Not give any positive opinion as to that of
Mount Serbal; but it appeared to me to be higher than all the peaks,
including Mount St. Catherine, and very little lower than Djebel Mousa.
The fact of so many inscriptions being found upon the rocks near the
summit of this mountain, and also in the valley which
[p.609] leads from its foot to Feiran, as will presently be mentioned;
together with the existence of the road leading up to the peak, afford
strong reasons for presuming that the Serbal was an ancient place of
devotion. It will be recollected that no inscriptions are found either
on the mountain of Moses, or on Mount St. Catherine; and that those
which are found in the Ledja valley at the foot of Djebel Katerin, are
not to be traced above the rock, from which the water is said to have
issued, and appear only to be the work of pilgrims, who visited that
rock. From these circumstances, I am persuaded that Mount Serbal was at
one period the chief place of pilgrimage in the peninsula: and that it
was then considered the mountain where Moses received the tables of the
law; though I am equally convinced, from a perusal of the Scriptures,
that the Israelites encamped in the Upper Sinai, and that either Djebel
Mousa or Mount St. Catherine is the real Horeb. It is not at all
impossible that the proximity of Serbal to Egypt, may at one period have
caused that mountain to be the Horeb of the pilgrims, and that the
establishment of the convent in its present situation, which was
probably chosen from motives of security, may have led to the
transferring of that honour to Djebel Mousa. At present neither the
monks of Mount Sinai nor those of Cairo consider Mount Serbal as the
scene of any of the events of sacred history: nor have the Bedouins any
tradition among them respecting it; but it is possible that if the
Byzantine writers were thoroughly examined, some mention might be found
of this mountain, which I believe was never before visited by any
European traveller.
The heat was so oppressive during the whole day, that I felt it even on
the summit of the mountain; the air was motionless, and a thin mist
pervaded the whole atmosphere, as always occurs in these climates, when
the air is very much heated. I took from the peak the following
bearings.
[p.610] El Morkha, a well near Birket Faraoun on the road from Tor to
Suez, N.W. b. W.
Wady Feiran, N.W.N.
Sarbout el Djemal, N.N.W.
El Djoze, just over Feiran, N.
Mountain Dhellel, N. b. E.-N.E. b. N.
Wady Akhdar, which I passed on my road from Suez to the convent, N.E.
1/2 E.
