Page:Travels from Aleppo to the city of Jerusalem, and through the Holy Land, in the year 1776.pdf/20

Father Tomaso, who seems to be a very judicious man, told us that he had been at Mount Sinai, which stands on the south corner of the bosom of the Red Sea, about 260 miles eastward of Grand Cairo in Egypt. The desart on the south and west of it, is a pretty high ground for about twelve miles, and is distinguished with a variety of lesser hills. The mountain is of no great extent, but very high, and hath two tops, the western of which is called Horeb; and the eastern, which he supposes to be about a third higher, is properly called Sinai. The ascent of both is very steep, and can only be ascended by steps which the empress Helena, the mother of Constantine the Grear, caused to be cut in the marble rock. At the top of Sinai, he says, There is an uneven and rugged place, which would hold about sixty persons. Here stands a chapel dedicated to St. Catharine; and near to it, on the brow of the barren rock, is a fountain of fresh water. The monks that dwell here have, with ashes, &c., made a sort of a soil for a garden. From the top of this mount, God proclaimed his law to the Hebrews, from amid terrible flames of fire. He told us likewise, that he viewed the rock Rephiddim, which seems to have been a clift fallen off from the side of Sinai, and