According To The Statement Of The Monks, Their Predecessors Were
Made Responsible By The Sultans Of Egypt For The Protection Of The
Pilgrim Caravans From Cairo To Mekka, On That Part Of The Road Which Lay
Along The Northern Frontiers Of Their Territory From Suez To Akaba.
For
this purpose they thought it necessary to invite several tribes, and
particularly the Szowaleha and the Aleygat to settle in the fertile
valleys of Sinai, in order to serve as protectors of this road.
The
Bedouins came, but their power increasing, while that of the monks
declined, they in the course of time took possession of the whole
peninsula, and confined the monks to their convent. It appears from the
original copy of a compact between the monks and the
[p.548] above Bedouins, made in the year of the Hedjra 800, when Sultan
Dhaher Bybars reigned in Egypt, that besides this convent, six others
were still existing in the peninsula, exclusive of a number of chapels
and hermitages; from a writing on parchment, dated in the A.H.1053, we
find that in that year all these minor establishments had been
abandoned, and that the great convent, holding property at Feiran, Tor,
and in other fruitful valleys, alone remained. The priests assured me,
that they had documents to prove that all the date valleys and other
fertile spots in the gulf of Akaba had been in their possession, and
were confirmed to them by the Sultans of Egypt; but they either could
not or would not shew me their archives in detail, without an order from
the prior at Cairo; indeed all their papers appeared to be in great
confusion.
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