The Conveying Of Pilgrims Is One Of The Few
Modes Of Subsistence Which These Poor People Possess, And At A Place
Where Strangers Are Continually Passing, Gratuitous Hospitality Is Not
To Be Expected From Them, Though They Might Be Ready To Afford It To The
Helpless Traveller.
The two days excursion to the holy places cost me
about forty piastres, or five dollars.
Before mid-day we had again reached the convent El Erbayn, in the garden
of which I passed a most agreeable afternoon. The verdure was so
brilliant and the blossoms of the orange trees diffused so fine a
perfume that I was transported in imagination from the barren cliffs of
the wilderness to the luxurious groves of Antioch. It is surprising that
the Europeans resident at Cairo do not prefer spending the season of the
plague in these pleasant gardens, and this delightful climate, to
remaining close prisoners in the infected city.
We returned in the evening to the convent, by following to the northward
the valley in which the Erbayn stands. This valley is very narrow, and
extremely stony, many large blocks having rolled from the mountains into
it; it is called El Ledja [Arabic], a name given to a similar rocky
district, described by me, in the Haouran. At twenty minutes walk from
the Erbayn we passed a block of granite, said to be the rock out of
which the water issued when struck by the rod of Moses. It lies quite
insulated by the side of the path, which is about ten feet higher than
the lowest bottom of the valley.
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