other three having been filled up by the sand; but the seventy palm-trees had multiplied to upwards of two thousand, and under their shade was the "Hummum, or Bath of Moses," which the inhabitants of the neighbouring port of Tor held in great veneration. Here they enjoyed the first view of Mount Sinai, rearing its rugged summit above the plain, and overlooking the whole surrounding country. The traject of the desert of Sin occupied nine hours, and they were nearly twelve hours more in threading the winding and difficult ways which divide that desert from the plain of Sinai. At length, however, they reached the convent of St. Catherine, supposed to be built over the place where Moses saw the angel of the Lord in the burning bush, when he was guarding the flocks of Jethro. This convent, or rather fortress, is nearly three hundred feet square, and upwards of forty in height, constructed partly with stone, partly with earth and mortar. The more immediate place of the Shekinah is marked by a little chapel, which the monks, who are of the order of St. Basil, regard with so remarkable a degree of veneration, that, in imitation of Moses, they take their shoes from off their feet whenever they enter it. This, with many other chapels dedicated to various saints, is included within what is called the "Church of the Transfiguration," a spacious and beautiful structure, covered with lead, and supported by a double row of marble columns.
The door of this convent is opened only when the archbishop, who commonly resides at Cairo, comes to be installed; and therefore our travellers, like all other pilgrims, were drawn up by a windlass to a window, nearly thirty feet from the ground, where they were admitted by some of the lay brothers. From a notion which prevails but too generally among mankind, that holiness consists in thrusting aside, as it were, the gifts which the hand of Provi-
