They Are For The Most Part Ten Or Twelve
Inches Long, Two Or Three Inches Broad, And From One To Two Inches Deep,
But A Few Of Them Are As Deep As Four Inches.
Every observer must be
convinced, on the slightest examination, that most of these fissures are
the work of art,
But three or four perhaps are natural, and these may
have first drawn the attention of the monks to the stone, and have
induced them to call it the rock of the miraculous supply of water.
Besides the marks of art evident in the holes themselves, the spaces
between them have been chiselled, so as to make it appear as if the
stone had been worn in those parts by the action of the water; though it
cannot be doubted, that if water had flowed from the fissures it must
generally have taken quite a different direction. One traveller saw on
this stone twelve openings, answering to the number of the tribes of
Israel; [Breydenbach.] another [Sicard, Mémoires des Missions.]
describes the holes as a foot deep. They were probably told so by the
monks, and believed what they heard rather than what they saw.
About one hundred and fifty paces farther on in the valley lies another
piece of rock, upon which it seems that the work of deception was first
begun, there being four or five apertures cut in it, similar to those on
the other block, but in a less finished state; as it is somewhat smaller
than the former, and lies in a less conspicuous part of the valley,
removed from the public path, the monks probably thought proper in
process of time to assign the miracle to the other. As the rock of Moses
has been described by travellers of the fifteenth century, the deception
must have originated among the monks of an earlier period. As to the
present inhabitants of the convent and of the peninsula, they must be
acquitted of any fraud respecting it, for they conscientiously believe
that it is the very rock from whence the water gushed forth. In this
part of
[p.580] the peninsula the Israelites could not have suffered from
thirst: the upper Sinai is full of wells and springs, the greater part
of which are perennial; and on whichever side the pretended rock of
Moses is approached, copious sources are found within a quarter of an
hour of it. The rock is greatly venerated by the Bedouins, who put grass
into the fissures, as offerings to the memory of Moses, in the same
manner as they place grass upon the tombs of their saints, because grass
is to them the most precious gift of nature, and that upon which their
existence chiefly depends. They also bring hither their female camels,
for they believe that by making the animal couch down before the rock,
while they recite some prayers, and by putting fresh grass into the
fissures of the stone, the camels will become fertile, and yield an
abundance of milk.
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