but they have long been abandoned by their owners; the church of the Latins fell into ruins at the close of

This tradition, however, is contradicted by some old Arabic records kept by the prior, in which I read a circumstantial account how, in the year of the Hedjra 783, some straggling Turkish Hadjis, who had been cut off from the caravan, were brought by the Bedouins to the convent; and being found to be well educated, and originally from upper Egypt, were retained here, and a salary settled on them and their descendants, on condition of their becoming the servants of the mosque. The conquest of Egypt by Selim did not take place till A.H. 895. The mosque in the convent of Sinai appears therefore to have existed long before the time

In the convent are two deep and copious wells of spring water; one of them is called the well of Moses, because it is said that he first drank of its water. Another was the work, as the monks say, of an English Lord, it bears the date 1760. There is also a reservoir for the reception of rain water.

None of the churches or chapels have steeples. There is a bell, which, I believe, is rung only on Sundays. The usual mode of calling the monks to morning prayers is by striking with a stick upon a long piece of granite, suspended from ropes, which produces a sound heard all over the convent; close by it hangs a piece of dry wood, which emits a different sound, and summons to vespers. A small tower is shewn which was built forty or fifty years ago for the residence of a Greek patriarch of Constantinople, who was exiled to this place by the orders of the Sultan, and who remained here till he died.

According to the credited tradition, the origin of the convent of Mount Sinai dates from the fourth century. Helena, the mother of Constantine, is said to have erected here a small church, in commemoration of the place where the Lord appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and in the garden of the convent a small tower is still shewn, the foundations of which are said to have been laid by her. The church of Helena drawing many visitors and monks to these mountains, several small convents were erected in different

Whenever a new Sultan ascends the throne of Constantinople, the convent is furnished with a new Firmahn, which is transmitted to the Pasha of Egypt; but as the neighbouring Bedouins, till within a few years, were completely independent of Egypt, the protection of the Pashas was of very little use to the monks, and their only dependance was upon their own resources, and their means of purchasing and conciliating the friendship, or of appeasing the animosity of the Arabs.

At present there are only twenty-three monks in the convent. They are under the presidence of a Wakyl or prior, but the Ikonómos [Greek], whom the Arabs call the Kolob, is the true head of the community, and manages all its affairs. The order of Sinai monks dispersed over the east is under the control of an Archbishop, in Arabic called the Reys. He is chosen by a council of delegates from Mount Sinai and from the affiliated convent at Cairo, and he is confirmed, pro forma, by the Greek patriarch of Jerusalem. The Archbishop can do nothing as to the appropriation of the funds without the unanimous vote of the council. Formerly

Besides the convent at Cairo, which contains a prior and about fifty monks, Mount Sinai has establishments and landed property in many other parts of the east, especially in the Archipelago, and at Candia: it has also a small church at Calcutta, and another at Surat.

The discipline of these monks, with regard to food and prayer, is very severe. They are obliged to attend mass twice in the day and twice in the night. The rule is that they shall taste no flesh whatever all the year round; and in their great fast they not only abstain from butter, and every kind of animal food and fish, but also from oil, and live four days in the week on bread and boiled vegetables, of which one small dish is all their dinner. They obtain their vegetables from a pleasant garden adjoining the building, into which there is a subterraneous passage; the soil is stony, but in this climate, wherever water is in plenty, the very rocks will produce vegetation. The fruit is of the finest quality; oranges, lemons, almonds, mulberries, apricots, peaches, pears, apples, olives, Nebek trees, and a few cypresses overshade the beds in which melons, beans, lettuces, onions, cucumbers, and all sorts of

The excellent air of the convent, and the simple fare of the inhabitants, render diseases rare. Many of the monks are very old men, in the full possession of their mental and bodily faculties. They have all taken to some profession, a mode of rendering themselves independent of Egypt, which was practised here even when the three hundred private chambers were occupied, which are now empty, though still ready for the accommodation of pious settlers. Among the twenty-three monks who now remain, there is a cook, a distiller, a baker, a shoemaker, a tailor, a carpenter, a smith, a mason, a gardener, a maker of candles, &c. &c. each of these has his work-shop, in the worn-out and rusty utensils of which are still to be seen the traces of the former riches and industry of the establishment. The rooms in which the provisions are kept are vaulted and built of granite with great solidity; each kind of provision has its purveyor. The bake-house and distillery are still kept up upon a large scale. The best bread is of the finest quality; but a second and third sort is made for the Bedouins who are fed by the convent. In the distillery they make brandy from dates, which is the only solace these recluses enjoy, and in this they are permitted to indulge even during the fasts.

Most of the monks are natives of the Greek islands; in general they do not remain more than four or five years, when they return to their own country, proud of having been sufferers among

Notwithstanding the ignorance of these monks, they are fond of seeing strangers in their wilderness; and I met with a more cordial reception among them than I did in the convents of Libanus, which are in possession of all the luxuries of life. The monks of Sinai are even generous; three years ago they furnished a Servian adventurer, who styled himself a Knes, and pretended to be well known to the Russian government, with sixty dollars, to pay his

At present the convent is seldom visited; a few Greeks from Cairo and Suez, and the inhabitants of Tor who repair here every summer, and encamp with their families in the garden, are the only persons who venture to undertake the journey through the desert. So late as the last century regular caravans of pilgrims used to come here from Cairo as well as from Jerusalem; a document preserved by the monks states the arrival in one day of eight hundred Armenians from Jerusalem; and at another time of five hundred Copts from Cairo. I believe that from sixty to eighty is the greatest number of visitors that can now be reckoned in a year. In the small but neat room which I occupied, and which is assigned to all strangers whom the prior receives with any marks of distinction, were the names of some of the latest European travellers who have visited the convent. The following inscriptions, written upon pieces of paper stuck against the walls, I thought worth the trouble of transcribing.

“Le quintidi, 5 Frimaire, l’an 9 de la République Française, 1800 de l’ère Chrétienne, et 3ème de la conquête de l’Egypte, les Citoyens Rozières et Coutelle, Membres de la Commission des Sciences et Arts, sont venus visiter les lieux saints, les ports de Tor, Ras Mohammed, et Charms, la mer de Suez et l’Accaba, l’extrémité de la presqu’île, toutes les chaines de montagnes, et toutes les tribus Arabes entre les deux golfes.” (Seal of the French Republic.)

M. Rozières made great mineralogical researches in these mountains,

“Le 9 d’Avril, 1807. U.J. Seetzen, nommé Mousa, voyageur Allemand, M.D. et Assesseur de Collège de S. Majestè l’Empereur de toutes les Russies dans la Seigneurie de Jever en Allemagne, est venu visiter le Couvent de la Sainte Cathérine, les Monts d’Horeb, de Moise, et de la Sainte Catherine, &c. après avoir parcouru toutes les provinces orientales anciennes de la Palestine; savoir, Hauranitis, Trachonitis, Gaulonitis, Paneas, Batanea, Decapolis, Gileaditis, Ammonitis, Amorrhitis et Moabitis, jusqu’aux frontières de la Gebelene (Idumaea), et après avoir fait deux fois l’entour de la mer morte, et traversé le désert de l’Arabie Petrée, entre la ville d’Hebron et entre le Mont Sinai, par un chemin jusqu’à ce tems-là inconnu. Après un séjour de dix jours, il continuait son voyage pour la ville de Suez.”

M. Seetzen has fallen into a mistake in calling the convent by the name of saint Catherine. It is dedicated to the transfiguration, or as the Greeks call it, the metamorphosis, and not to saint Catherine, whose relics only are preserved here. M. Seetzen visited the convent a second time, previous to his going to Arabia. He came then from Tor, and stopped only one day.

The visit of two English travellers, Messrs. Galley Knight and Fazakerly, is also recorded in a few lines dated February 13, 1811. The same room contained likewise several modern Arabic inscriptions, one of which says: “To this holy place came one who does not deserve that his name should be mentioned, so

The only habitual visitors of the convent are the Bedouins. They have established the custom that whoever amongst them, whether man, woman, or child, comes here, is to receive bread for breakfast and supper, which is lowered down to them from the window, as no Bedouins, except the servants of the house, are ever admitted within the walls. Fortunately for the monks, there are no good pasturing places in their immediate neighbourhood; the Arab encampments are therefore always at some distance, and visitors are thus not so frequent as might be supposed; yet scarcely a day passes without their having to furnish bread to thirty or forty persons. In the last century the Bedouins enjoyed still greater privileges, and had a right to call for a dish of cooked meat at breakfast, and for another at supper; the monks could not have given a stronger proof of their address than by obtaining the abandonment of this right from men, in whose power they are so completely placed. The convent of Sinai at Cairo is subject to similar claims; all the Bedouins of the peninsula who repair to that city on their private business receive their daily meal, from the monks, who, not having the same excuses as their brethren of Mount Sinai, are obliged to supply a dish of cooked meat. The convent has its Ghafeirs, or protectors, twenty-four in number, among the tribes inhabiting the desert between Syria and the Red sea; but the more remote of them are entitled only to some annual presents in clothes and money, while the Towara Ghafeirs are continually hovering round the walls, to extort as much as they can. Of the Towara Arabs the tribes of Szowaleha and Aleygat only are considered as protectors; the Mezeine, who came in later times to the peninsula, have no claims; and of the Szowaleha tribe, the

Under such circumstances it may easily be conceived that disputes continually happen. If a Sheikh from the protecting tribes comes to the convent to demand coffee, sugar, or clothing, and is not well satisfied with what he receives, he immediately becomes the enemy of the monks, lays waste some of their gardens, and must at last be gained over by a present. The independent state of the Bedouins of Sinai had long prevented the monks from endeavouring to obtain protection from the government of Egypt, whose power in the peninsula being trifling, they would only by complaining have exasperated the Bedouins against them; their differences therefore had hitherto been accommodated by the mediation of other Sheikhs. It was not till 1816 that they solicited the protection of Mohammed Ali; this will secure them for the present against their neighbours; but it will, probably, as I told the monks, be detrimental to them in the end. Ten or twenty dollars were sufficient to pacify the fiercest Bedouin, but a Turkish governor will demand a thousand for any effectual protection.

The Arabs, when discontented, have sometimes seized a monk in the mountains and given him a severe beating, or have thrown stones or fired their musquets into the convent from the neighbouring heights; about twenty years ago a monk was killed by