THE CONVENT OF MOUNT SINAI.

213

SKETCH XIII.

SINAI.

The Convent and the Dwellers therein-The Ascent of the Holy Mountain-Abstinence and Privations-A Treasure of Precious Stones

-Mount Horeb.

THE convent of Mount Sinai is the strangest imaginable assemblage of buildings. Every style may be traced in it; from Byzantine architecture to the most modern epochs of Arab art. Colossal outer walls, flanked by towers and counterforts, give the convent the aspect of a great fortress, quadrangular in form, though conforming to the bend of the mountain against which it is reared, as though it had attempted to scale Mount Sinai, and remained suspended in space like the eyrie of an eagle. It is a little city, an immense strong castle which could sustain more than one attack, more than one siege, on the part of the Arab tribes who covet its treaSuch is the effect produced by these mediaval

sures.

buildings, where long lives pass by in silence, and whose inmates never come forth from them, except to make war. Judging by the height of the towers and their counterforts, they must be very rarely scaled, and for some time we could not guess' the position of the drawbridge or entrance of this impregnable fortress.

At length we found it out. It is a kind of flapfloor of basket-work worked by a pulley, by means of which the monks communicate with the outer world. The aperture, masked by a wooden shutter, is level with the extreme height of the wall, and excludes every supposition of surprise. The rope which serves to hoist up packages and travellers is worked by a capstan, to which the monks harness themselves to lift their wood, which is brought to them by the Arabs in exchange for certain alms. On a fixed day, a distribution of bread and rice is made to all the poor of the neighbouring tribes. We were present at this curious ceremony, when bread literally fell down to them from heaven, out of the highperched tower. We had hoped to make an aerial trip, and enter the convent by this singular aperture, but we arrived too late. The modern mania for embellishment has reached even to Sinai, and the

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onks have allowed themselves a real door in the ewest and worst taste. This new entry, which as 'inaugurated' by us, was not so much to our ncy as the basket, a privileged mode of entrance ow reserved for sacks of rice and flour, and foridden to us, even in our capacity of artists, by the ules of the convent. This was our first mortificaion, but we speedily forgot it in the novelty and nterest of our visit.

We began at the beginning, by paying our respects o the superior. He was in the library, and we were received by a reverend father with a fine, but sickly face, who conducted us to the reception room. In order to reach this apartment, we had to ascend several inclined planes, to mount steep staircases, to pass through dark and winding passages, and to reach a second series of constructions, which, being on another level, seem like a second little town built on the top of the first. A vast courtyard, ornamented by three superb cypresses, formed the centre of this second layer of habitations. Out of this court we went, turning in various directions until we came to a wooden stair, which we climbed, and which was no better than a worm-eaten and slippery ladder. At the end we found ourselves on the principal