This Perhaps Was
The "High Way," By Which Moses, Aware Of The Difficulty Of Forcing A
Passage, And Endeavouring To
Obtain his object by negotiation, requested
the Edomites to let him pass, on the condition of his leaving the fields
And vineyards untouched, and of purchasing provisions and water from the
inhabitants.[Numbers, c.xx. Deuter, c.i.] But Edom "refused to give
Israel passage through his border," and "came out against him with much
people, and with a strong hand."[Numbers, c.xx.] The situation of the
Israelites therefore, was very critical. Unable to force their way in
either direction, and having enemies on three sides; (the Edomites in
front, and the Canaanites, and Amalekites on their left flank and rear,)
no alternative remained for them but to follow the valley El Araba
southwards, towards the head of the Red Sea. At Mount Hor, which rises
abruptly from that valley, "by the coast of the land of Edom,"[Numbers,
ibid.] Aaron died, and was buried in the conspicuous situation, which
tradition has preserved as the site of his tomb to the present day.
Israel then "journeyed from Mount Hor, by the way of the Red Sea, to
compass the land of Edom,"[Numbers, c.xxi.] "through the way of the
plain from Elath, and from Eziongeber," until "they turned and passed by
the way of the wilderness of Moab, and arrived at the brook
Zered."[Deuter, c.ii.] It may be supposed that they crossed the ridge to
the southward of Eziongeber, about the place where Burckhardt remarked,
from the opposite coast, that the mountains were lower than to the
northward, and it [p.xvi] was in this part of their wandering that they
suffered from the serpents, of which our traveller observed the traces
of great numbers on the opposite shore of the AElanitic gulf. The
Israelites then issued into the great elevated plains which are
traversed by the Egyptian and Syrian pilgrims, on the way to Mekka,
after they have passed the two Akabas. Having entered these plains,
Moses received the divine command, "You have compassed this mountain
long enough, turn you northward."--"Ye are to pass through the coast
of your brethren the children of Esau, which dwell in Seir, and they
shall be afraid of you." [Deuter, c.ii.] The same people who had
successfully repelled the approach of the Israelites from the strong
western frontier, was alarmed now that they had come round upon the weak
side of the country. But Israel was ordered "not to meddle" with the
children of Esau, but "to pass through their coast" and to "buy meat and
water from them for money," in the same manner as the caravan of Mekka
is now supplied by the people of the same mountains, who meet the
pilgrims on the Hadj route. After traversing the wilderness on the
eastern side of Moab, the Israelites at length entered that country,
crossing the brook Zered in the thirty-eighth year, from their first
arrival at Kadesh Barnea, "when all the generation of the men of war
were wasted out from among the host."[Deuter, c.ii.] After passing
through the centre of Moab, they crossed the Arnon, entered Ammon, and
were at length permitted to begin the overthrow of the possessors of the
promised land, by the destruction of Sihon the Amorite, who dwelt at
Heshbon.[Numbers, c.xxi. Deuter, c.ii.] The preservation of the latter
name, and of those of Diban, Medaba, Aroer, Amman, together with the
other geographical facts derived from the journey of Burckhardt through
the countries beyond the Dead Sea, furnishes a most satisfactory
illustration of the sacred historians.
[p.xvii]It remains for the Editor only to add, that while correcting the
foreign idiom of his Author, and making numerous alterations in the
structure of the language, he has been as careful as posible not to
injure the originality of the composition, stamped as it is with the
simplicity, good sense, and candour, inseparable from the Author's
character. In the Editor's wish, however, to preserve this originality,
he cannot flatter himself that incorrect expressions may not sometimes
have been left. In regard to the Greek inscriptions, he thinks it
necessary only to remark, that although the propriety of furnishing the
reader with fac-similes of all such interesting relicts of ancient
history cannot in general be doubted, yet in the present instance, the
trouble and expense which it would have occasioned, would hardly have
been compensated by the importance of the monuments themselves, or by
the degree of correctness with which they were copied by the traveller.
They have therefore been printed in a type nearly resembling the Greek
characters which were in use at the date of the inscriptions, and the
Editor has taken the liberty of separating the words, and of supplying
in the small cursive Greek character, the defective parts of the
traveller's copies.
The Editor takes this opportunity of stating, that in consequence of
some discoveries in African geography, which have been made known since
the publication of Burckhardt's Travels in Nubia, he has made some
alterations in the maps of the second edition of that work. The
observations of Captain Lyon have proved Morzouk to be situated a degree
and a half to the southward of the position formerly assigned to it, and
his enquiries having at the same time confirmed the bearing and distance
between Morzouk and Bornou, as reported by former travellers, a
corresponding change will follow in the latitude of Bornou, as well as
in the [p.xviii]position of the places on the route leading to those two
cities from the countries of the Nile.
A journey into Nubia, by the Earl of Belmore, and his brother, the Hon.
Capt. Corry, has furnished some latitudes and longitudes, serving to
correct the map of "the course of the Nile, from Assouan to the confines
of Dongola", which the Editor constructed from the journals of
Burckhardt, without the assistance of any celestial observatians.
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