A sandy plain, with many shrubs, leads him southward along the shore to an extensive triangular plain, called "The Valley of Ease," in which is a bitter fountain, the principal watering-place of the Arabs (after Elim) on this road.

Dr. Robinson considers that it was at the mouth of the valley that the Israelites encamped, and that from thence they journeyed towards the great desert plain, which he regards as the commencement of the Desert of Sin, and as the next station mentioned in Scripture. Dr. Wilson, on the other hand, supposes that they marched straight forward to the "Valley of Ease,” and there had their "encampment by the Red Sea."

However this may be, it is evident that along the rocky valley, and along the sandy shore, and into this spacious plain, the people of the Lord journeyed: a circumstance sufficient to render a description of them very interesting to the Bible reader.

"We were all much struck with the indirect, but remarkable coincidence of Holy Scripture with the topography of this day's march. No person but a writer well acquainted with the geography of these parts would, like Moses, have brought the Israelites again upon the Red Sea by a line of march so devious, but so necessary on account of the mountains and valleys, as that which we have to-day pursued."-See ROBINSON's Researches, and WILSON's Lands of the Bible.

"THE cloud rested in the wilderness of Paran."

Numb. x. 12.

"God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran... His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise."-Hab. iii. 3.

WADY FEIRAN.

"We commenced our journey through the Valley Feirán, with the majestic Serbál, with its five lofty peaks, straight before us, as an expected resting-place for the night. (After travelling some distance through the sandy part of the valley, with but little vegetation,) the plants and bushes increased in number, and (at length)

we came upon the first of the date-trees for which Wádí Feirán is celebrated. They occur at a place where there are a few huts, and some gardens and fields watered from a deep well. We got an Arab damsel to draw us some water, which we found to be both pure and cool, and a great luxury. The view of the rocks and hills, on each side of the valley here, was most picturesque... This place, however, is only an out-field of the Paradise of the Bedawín, as Wadi Feiran has been called."

Burckhardt writes of this valley, "It is considered the finest in the whole peninsula . . . An uninterrupted row of gardens and date plantations extend . . . for four miles. In almost every garden is a well, by means of which the grounds are watered the whole year round... Among the date trees are small huts, where reside the Arabs who serve as gardeners to the Bedouins, who own the ground. They take one-third of the fruit for their labour. The owners seldom visit the place, except in the date harvest, when the valley is filled with people for a month or six weeks; at that season they erect huts of palm branches, and pass their time in receiving visits, and treating their guests with dates... The Nebek (Rhamnus Lotus), the fruit of which is a favourite food of the Bedouins, grows also in considerable quantity at Wady Feiran. These Arabs are very poor... their only profitable branch of culture is tobacco, of which they raise considerable quantities ... the other vegetable productions of the valley are cucumbers, gourds, melons, hemp, onions, and a few carobtrees. The narrowness of the valley of Feiran, the high mountains on each side, and the thick woods of datetrees, render the heat extremely oppressive; in spring and summer dangerous fevers reign here. Where the valley widens, and becomes more open, it is probably healthy."

Travellers are divided in opinion as to whether this fine valley, and the "majestic and gigantic" Mount Serbal, do, or do not, represent the Paran (or part of it), frequently

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alluded to in Scripture, and the Mount Paran mentioned in the sublime poetry of Habakkuk (iii. 3-7).

Dr. Wilson spent a Sunday in this favoured spot in the midst of the desert. "The rest of the Sabbath," he writes, "is always welcome to the wayworn traveller; but, in a place so sublime and beautiful in its natural scenery, and so interesting in its associations, as Wady Feiran, it is peculiarly precious. This we felt, when encamped under the shadow of the majestic and gigantic Serbal, and in the lovely valley in which the Christianity of the desert found a refuge in its early ages." (There was formerly a town and bishopric at this spot.)

MOUNT HOREB, OR SINAI-WILDERNESS OF SINAI.

SCRIPTURE NOTICES.

"Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-inlaw... and he led the flock to the back side of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush."-Exodus iii. 1, 2.

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Behold, I will stand before thee there upon the rock in Horeb; and thou shalt smite the rock, and there shall come water out of it, that the people may drink.". Exodus xvii. 6.

...

"They. were come to the desert of Sinai, and had pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the Mount ... And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire: and