There is also a reservoir for the
reception of rain water.
None of the churches or chapels have steeples. There is a bell, which, I
believe, is rung only on Sundays. The usual mode of calling the monks to
morning prayers is by striking with a stick upon a long piece of
granite, suspended from ropes, which produces a sound heard all over the
convent; close by it hangs a piece of dry wood, which emits a different
sound, and summons to vespers. A small tower is shewn which was built
forty or fifty years ago for the residence of a Greek patriarch of
Constantinople, who was exiled to this place by the orders of the
Sultan, and who remained here till he died.
According to the credited tradition, the origin of the convent of Mount
Sinai dates from the fourth century. Helena, the mother of Constantine,
is said to have erected here a small church, in commemoration of the
place where the Lord appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and in the
garden of the convent a small tower is still shewn, the foundations of
which are said to have been laid by her. The church of Helena drawing
many visitors and monks to these mountains, several small convents were
erected in different
[p.545] parts of the peninsula, in the course of the next century, but
the ill treatment which the monks and hermits suffered from the Bedouins
induced them at last to present a petition to the Emperor Justinian,
entreating him to build a fortified convent capable of affording them
protection against their oppressors.
