Note 89 — LETTER XXXIII.

This is even proved to exist now by Rüppell, who holds Gebel Katherîn to be Sinai. On his journey to Abyssinia (vol. i., p. 127) he relates, in the account of his ascent of Serbâl in the year 1831, as follows:—“On the summit of Serbâl the Bedouins have collected small stones, and placed them in the form of a circular enclosure, and other stones are placed outside on the shelving rock-precipice, like steps, to facilitate the ascent. When we arrived at the stony circle my guide drew off his sandals, and approached it with religious veneration; he then recited a prayer within it, and told me afterwards that he had already slaughtered two sheep here as a thank-offering, one of them on the occasion of the birth of a son, the other on regaining his health after an illness. From a belief that Mount Serbâl is connected with such things, it is said to have been held in great reverence by the Arabs of the surrounding districts since time immemorial; and it must also at one time have been regarded as holy in certain respects by the Christians, as, in the valley on the south-western side, there are the ruins of a great convent, and of a great many small hermit’s cells. At all events, the wild jagged masses of rock in Serbâl, and the isolated position of the mountain, is far more striking, and in a certain degree more imposing, than any other mountain group in Arabia Petræa, and for that reason was peculiarly calculated to be the object of religious pilgrimages. The highest point of the mountain, or the second pinnacle of rock, proceeding from the west, on which the Arabs are in the habit of sacrificing, by my barometrical measurements is 6342 French feet above the level of the sea.”