I
rested the following day in the convent, where several Greeks from Tor
and Suez had arrived; being friends of the monks, they were invited in
the evening to the private apartments of the latter, where they were
plied so bountifully with brandy that they all retired tipsy to bed.
Several Bedouins had acquainted me that a thundering noise,
WADY OWASZ
[p.587] like repeated discharges of heavy artillery, is heard at times
in these mountains; and they all affirmed that it came from Om Shomar.
The monks corroborated the story, and even positively asserted that they
had heard the sound about mid-day, five years ago, describing it in the
same manner as the Bedouins. The same noise had been heard in more
remote times, and the Ikonómos, who has lived here forty years, told me
that he remembered to have heard the noise at four or five separate
periods. I enquired whether any shock of an earthquake had ever been
felt on such occasions, but was answered in the negative. Wishing to
ascertain the truth, I prepared to visit the mountain of Om Shomar.
As I had lost much of the confidence of the Bedouins by writing upon the
mountains, and could not intimidate them by shewing a passport from the
Pasha, I kept my intended journey secret, and concerting matters with
Hamd and two Djebalye, I was let down from the window of the convent a
little before midnight on the 23rd of May, and found my guides well
armed and in readiness below.
