At a later period, the excellent travels of E. Robinson form a decided epoch in our acquaintance with the peninsula, as well as with Palestine. With reference to the position of Sinai, he mentions, for the first time, the favourable vicinity of the great plain of Râha to the north of Gebel Mûsa, on which the camp of the people of Israel would have had plenty of room (Palestine, vol. i. pp. 144, sqq.). In defining the position of the actual Mount of the Law, he departs from the previous tradition, and endeavours to prove that Moses had not ascended the Gebel Mûsa, but the mountain ridge rising over the plain from the south, which is now called Horeb by the monks, and the highest peak of which is named Sefsâf (vol. i. p. 176). Unfortunately, he has not visited Wadi Firân and the adjoining Serbâl. In a later essay (Bibl. Sacra, vol. iv. No. XXII. May, 1849, pp. 381, sqq.) the learned author returns to the question in respect of my hypothesis, with which he had become acquainted, and opposes to it his already published arguments for Gebel Sefsâf. He comprehends this under three points, which he particularizes from the Mosaic history, and which must therefore also be mentioned here:--“1. A mountain-summit, overlooking the place where the people stood. 2. Space sufficient, adjacent to the mountain, for so large a multitude to stand and behold the phenomena on the summit. 3. The relation between this space where the people stood and the base of the mountain must be such, that they could approach and stand at the nether part of the mount; that they could also touch it, and that further bounds could appropriately be set around the mount, lest they should go up into it, or touch the border of it.” The first of these three points would militate rather against Gebel Mûsa than Serbâl. Robinson says that the latter is excluded by the second and third points. As to the second, I will only call to mind that the encampment of the children of Israel is not otherwise described than at all their earlier stations. If, therefore, the idea of a camp was to be carried out so exclusively as that writers should be solicitous about _space_ for the occupation of so large a people, it would be necessary to find a plain of Râha for all former stations, particularly at Raphidîm (which, according to almost general belief was situated at the foot of Serbâl). As there was a somewhat lengthy stay at that place, Moses was visited by Jethro, and by his advice divided the whole people into divisions of ten men each, and organized them methodically; from which we must conclude that there was a certain local position for all. Whoever thinks of a mass of two millions,--therefore about the number of the inhabitants of London or the whole of modern Egypt--encamped in tents (of which they would have required one for each ten persons, therefore 200,000), as in a well-ordered military camp, to him even the plain of Râha would appear