Here they were taken the usual round of the churches and chapels, and ascended the Mountain of the Law, access to which was now forbidden to the Jews. They repaired to the convent of the Arbaïn from which they made the ascent of Gebel Katrîn. They saw the stone in the shape of a Golden Calf, about which Fabri had his doubts (ii. 594); the stone on which the Tables were broken; the convent of St. John Climacus; the convent of SS. Cosmas and Damianus, with its well-kept garden; the spot where Dathan and Abiram disappeared (ii. 590); the boulder with twelve channels of water, one for each of the twelve tribes. Finally, they were shown the relics of St. Katherine, lying in their chest, into which they dropped two ducats each, and were allowed to touch the relics with trinkets they had brought for this purpose (ii. 600). The flow of sacred oil had ceased. There was none available in 1483; in 1489 it was collected at the rate of three drops a week (Joannes de Hese, p. 181). This is the last we hear of it. Pilgrims received, instead, a piece of cotton wool or of silk which was taken out of the chest of St. Katherine, and steeped in the oil of the lamps. The cessation of oil was attributed to the desecration of the shrine by the Arabs. From the convent some of the pilgrims went on to Cairo by way of “El Phat,” and the white hills of “Lacrara,” where they joined the caravan road coming from Tur. Further stations along the road were “Enaspo” (Wadi Nasb), “Horenden” or “Dorenden” (Wadi Gharandel), “Werdachii” (Werdan), and “Marath” or “Merach,” perhaps the old Mara, and the present Ayun Musa. These stopping-places are the same as those chosen by pilgrims and travellers at the present day. CHAPTER XVII THE LATER HISTORY OF THE CONVENT THE size of the caravans that plied between Sinai and Egypt were a source of wonder to the mediæval pilgrim. This development of trade received a check in the sixteenth century, through the discovery of the sea-route to India by the Portuguese. Prince Henry of Portugal († 1460) brought the west coast of Africa within reach of his country. In the year 1487 Bartholomew Diaz sailed from Portugal to the Cape of Good Hope, which Vasco da Gama doubled ten years later, sailing on to Calicut. Every year a fleet now left Lisbon for India, where spicery was shipped direct for Portugal.