Mountain adventures in various parts of the world . rgia, Persia, Armenia, eto. XX. MOUNT SINAI. ASCENT BY DR. ROBINSON, MAKCH 1838. The lower and easier road from Wady-et-Taiyibehto Sinai enters the Feiran from the head of WadyMukatteb, and follows it up Wady-esh-Sheikh almostto the convent. From the point where we nowwere, this road is long and circuitous; while ashorter one strikes directly towards the convent,ascending in part by a narrow and difficult took the latter; and, crossing Wady-esh-Sheikh,proceeded on a course by S., up to the broadWady, or rather sloping plain, Es-S
Mountain adventures in various parts of the world . rgia, Persia, Armenia, eto. XX. MOUNT SINAI. ASCENT BY DR. ROBINSON, MAKCH 1838. The lower and easier road from Wady-et-Taiyibehto Sinai enters the Feiran from the head of WadyMukatteb, and follows it up Wady-esh-Sheikh almostto the convent. From the point where we nowwere, this road is long and circuitous; while ashorter one strikes directly towards the convent,ascending in part by a narrow and difficult took the latter; and, crossing Wady-esh-Sheikh,proceeded on a course by S., up to the broadWady, or rather sloping plain, Es-Seheb, thicklystudded with shrubs, but without trees. Here andaround Wady-esh-Sheikh are only low hills, lyingbetween the rocky mountains behind us and thecliff of Sinai before us ; and forming, as it were, alower belt around the lofty central granite these walls,—low walls of porphyry or grun-stein,—like those above described, run in variousdirections, stretching off to a great distance. We came to the top of the plain at a quarter. MOUNT SINAI. 249 before eleven oclock, where is a sharp, but rough,pass, full of debris, having on the right a low, sharppeak called El-Orf. From this point to the base ofthe cliffs of Sinai there is a sort of belt or track ofgravel or sand, full of low hills and ridges. The black and frowning mountains before us,the outworks, as it were, of Sinai, are here seen togreat advantage, rising abrupt and rugged fromtheir very base, eight hundred to a thousand feet inheight; as if forbidding all approach to the sanc-tuary within. At half-past twelve oclock we began graduallyto ascend towards the foot of the pass before us,called by our Arabs Mukb Hawy, Windy Pass, andby Burckhardt Mukb-er-Rahah, from the tractabove it. We reached the foot at a quarter pastone oclock, and, dismounting, commenced* the slowand toilsome ascent along the narrow defile, aboutS. by E., between blackened shattered cliffs ofgranite, some eight hundred feet high, and
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Keywords: ., bookauthorheadleyj, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, bookyear1876
