mountains, could not possibly have taken the name of Sin from the western desert of that name, nor can it offer a suggestion for such a statement, as that the desert of Sin lies between Abu Zelîmeh and Gebel Mûsa. It is also reasonable to believe, that the whole of the primitive rocks, (that is, the whole of the peninsula south of Abu Zelîmeh), was called the “desert of Sin,” and consequently that Gebel Mûsa was included in it. This even does not necessarily exclude the belief that Serbâl, as the best known, the nearest, and as a much more important mountain to the Egyptian colonists than the southern mountains could be, would not have been distinguished by that name; whilst in the southern principal chain not even Um Shômar as the highest centre-point,--not the completely subordinate Gebel Mûsa,--still less the isolated rock Sefsâf, which Robinson considers the one, would have had such a distinguished designation. All that has been said here relative to Sinai as the “mountain of the desert of Sin,” may now be applied to the further question, as to which of the two mountains, Serbâl and Gebel Mûsa, possessed such properties that it should already, before the great event of the giving the Commandments, have been regarded as a “holy mountain,” as a “mountain of God,” by the native races of the peninsula.[124] For Moses already drove the sheep of Jethro behind the desert from Midian, to the “mountain of God in Choreb;” and Aaron came to meet him on his return from Egypt to the “mountain of God.” If we hold to the belief that the necessary centre of the Sinaïtic population at that time was the Oasis Firân, so does there appear every probability that that race had founded a sanctuary, a universal place of worship in the neighbourhood, at the foot, or much more naturally at the summit, of the mountain which rose from that valley.[125] Moreover, this was the particular spot fixed for that meeting of Moses, who came out of Midian, and Aaron, who came out of Egypt. There was no occasion, in so desert and unpopulated a country, to seek out for any particularly private and remote mountain-corner for such a meeting. From this it appears that the Sinaïtic inscriptions, which as has been already said, are principally to be found on the way to Wadi Firân, and in the Wadi Aleyât leading up to Serbâl, seem to point out that in much later times, long pilgrimages, to celebrate religious festivals, must have been undertaken to this place.[126]