As
The Passage Of Greeks On Their Way To Visit The Convent Of Sinai Is
Frequent, I Might Have Answered
That I was a Greek; but I thought it
better to adhere to what I had already told my guides,
That I had left
Cairo, in order not to expose myself to the plague, that I wished to
pass my time among the Bedouins while the disease prevailed, and that I
intended to visit the convent. Other Moslems would have considered it
impious to fly from the infection; but I knew that all these Bedouins
entertain as great a dread of the plague as Europeans themselves. During
the spring, when the disease usually prevails in Egypt, no prospect of
gain can induce them to expose themselves to infection, by a journey to
the banks of the Nile; the Bedouins with whom I left Cairo were the last
who had remained there. Had the Pasha granted me a Firmahn to the great
Sheikh of the Towara Arabs, I should have gone directly to his tent, and
in virtue of it I should have taken guides to conduct me to Akaba; but
being without the Firmahn, I thought it more prudent to visit the
convent in the first instance, and to depart from thence for Akaba, in
order to take advantage of such influence as the Prior might possess
over the Bedouins, for though they pay little respect to the priests,
yet they have some fear of being excluded from the gains accruing from
the transport of visitors to the convent.
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