This Was Not To His Liking, And He Therefore Preferred Going
On.
Before we left this place Ayd told me that as I had treated him with
a supper last night, it was his duty to give me a breakfast this
morning.
While he kneaded a loaf of flour, and baked it in the ashes,
his companion caught some fish, which we boiled, and made a soup of the
broth mixed with bread. The deaf man was made to understand by signs
that he was to wait for the return of Ayd, and we set out together
before mid-day. Before us lay a small bay, which we skirted; the sands
on the shore every where bore the impression of the passage of serpents,
crossing each other in many directions, and some of them appeared to be
made by animals whose bodies could not be less than two inches in
diameter. Ayd told me that serpents were very common in these parts;
that the fishermen were much afraid of them, and extinguished their
fires in the evening before they went to sleep, because the light was
known to attract them. As serpents are so numerous on this side, they
are probably not deficient towards the head of the gulf on its opposite
shore, where it appears that the Israelites passed, when they journeyed
from mount Hor, by the way of the Red sea, to compass the land of
[p.500] Edom,” and when the “Lord sent fiery serpents among the
people.”[Numbers c. xxi, v. 4, 6.
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