graphical, which the history demands. So It might not be pure fiction; but it would as to Israel's route. He takes the history, be fiction upon a historical basis. It would and he seeks a site for it-a sight which be a novel, "founded upon fact." There will fulfil, not evade the history. Such a are, no doubt, different degrees of fiction site he cannot possibly find amid the pools, but no degree of it is admissible in history, or ponds, or sand-banks, which the extreme-still less in historical inspiration, or inpoint of the sea presents to this day; but spired history ;-call it either. some miles farther down, where the mountain-bluff, terminating a long rugged range, rises erect almost out of the waters, or leaves at least but some yards of beach, and where the supernatural stroke that smote the waves in their blue depths produced a wall of water on either side, through which the delivered myriads passed in safety.

Nor is this a point into which the question of figurative language finds its way. We are speaking of simple history; and in that any figure that may occur, is introduced solely to give greater accuracy to language which, without it, would have been too feeble and inexpressive to be accurate. The dif ference between the figure, and the history which is meant to be illustrated by it, is, in all such cases, quite perceptible.

and as to reducing it indefinitely, bringing it to a mere razor-edge, so that no one could say whether it were a miracle or not, we simply say, What is gained?

The opposers of Dr. Robinson's view advance here a statement, which ought to have no inconsiderable weight. They maintain We take the Mosaic narrative as we find that it is the accuracy of Scripture language it. There is obviously a miracle contained that is involved in this question. Were it in it, and a very stupendous one. We have the interpretation of the words that was neither the wish nor the right to displace it. needed, hermeneutics might be called into adjust the difficulty and settle the controversy. But no doubt has been suggested as to the meaning of the Mosaic language, and so no room afforded for criticism to step in. But we cross the Red Sea and encamp at Whatever may be said of the song which Ayûn Musa, the wells of Moses, where vercelebrates the deliverance, the narrative it- dure as well as water may still be found, self is singularly plain and free from myste- and to which some of the citizens of Suez ry or exaggeration. Judging of the narra still resort for country quarters. The liketive as it stands, without gloss, the most lihood is, that this was Israel's first encamprigid critic would at once say that a miracle ment after crossing the sea. The name says was meant; and that, if it had not been a good deal for this, and the distances between meant, very different language must have this and the after-localities noted in their been employed,—just such language as would desert-story confirm this. Comparing the be used in reference to the transit of an army statements of travellers, the geography of over a river, which a happy combination of the region, and the Scripture narrative, we wind and drought had rendered fordable. are led to believe that this is really a site The case so standing, it is obvious that it found,—that it was here that the song of deis the accuracy of the language that is called liverance went up from Moses and Miriam in question. -leading, as they doubtless did, the voices All who regard the Bible as a record of of the mighty multitude. Dr. Robinson's Divine announcements, must feel that this description of this spot is brief but expresimpeachment is of the most serious kind. sive. The place is noticed by almost all traThe dispute shifts; and, from being a ques-vellers who are setting out for Mount Sinai. tion of interpretation, becomes one of veracity. Though not the actual site of a miracle, it is It is not upon the historian's style that the the termination of one and the commencejudgment is thus made to sit, but upon his ment of another. For scarcely had Israel personal good faith. He wants us to under- left these fountains than they began to feel stand one thing, while he is secretly con- the want of water for the first time. Here scious that something else,-something far one notices the exceeding accuracy of the less remarkable,-is the authentic history. narrative; for, according to the testimony This is at variance with the strict verity which we are entitled to count upon in simple narrative between man and man; much more is it at variance with the higher and more unimpeachable verity which we expect in Divine annals,-God's narrative to man of His own proceedings, that is, in inspiration. It would not beseem Herodotus, much less Moses. It would be fiction, not history.

of every traveller, the next two days of the Desert are most thoroughly bare and waterless. They reach Marah, where they murmur, and are supplied miraculously.

The miracle of the sweetened water has found small favour with many. We shall not undertake to say whether Mr. Stanley believes it, as, though mentioning the locality, he keeps silence as to the miracle. That Dr. Robinson believes it, we suppose may

We

AM JEHOVAH THAT HEALETH THEE."-(Exod. xv. 25, 26.)

We pass from the miracle of the water to the miracle of the manna. But now we

"In accordance with a former promise, the old man likewise put into our hands a small quantity of the manna of the Peninsula, famous at least as being the successor of the Israelitish manna, though not to be regarded as the same substance. According to his account, it is not produced every year-sometimes only after five or six years; and the quantity in general has greatly diminished. It is found, in the form of shining drops, on the twigs and branches (not upon the leaves) of the turfa-Tamarix Gallica mannifera of Ehrenberg, from which it exudes, in consequence of the puncture of an insect of the coccus kind-Coccus manniparus of the same naturalist. What falls upon the sand is said not to be gathered. It has the appearance of gum, is of a sweet

be admitted, though he does not say so, and though it is difficult to reconcile his belief of it with the following statement:-" Burckhardt suggests that the Israelites may have rendered the water of Marah palatable by have a history wholly without a site. We mingling with it the juice of the berries of can say, somewhere between Elim and Rethe ghurkud. The process would be a very phidim-somewhere between Wady Ghusimple one, and doubtless effectual; and the rundel and Wady esh-Sheikh-the manna presence of this shrub around all brackish must first have descended, but more than fountains would cause the remedy to be al- this we cannot say. Its proper locality reways at hand."* Dr. R. thinks, however, mains unfound, as Scripture has given us nothat the ghurkud berries could hardly have thing by means of which we might identify it. been ripe at the season when Israel passed It was in "the wilderness of Sin" that Israel the Ain Howârah; but this is all the answer first tasted the manna. More than this we canhe gives to Burckhardt's denial of the mira- not determine. As to the miracle, Dr. Robincle! One might admit that the proposed son speaks very decidedly ;* and the followremedy is "simple," but that it is "doubt- ing brief statement is quite satisfactory :less effectual" would require proof. should be inclined to write "doubtless ineffectual;" for we have been told that even a copious infusion of brandy is ineffectual, and that such admixtures, instead of extract ing or modifying the bitterness, only make it more nauseous. Our readers can try it by taking a "half-and-half" of sea-water and brandy or port wine. There is another thing which Dr. R. might have added,-that the whole region round Ain Howârah is utterly destitute of verdure, not only ghurkuds and tarfas being awanting there, but the commonest and poorest of the desert shrubs. Allowing the potency of ghurkud berries to do then, what no amount of wine or bran-ish taste, and melts when exposed to the sun or dy can do now, we must still reckon it unaccountable that this sweetening of the acrid waters should have taken place at that very part of the Desert where the sweetening herbs were not to be found. We read of the solitary palm still attracting the traveller's eye, and the well of turbid brine at its foot still repelling the lip of Arab or camel; but the ghurkuds-they have passed away, if indeed they ever existed here out of Burckhardt's fancy. The narrative itself by no means suggests either berries or peel, or any such natural sweeteners. It reads thus," And Moses cried unto Jehovah; and Jehovah showed him a tree, which, when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet." What follows has a simple sublimity about it, which the denial of the miracle quite destroys,-"There He made made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there He proved them, and said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of Jehovah thy God, and wilt do that which is right in His sight, and wilt give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee which I have brought upon the Egyptians: FOR I

Vol. i., p. 67.

to a fire. The Arabs consider it as a great deIcacy, and the pilgrims prize it highly, especially The superior had now but a small quantity, those from Russia, who pay a high price for it. which he was keeping against an expected visit from the Russian Consul-General in Egypt. Indeed, so scarce had it become of late years, as to bear a price of twenty or twenty-five piastres the pound.

"Of the manna of the Old Testament, it is said, 'When the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the Desert a small round thing, small as the hoar-frost on the ground;and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers with honey. And the people gathered it, and ground it in mills, and beat it in a mortar, or baked it in pans, and made

*Mr. Stanley's brief notices of the miracles are,

from the first to last, so peculiarly adjusted, as to indicate nothing as to his belief. He is not committed to their denial: still less to their reception. To him they are apparently without importance or attraction. His dalliance with the Greek legends of the Desert, in preference to the Biblical history of miracle, reminds one of Schiller's admiration for "the gods of Greece," and his sighs for their disappearance. Bunsen's "God in History," has shown us that historical Pantheism can be grafted upon Scrip

ture itself; and one cannot but hesitate before accepting the philosophy which deals with the beauties rather than with the truths either of Scripture or tradition,

cakes of it; and the taste of it was as the taste clusion was irresistible; and to stop short of fresh oil. And when the dew fell upon the of it, is to give up the whole case. If the Bicamp in the night, the manna fell upon it.' ble be as inaccurate as Mr. Macnaught says "Of all these characteristics not one is appli- it is, then it has no claim upon our conficable to the present manna. And even could it be shown to be the same, still a supply of it in dence or respect: it is much less inspired sufficient abundance for the daily consumption of than Herodotus, or Plato, or Milton, or two millions of people would have been no less a David Hume, or Macaulay. We are very miracle."-ROBINSON, vol. i., p. 115. far indeed from accusing all the questioners of some of the Bible miracles with entertaining such views; but, by a theory of miracles which assumes the inaccuracy of the Mosaic narrative, they are playing into

one.

aiding them in discovering inaccuracies, where even they did not expect to find them.

These statements may suffice as to the miracles of Scripture. We do not mean to argue the question of miracles or inspiration. Our position is a humbler one, and the hands of Deists and semi-Deists, and subsidiary to the wider and more general It is simply a protest in behalf of the accuracy of the Bible, and the good faith of But we resume the track of our Desert its writers. The weight or authority to travellers, or, at least, we select some of which their statements are entitled is ano- their footsteps, not venturing to explore the ther matter. We are the more careful to whole region. The first oasis which the trakeep this point before our readers, because veller meets with in this western margin of of certain assaults recently made upon the the Peninsula, along which Israel marched correctness of Scripture.* In the last cen- to Sinai, is Wady Ghurundel, which, from tury, a band of able but unscrupulous its position as well as its water and palms, writers appeared, whose object was to get has been long conjectured to be the Elim rid of Scripture in toto, by exposing its in- of Scripture. It would seem to be one of accuracies. Bolingbroke, Toland, Chubb, the richest tracts of this barren land,— Morgan, worked hard at their self-appoint- watered by a quiet stream, and adorned for ed task of overthrowing "superstition." two or three miles by palms and tarfas,Most laboriously did they gather together the former of these trees being counted by the supposed absurdities and inconsistencies hundreds, the latter being without number. of Scripture, in order to overwhelm the Neither Dr. Robinson nor Mr. Stanley Bible beneath its own rubbish. But the seem to have fully explored this valley, nor Book emerged from this deistical dust un- to have any adequate idea of its fruitfulness harmed; and, for two generations, these and beauty. From the descriptions given objections had almost gone out of sight. by numerous travellers, it must be a spot They have, however, within these few years of no common beauty,—a spot wanting but been reproduced; and not by men, like two things to complete its excellence, grass those of the last century, philosophers, be- and flowers. In spite of tree and shrub, longing to no church; but by ministers of the Desert still proclaims itself the master, the orthodox churches of our land. These even there, by refusing to take on the slightsuccessors of the philosophical Deists of a est patch of verdant clothing for its unduformer age have gone over the same ground lating sands. Dr. Stewart's description is as their predecessors, and uttered the same as follows:accusations against Scripture, though in more reverent words, with this exception, rundel alone, with my Bible as my companion. "After breakfast I walked up the Wadi Ghethat the old assailants spared the Gospels A stream about twelve feet in breadth runs down and the words of Christ, whereas their mo- from the spring, which the Arabs told me was dern imitators have not scrupled to pro- six hours higher up, and though only a few inchnounce upon the inaccuracies and impropri- es deep, I am informed it never fails the whole eties of "Him who spake as never man year round. This wadi is by far the most fertile spake." In the nature, or rather the extent, we have come to since leaving the Nile, if such of inference, the new differ from the old of grass is to be found. A number of palm trees an expression can be applied where not a blade the latter made use of the supposed inaccu- and thickets of tarfas, which really deserve the racies to disprove entirely the claims of name of trees, grow in it, besides the shrubs to Scripture; the former merely employ these be met with in all the wadis of the Desert, among inconsistencies to set aside its inspiration. which is the Ghurkudda, a plant bearing berries But which of the two classes has logic on its side? Clearly that of the old Deists. If their premises were correct, their

con

of an acid taste, which some have thoughtlessly suggested might have been used by Moses for sweetening the waters of Marah, and the Rahbol, of which the camel is particularly fond. This wadi is of great length, forming an opening in the "The Doctrine of Inspiration," etc., by the range of Ghebel et Tih, and taking its rise, as I Rev. John Macnaught, Liverpool. afterwards found, close to the summit of Nakb el

Rabkiney, one of the passes leading to Nukhl.streamlet, it seems to have attracted more If the Israelites marched along the sea-shore they eyes and won more hearts than any other would naturally turn up this fertile valley to- circle of the Desert. Inhabited now only wards the well, as their progress southward after

they are of its richness and beauty! How their Sheikhs love to expatiate upon its perfections! And no wonder, if half of what travellers have written of it be true. Anywhere it would be beautiful, with its prince

a few miles would be stopped by the Ghebel by the Nomad Bedouin, who pay it stated Hummam Faraoun, between which and the sea visits in order to cultivate its palms, it was, it is impossible to pass. I learned from a friend from the sixth century and onward for who visited the spring a month or two after I many ages, the abode of thousands of anhad passed this way, that water in abundance chorites, whose memorials are still scatter-, may be found in it, as in the Wadi Useit, by ed over the mounds and mountain-steeps, scraping up the sand to the depth of a foot or in the shape of shattered pillars, broken two. There is only one palm tree beside the conduits, ruined walls, deserted cells, and fountain, but there are many to be found scattered up and down the valley. This wadi is gener- empty tombs. Feirân! How the poor ally supposed to be the Elim of Scripture; but Arabs love the very name! How proud Dr. Wilson prefers the Wadi Useit, as being farther from Ain Howára. Provided the Israelites marched by the plain near the sea-shore, there could be no objection on the score of distance between Ain Nichele and the spring in this wadi; but as those of Wadi Useit are only five or six miles distant from it, I am much inclined toy palms and noble peaks; how much more believe that Elim, with its twelve wells, includes in such a grim, wild waste, as that with both valleys, and that the hosts of Israel, who which it is girded on every side! had not yet any regular order of encampment, Towering above this bright garden, and were scattered around where the most ample sup- only a few miles off, rises that five-peaked plies of food and water could be found for their mountain, of whose magnificent ruggedness cattle. I am the more disposed to adopt this travellers have written so much, Serbål. opinion from the consideration that the Israelites, Dr. Stewart has revived the opinion, that instead of halting for a single night, probably passed some weeks in this oasis, as it deserves this is the authentic Sinai; though, so far fully to be called. The mouth of this valley is as we are competent to judge, without sucevidently a place much frequented by Bedouins. cess. That it might be so, we do not disOn the northern headland there is a grave-yard, pute. But so might Et-Tih; so might the first I had seen; and around my tent there Taset-Sudr; so might some of the fierce were traces of many encampments, and a huge group of Feirân; so might many another cliff' beside it, bollowed out like an alcove, was mountain in this wild region. But there is black with the smoke of their camp-fires."-Pp nothing in its history to which we might

72, 73.

Dr. Bonar's statement is similar:

fasten the slenderest thread of probability in its favour. As a hill of incomparable grandeur, and not very far from the locality where, according to the narrative, Sinai was, it might be the Mount of God. That is all we can say. Its difficulty of ascent is great, only to be overcome by resolute wills and iron muscles. A traveller, who had reached its summit, told us, that the labour and peril were such, that not only had he to scramble on all fours, or crawl like a serpent, or climb like a goat, but repeatedly he threw himself on the rock, resolved not

"The birds were chirping in the tarfa trees, some of which might be fifteen or eighteen feet high, pleasantly though faintly fragrant. These birds were not the desert fowls called quails; though these we frequently met with in small flocks,-not among trees, but in the more barren plains of the Desert. The palm trees were with out number. I began to count them, but having reached the eightieth, I desisted. They extend for more than a mile and a half down the wady, and must amount to several hundreds at the lowest estimate, so that the place is quite a palmjungle. Most of them have four or five stems to move a step farther. Arduous as are shooting up from one root. They have been the ascents of the Sinaitic group, this goes goodly trees, as the prostrate trunks showed, but beyond either Jebel Musa, or Safsafeh, or have been cut down clean by the ground, and the Katherin. But this settles nothing. There present forest is made up of shoots, which gives are other objections. Serbâl has no plain a stunted and shaggy appearance to the whole. at its base, and no such remarkable hollow The palm, like the olive, seems, when cut over, to in its centre, as its rival undoubtedly possend up new shoots or suckers, so that we saw several stems coming up from one root."-Pp. sesses; and Feirân is much too small, as well as too distant, to have been the encampment of Israel. In this opinion Mr. Stanley and Dr. Robinson concur; nor do the statements of Dr. Stewart appear to us to shake it.* Mr. Stanley's words are

121, 122.

Feiran is another of these. oases, which, though few in number, are still sufficient to remind the traveller that he is still upon the habitable earth. Though not so exten- * Dr. Robinson, vol. i., p. 590. Stanley, p. 72. sive as Ghurundel, nor watered by the cool Dr. Stewart, p. 116.

these: "It was impossible not to feel that [the direct and usual mode of access to Serbâ!. for the giving of the law to Israel and the These two valleys contain the only open ground, world, the scene was most truly fitted. I which can be taken into the account. It needs say, for the giving of the law; because the but a glance at the maps of Lepsins himself objections urged, from the absence of any ceive that they do not correspond to the circum(Reise), and the sketch of Bartlett (p. 57), to perplain immediately under the mountain for stances of the Scriptural narrative. receiving the law, are unanswerable, or could only be answered if no such plain existed elsewhere in the Peninsula." As to the legend got up by some, that it was the seat of Arab worship and sacrifice, Mr. Stanley questioned his guide, and tells us the result:

"In reply to the question suggested by Rüp pell's assertion of the estimation in which Serbal was held by the Bedouins, as shown by sacrifices on its summit, he returned the following decisive answer: Arabs never pray or kill sheep on the top of Serbal; sometimes, however, travellers eat chickens there. The ruined building on the top was built by the Franks, or by the Derkani, the original inhabitants of the country, for keeping treasures. The ruins in Wady Feiran are also by Franks. There used to be a Frank windmill on the north-east side of the valley, and corn was carried across from the convent by a rope.' P. 73.

Perhaps it may be as well to add the following summing up of the argument by Dr. Robinson. It seems to us pretty conclusive:

"SERBAL-Since the first publication of this work, the idea has been brought forward by Lep sius, and strenuously urged, that Jebel Serbal is to be regarded as the Sinai of Scripture. See his Reise nach der Halbinsel des Sinai, 1846; also Breife aus Aegypten, 1852, p. 340 sq. 417 sq. See also the argument stated in Bartlett's Forty Days in the Desert, p. 55 sq.

"It is admitted, that the main encampment of the host must have been in Wady Feiran itself; from which the summit of Serbâl is only here and there visible. The base of the mountain is reached by the Wady 'Aleiyât, after a walk of about an hour; Bartlett, p. 57. This latter valley, according to Bartlett, is an unfit, if not impracticable spot for the encampment of any great number of people; the ground is rugged and rocky-towards the base of the mountain exceedingly so; pp. 57, 58, comp. p. 62. Beyond the fountain all path soon ceases; and the course thence to the base of the mountain is over a wilderness of loose blocks, which it is no easy matter to cross without slipping; ibid. p. 62.

"I need not stop to show how utterly incompatible all this is with the narrative in Exodus; where it is said, the people stood at the nether part of the mount, Ex. xix. 17; and Moses was directed to set bounds round about, lest the people should go up into the mount or touch the border of it; Ex.

xix. 12.

"The testimony of Scripture, that the supply of water for the host was miraculous, removes the objection made against the present Sinai. At Rephidim the people having murmured for water, the Lord commanded Moses to smite the rock in Horeb, and water should flow out; and Moses did so; Ex. xvii. 5, 6. If Rephidim, as I have elsewhere supposed (p. 120), was near the entrance to the central granite region, then Horeb was near; and it is easy to see how the miraculous fountain might supply water for the the host during their sojourn at Sinai. But if their main encampment was in Wady Feirân, in which water was always plenty, where was the necessity for a miracle at all? and especially in Serbal (the Sinai and Horeb of Lepsius), which was but an hour distant from the well watered encampment.

"The main argument urged in behalf of Serbâl, is the fact, that the adjacent Wady Feirân is, and always was, well watered and fruitful; while "I have elsewhere suggested, that the stations the region around Jebel Mûsa is an inhospitable of the Israelites, as enumerated, refer perhaps desert. Hence the former is the only fit spot in rather to the head-quarters of Moses and the elthe peninsula for the supply of the Iraelites with ders, with a portion of the people who kept near water and sustenance; and as such must have them; while other portions preceded or followed been known to Moses, and selected by him. See them at various distances, as the convenience of Lepsius Reise, p. 20-22. Breife, p. 341 sq. water and pasturage might dictate; pp. 72, 73. Bartlett, 1. c. p. 56. Thus, during the long sojourn at Sinai, it is not "This argument leaves out of view two import at all improbable, that a part of the people with ant points in the question; first, that there is their flocks may have been encamped in the fertile around Serbal no open spot or ground corre-Wady Feirân. Yet, on the other hand, it seems sponding to the historical account of Israel before Sinai; and, secondly, that the supply of water for the host at Sinai was miraculous.

66

Wady Feiran runs for a time parallel to Serbâl. In it for about four miles there is a constant succession of gardens and plantations of palm trees; there are fountains, and in almost every garden a well; but the water is hard; and the valley is not more than a hundred paces across, with high mountains on each side. (Burckhardt, Trav. in Syr., p. 603 sq.) From about the middle of Serbal, the Wady 'Aleiyât comes down nearly at right angles to Wady Feirân, forming

no less obvious, on the great occasion, when the Lord descended on Sinai and gave the ten commandments, that the whole congregation, even all the people, were assembled before the mount. Ex. xix. 9, 11, 16, etc.

"It is singular that Lepsius (Breife, p. 421 sq) should quote the authority of Mr. Bartlett as an advocate of his views. Mr. B. presents the argument indeed, not however as his own, but expressly as that of those who adopt a rationalist interpretation, and consider the Bible account as a legendary or mythical amplification of a slender historical foundation.'"-P. 55.