Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1914-01-16

miles an hour; involving much mus
cular inconvenience to rider who
had never been on camel back before.
From little details such as these the
reader pictures the daily trek and
thinks of the host of weary Israelites
on foot, with insufficient food. harass-
ed by Amalekites and other disagree
able people, and blaming their leader
for leaving behind the tempting flesh
pots of their Egyptian slavery.
Loneliness Complete.
The loneliness was, of course, com
plete, an occasional Bedouin being the
only humanity the little party encoun-
tered, except once, when, nearing
Sinai, they came across two English
men sleeping in the open,s without
tents or retinue, while they, hunted
for Turquoises' and kept a weather
eye alert for ibexes. One has a long
ing to know more about those two
lonely Englishmen on their adventur-
GUS quest, but information is not forth
coming.
The mountains stand out boldly on
this trip-not only the great bleak
range of Sinai, but other hills as well.
with naked ridges, gaunt cliffs and
peaks of extraordinary formation The
coloring was most striking. Red
granite mountains In the glory Of the
desert dawn must be seen to be be-
lieved; but it was the limestone strata
that provided the weirdest framework
of this desolate wilderness. 81
The afterglow in desert country can
neither be painted nor described. The
granite and limestone, too. were varf
led sometimes by veins of red-brow1
porphyry, black diorite. and glitteringS
slabs of gypsum, transparent as cryss
tai. There was certainly no lack Q
brilliant coloring to make up for tn
comforting greens of absent foliagt
while at night in moonlight the eff
feet was of some enchanted fairylancs
of purest silver. And in this setting ,
is constructed for the inner eye the
procession of the great Jewish host,
the pillar of cloud by day and fire by
night, the route by which Moses de-
scended from communing with his
Deity; smashing the tables of stone
and strewing the powdered fragments
Ion the surface of the brook which
descends from spring on the western
slopes of the Sufsafa." Beneath thie
Mountain of Conversation" in THE
Wadi Beiran, which, by Arab tradition.
is the mountain where God conversed
with Moses, the Arabs still sacrifice
to the memory of the Hebrew prophet,
singing: 20 mountain of the converse
ton of Moses, we seek thy favor! Pre-
serve thy good people and we will Wis
it thee every year."
A visit to the Monastery of Sinai
is interesting. The party was cour-
teously received by the monks. who
now number only %, instead of, as
formerly, 400. and pitched their tent in
a convenient spot outside. After at
tending a service in modern Greek,
three of the monks called and Joined,
us at tea, when we had a most inter-I
esting talk with them about evangel-
azing their Moslem slaves, /. e.. de-,
scendants Of 100 Roman and 100 Egyp-l
tian slaves. presented to the monas-a
terry by Justinian in the sixth CEN
fury. They said that up till the Eng
lish rule in Egypt their lives were in
danger, one of the monks having beenX
shot through the chapel window whilej
celebrating mass Now. thanks to the1
English. all the country was peace
full and quiet, but yet they had mott
dared to mention Christianity to their
Moslem dependents for fear OF raising
antagonism." A visit to the charnals
house was also made, where the bones,
Of the monks lie carefully piled upS
since the sixth century, but the bish-'
OPS bones are kept In boxes apart.