ground from the Bible itself to believe, it must then have appeared also.

In winter, when the whole of the upper Sinai is deeply covered with snow, and many of the passes are choked up, the mountains of Moses and St. Catherine are often inaccessible. Mr. FAZAKERLY, who ascended them in the month of February, found a great deal of snow, and the ascent was severe. 'It is difficult,' he says, 'to imagine a scene more desolate and terrific, than that which is discovered from the summit of Sinai. A haze limited the prospect, and, except a glimpse of the sea in one direction, nothing was within sight but snow, huge peaks, and crags of naked granite.' Of the view from Mount St. Catherine he says, 'The view from hence is of the same kind, only much more extensive than from the top of Sinai. It commands the two gulfs of Akaba and Suez; the island of Tiran and the village of Tur were pointed out to us; Sinai was far below us; all the rest, wherever the eye could reach, was a vast wilderness, and a confusion of granite mountains, and valleys destitute of verdure.' CONDER's Modern Traveller, Arabia, p. 159, 160.

88. We have here another question raised, which is not generally taken into consideration at all. The Israelites, according to the story, were under Sinai for nearly twelve months together, and they kept the second Passover under the mountain before they left it, N. ix. 1. As this was in the first month of the Jewish ecclesiastical year, corresponding to the latter part of March and beginning of April, they must have passed the whole of the winter months under Sinai, and must have found it bitterly cold.

In the mountainous districts it is very cold in the winter nights. Sometimes the water in the garden of the monastery at Saint Catherine freezes even in February. And, on the contrary, in the summer months, the sun pours down his rays burning hot from heaven, and in reflection from the naked rocky precipices, into the sandy valleys. RUPPELL, quoted in HENGSTENBERG'S Balaam, Clark's Theol. Library, p. 338.

Where, then, amidst the scanty vegetation of the neighbourhood, where at the present time there seems not to grow a single tree fit for firewood,-and there is

6

no reason to suppose that it was ever otherwise,—did the Israelites obtain supplies of fuel, not only for the daily cooking necessities of a population like that of LONDON, but also for relief against the piercing cold of the winter season, or when, as JOSEPHUS says, Ant. iii. 7. 4, the weather was inclined to snow?' And the cattle,-unless supplied with artificial food, must they not also have perished in multitudes from cold and starvation under such circumstances? We find this to be the case even in the fertile colony of Natal, where in some winter seasons they die from these joint causes in great numbers, when the grass, though abundant, is dried up, and the cold happens to be more severe than usual, though not severe enough for ice and snow, except in the higher districts, and then only for about a month or six weeks in the year.

89. If the last quotations describe the state of things in the depth of winter, the following (in addition to the words of RUPPELL, above quoted) will convey some idea of the general aspect of the country in the height of the summer season. It would seem that travellers generally choose the most favourable season of the year for visiting these desert regions. We must make due allowance for this fact also, in considering even their accounts of the desolate barrenness of the whole district, with reference to the story told in the Pentateuch.

BURCKHARDT visited Um Shaumer, the loftiest mountain in the peninsula, and writes of the scene as follows. 'The devastations of torrents are everywhere visible, the sides of the mountains being rent by them in numberless directions. The surface of the sharp rocks is blackened by the sun; all vegetation is dry and withered; and the whole scene presents nothing but utter desolation and hopeless barrenness.' CONDER's Arabia, p. 199.

He afterwards travelled from the neighbourhood of Sinai eastward, across the peninsula, to the gulf of Akaba. But, he says, 'the barrenness of this district exceeded anything we had yet witnessed, except some parts of the desert of El Tih [that is, the desert of Sinai]. The Nubian valleys might be called pleasure-grounds in comparison. Not the smallest green leaf could be discovered. And the thorny mimosa, which retains its verdure in the tropical deserts of Nubia with very little supplies of moisture, was here entirely withered, and so dry that it caught fire from the lighted ashes which fell from our pipes as we passed.' CONDER'S Arabia, p. 204.

90. As to the little spots of greater luxuriance, which are found here and there in the Sinaitic peninsula, we may form some idea of their character, and of the fitness of any one of them to sustain even for a single day such a vast multitude of cattle, from the following description by BURCKHARDT of Wady Kyd, ' one of the most noted date-valleys of the Sinai Arabs.' This valley he entered, and pursued its windings, till he came in an hour's time to a small rivulet, two feet across and six inches in depth, which is lost immediately below in the sands of the Wady.

It drips down a granite rock, which blocks up the valley, there only twenty paces broad, and forms at the foot of the rock a small pond, overshadowed by trees, with fine verdure on its banks. The rocks, which overhang it on both sides, almost meet, and give to the whole the appearance of a grotto, most delightful to the traveller, after passing through these dreary valleys. It is, in fact, the most romantic spot I have seen in these mountains. The source of the rivulet is half an hour higher up the valley, the deep verdure of which forms a striking contrast with the glaring rocks, showing that, wherever water passes in these districts, vegetation invariably accompanies it. Beyond the spot, where the rivulet oozes out of the ground, vegetation ceases, and the valley widens. Notwithstanding its verdure, however, Wady Kyd is an uncomfortable halting-place, on account of the great number of gnats and ticks, with which it is infested. Ibid. p. 218.

Bearing in mind that two millions of sheep and oxen, allowing a space of three feet by two feet as standing ground for each, would require, when packed

together as closely as in a pen in a cattle-market, nearly 300 acres of land, it seems idle to expend more time in discussing the question, whether they could have been supported in the wilderness by the help of such insignificant wadies as these, which a drove of a hundred oxen would have trampled down into mud in an hour.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE NUMBER OF THE ISRAELITES COMPARED WITH THE EXTENT OF THE LAND OF CANAAN.

91. I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee. And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. I will not drive them out from before thee in one year, lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased and inherit the land. E. xxiii. 27-30.

The whole land, which was. divided among the tribes in the time of Joshua, including the countries beyond the Jordan, was in extent about 11,000 square miles, or 7,000,000 acres. (KITTO's Geogr. of the Holy Land, Knight's series, p. 7.) And, according to the story, this was occupied by more than two millions of people. Now the following is the extent of the three English agricultural counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex, with the population according to the census of 1851: