(1.) “The Infidels call the mountain Muntagi.”—Hushan dagh, the correct
name given by the Arabs, is here handed down to us as “Muntagi”, which
differs so widely from the native appellation of Sinaï, that it may
have been derived from the word Montagna, possibly the generic name by
which the mount was known to pilgrims. In such a case, Schiltberger’s
companions would have been Italians, who, on the supposition that
they were mariners, supplied him with the details he gives on the Red
Sea—its breadth, which is represented at double its actual extent—and
the information that it had to be crossed to attain Sinai; although
we know from De Lannoy that the journey from Egypt was performed “en
costiant la mer”. The knight makes no mention of the wonderful supply
of oil at the monastery of St. Catherine, nor of the other miracles
performed by the saint; but he explains why the Infidels went to Sinai.
At the foot of the mount was a church of St. Catherine, “à manière d’un
chastel, forte et quarrée, où les trois lois de Jhésu-Crist, de Moyse
et de Mahommet sont en trois églises représentées”.—BRUUN.
(1A.) This somewhat confused description of St. Catherine’s mount and
of Mount Sinaï, is to be accounted for by Schiltberger’s statement
that he had not ascended the latter, and that he described the sites
from hearsay only. He distinguishes, however, St. Catherine from what
he calls “Muntagi, the mountain of the apparition”, upon which, as he
was informed, God appeared to Moses in a burning bush; where flows
the spring from the rock that Moses struck with his staff; the site
where our Lord delivered to him the tables with the ten Commandments,
etc., etc. “Muntagi” may therefore have been intended for Musa dagh,
the Turkish, as Jabal Musa is the Arabic for Mountain of Moses, about
which, in the words of Dean Stanley (_Sinai and Palestine_, 39) the
traditions of Israel have lingered, certainly since the 6th century,
and perhaps from a still earlier date. Mount Sinaï is called Tur Sina
by Ibn Haukal, and Jabal Tur and Et Tur by Edrisi and Aboulfeda.—ED.