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 treasures. Such is the effect produced by these mediæval 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 |