[Illustration: RÂS ES SUFSAFEH (MOUNT SINAI).] II. =Natural Features.= This region has two general divisions, and three others closely connected with them. 1. The Table-Land. 2. The Sinaitic Mountains. 3. The narrow plain by the western arm of the Red Sea. 4. The Arabah, or valley between the Ælanitic Gulf and the Dead Sea. 5. The Negeb, or South Country. 1. The northern and central portion of the triangle is a sterile table-land of limestone, from 2,000 to 2,500 feet high, and consisting of rolling plains with a gravelly surface; with few springs, and these mostly of impure water; and watered only by the streams of the _Wady el Arish_ ("the River of Egypt"), a torrent which is dry during most of the year. This was the Wilderness of Paran, "the great and terrible wilderness" (Deut. 1:19) in which the Israelites wandered for 38 years. It is now called _et Tih_, "the wandering," and is traversed from east to west by two caravan routes, marked by the bleached bones of camels that have perished by the way. On the north it slopes away to a plain of white sand reaching to the Mediterranean, which was generally called the Wilderness of Shur. On the other three sides it is bounded by a chain of mountains, 4,000 feet high, called _Jebel et Tih_. It was in this wilderness country that the children of Israel were doomed to wander until all the generation that came out of Egypt died, except Caleb and Joshua. Even Moses was not permitted to more than see the Promised Land from the top of Pisgah.