But the change of plan so annoyed the emperor that it cost the legate his life. [Illustration: Fig. 16.—View of the Convent. (Petrie: _Researches in Sinai_.)] In order to safeguard the building, Roman slaves were brought from the Black Sea (traditionally from Wallachia), a hundred in number, and transferred to Sinai with their wives and children, together with a hundred men with their wives and children from Egypt. Dwellings were erected for them in Mount Sinai so that they might safeguard the monastery and the monks; they received their supplies from Egypt. Their settlement was known as the Deir Abid (_i.e._ monastery of slaves), and their descendants continued there till the spread of the Moslim faith. Moreover the Benu Saleh were appointed to act as _ghafirs_ or protectors to the monks, that is, they were responsible for those moving to and fro across the desert, in return for which they received largess in the form of food.[190] The same terms were mentioned by Makrizi († 1441) in his _History of the Copts_,[191] and by the _Perigraphe_ in its Arabic translation of the year 1710.[192] According to this the Benu Saleh, the Saidi and the Halig (Aleyat) were attached to the service of the convent which, in return, supplied them with food. The importance which the agreement attached to the Benu Saleh, was in keeping with the ancient establishment of this tribe in the peninsula, and their association with rites of religious importance in close vicinity to Gebel Musa and on Gebel Musa itself. The tomb of Nebi Saleh lies in the Wadi Sheykh at a distance of a few miles from the convent. It is the scene of an annual tribal festival which concludes with a pilgrimage half-way up the Gebel Musa, where a sheep is sacrificed over a natural hole in the rock. This is looked upon as a footprint of the holy camel, no doubt originally of the Naga, which was the creation of Nebi Saleh. Early references and the nature of the festival leave no doubt as to its antiquity. Thus, the writer Antoninus Martyr, who, about the year 530, entered Sinai from Gaza, journeyed by way of Elath (Elusa), “at the beginning of the desert that goes to Sinai,” and mentioned a festival that was about to take place. The people who entered the greater desert were in number twelve thousand (c. 36). On the eighth day after leaving Gaza, he reached the place where Moses brought forth water from the rock, and came to Horeb, which, in his estimation, was distinct from Sinai.