Note 126 — LETTER XXXIII.

See the excellent treatise of Tuch (Einundzwanzig Sinaitische Inschriften, Leipzig, 1849.) This scholar endeavours to prove, by the deciphered names of the pilgrims, that the authors of the inscriptions were native pagan Arabs, and went to Serbâl for religious festivals; according to him, these pilgrimages ended, at latest, in the course of the third century. Here it may also be mentioned, that the name itself of Serbâl, which Rödiger, (in Wellsted’s Travels in Arabia, vol. ii. page the last), doubtlessly correctly derived from serb, palmarum copia, and Baal, “palm grove (φοινίκων) of Baal,” points to a heathen origin. [However much M. Tuch may reproduce the notion of Beer, he cannot set aside its confutation in Forster’s Primeval Language, Part I. pp. 8-38.—K. R. H. M.]