In Times Of Dearth They Were Accustomed To Proceed In A
Body To Djebel Mousa, To Pray For Rain, And They Encouraged The Belief
That The Rain Was Due To Their Intercessions.
By a natural inference,
the Bedouins have concluded that if the monks could bring rain, they had
it likewise
In their power to withhold it, and the consequence is, that
whenever a dearth happens they accuse the monks of malevolence, and
often tumultuously assemble and compel them to repair to the mountain to
pray. Some years since, soon after an occurrence of this kind, it
happened that a violent flood burst over the peninsula, and destroyed
many date trees; a Bedouin, whose camel and sheep had been swept away by
the torrent, went in a fury to the convent, and fired his gun at it, and
when asked the reason, exclaimed; “You have opened the book so much that
we are all drowned!” He was pacified by presents; but on departing he
begged that in future the monks would only half open the Taourat, in
order that the rains might be more moderate.
The supposed influence of the monks is, however, sometimes attended with
more fortunate results: the Sheikh Szaleh had never been father of a
male child, and on being told that Providence had thus punished him for
his enmity to the convent, he two years ago brought a load of butter to
the monks, and entreated them to go to the mountain and pray that his
newly-married wife, who was then pregnant, might be delivered of a son.
The monks complied, and Szaleh soon after became the happy father of a
fine boy; since that period he has been the friend of the convent, and
has even partly repaired the church on Djebel Mousa.
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