Egypt : handbook for travellers / edited by K. Baedeker.

Date:
1885-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Egypt : handbook for travellers / edited by K. Baedeker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    596/628 (page 510)
    The Jebel Musa and Has es-Safsaf. • • • The ascent of the Jebel Musa occupies 3hrs., and presents no difficulty. The start should be made about 5 a. m. or earlier. Five different paths lead to the top, but the two following are almost exclusively used. The more interesting, but also more fatiguing, ascends the old pilgrimage-steps (see below), while the other begins in the Wadi Shrfiaib, and ascends the Jebel Musa by a circuitous route. This last was to have been made practicable for the carriage of rAbbas Pasha, who intended building himself a villa on Mt. Sinai \ but he was assassinated before the completion of the work (p. 504). Those who wish to ascend the Jebel Musa and Ras es-Safsaf separately may return by the second of these routes •, in this case they may remain long enough on the Jebel Musa to en,ioy the magnificent spectacle of a sunset. By starting immediately alter the disappearance of the sun, and walking rapidly, the traveller will have time and light enough to descend to the cypress plain (Chapel of Elijah), whence, with the aid of a guide, he may reach the monastery in an hour without difficulty, even in the dark, by following the road of (Abbas Pasha. The pilgrims'1 steps should on no account be descended at night. If necessary the night may be spent in the chapel of Elijah, in which case the monks provide blankets. One or two of the monks or Jebeliyeh (Arabian servants of the monastery) act as guides, carrying the necessary provisions, and render- ing help in the ascent of the Ras es-Safsaf. Those who ascend by the pilgrims’ steps quit the monastery by a small side-gate in its W. wall, and mount the bare granite of the W. side of the Shuraib valley, by a path which gradually becomes steeper, but is unattended with danger. This path, which, like many of the Oriental churches, is said to date from the time of the Empress Helena, was probably constructed for the pilgrims in the 6th or 7th cent. In 20 min. we reach a small spring which contains the same quantity of water in winter and summer, and where, ac- cording to the Arabs, Moses once tended the sheep of Jethro, whom they call Shufaib. The monks, on the other hand, declare that it issued from the rock in consequence of the prayers of the holy abbot Sangarius, when the wells in the monastery dried up, and that it is a cure for diseases of the eye. In 12 min. more we come to a hut, styled the Chapel of Mary, which is said to have been erected in memory of a vision of the Virgin. The monks, according to the story, were so terribly plagued with vermin, that they determined to leave the monastery, and ascended the mountain in procession, intending to quit the holy places. On the way , however, on the site of this hut, the Virgin appeared to them, promised to deliver them from their tormentors, and commanded them to return. They obeyed, and found that all the vermin had disappeared. The travel- ler, however, even at a late period of the year, will have abundant opportunity of observing that the foe has since returned. — Farther up, the route crosses a small ravine, and then passes through two rude gates. Monks are said formerly to have been stationed here for the purpose of receiving from the pilgrims, who wished to take the sacrament on the top of Mt. Sinai, a certificate that they had attended the confessional in the monastery. At the first gate they were handed a receipt, which they gave up at the second. After a few