[p.621] passed here on their pilgrimage to the holy mountain. Some of
the latter contain Jewish names in Greek characters. There is a vast
number of drawings of mountain goats and of camels, the latter sometimes
represented as loaded, and with riders on their backs. Crosses are also
seen, indicating that the inscribers were Christians. It should be
observed that the Mokatteb lies in the principal route to Sinai, and
which is much easier and more frequented than the upper road by Naszeb,
which I took in my way to the convent; the cliffs also are so situated
as to afford a fine shade to travellers during the mid-day hours. To
these circumstances may undoubtedly in great measure be attributed the
numerous inscriptions found in this valley.
We rested for the night, after a days march of nine hours and a
quarter, near the lower extremity of the Seyh Szeder, and just beyond
the last of the inscriptions. The bottom of the valley is here rocky,
and as flat as if the rock had been levelled by art.
June 4th.At a few hundred paces below the place where we had slept, the
valley becomes very narrow, the mountains to the right approach, and a
defile of granite rocks is entered in a direction W. by S. called Wady
Kenna [Arabic], where the tomb of a saint of the name of Wawa [Arabic]
stands. I was told afterwards at Cairo, by some Sinai Bedouins, that
lower down in Wady Kenna there is a very deep cavern in the rock. At
three quarters of an hour we passed to the right of the defile, and
turned N.W. into a valley called Badera [Arabic]. The valley of Badera
consists of sand rock, and the ground is deeply covered with sand. We
ascended gently in it, and in an hour and three quarters reached its
summit, from whence we descended by a narrow difficult path, down a
cliff called Nakb Badera [Arabic], into an open plain between the
mountains; we crossed the plain, and at two hours and a quarter entered
Wady Shellal [Arabic], so called from