He says (p. 55): “If we endeavour to reconcile ourselves to the received but _questionable system_, which seeks to accommodate the miraculous with the natural, _<g>it is impossible</g>_, I think, _not to close with the reasoning advanced in favour of the Serbal_. There can be no doubt that Moses was personally well acquainted with the peninsula, and had even probably dwelt in the vicinity of Wadi Feiran during his banishment from Egypt, but even common report as to the present day, would point to this favoured locality _<g>as the only fit spot</g>_ in the _whole range of the Desert for the supply_, either _with water or such provisions as the country afforded_, of the Israelitish host: on this ground, alone, then, he would be led irresistibly to fix upon it, when meditating a long sojourn for the purpose of compiling the law. This consideration derives additional force when we consider the supply of wood, and other articles, requisite for the construction of the tabernacles, and which can only be found readily at Wadi Feiran, and of its being also, in all probability, from early times, a place visited by trading caravans. But if Moses were even unacquainted previously with the resources of the place, he must have passed it on his way from the sea-coast through the interior of the mountains; and _it is inconceivable that he should have refused to avail himself of its singular advantages for his purpose_, or that the host would have consented, without a murmur, to quit, after so much privation, this fertile and well-watered oasis for new perils in the barren desert; or that he should, humanly speaking, have been able either to compel them to do so, or afterwards to fix them in the _inhospitable unsheltered position of the monkish Mount Sinai, with the fertile Feiran but one day’s long march in their rear_. Supplies of _wood_, and perhaps of _water, must, in that case, have been brought, of necessity, from the very spot they had but just abandoned_. We must suppose that the _Amalekites_ would oppose the onward march of the Israelites, _where they alone had a fertile territory_ worthy of being disputed, and from which Moses must, of necessity, have sought to expel them. If it be so, then in this vicinity and no other we must look for Rephidim, from whence the Mount of God was at a very short distance. We seem thus to have _a combination of circumstances which are met with nowhere else_, to certify that it was here that Moses halted for the great work he had in view, and that the scene of the law-giving is here before our eyes in its wild and lonely majesty. The principal objection to this is on the following ground, that there is no open space in the immediate neighbourhood of the Serbal suitable for the _encampment_ of the vast multitude, and from which they could <g>_all of them at once_</g> have had a view of the mountain, as is the case at the plain Er Rahah, at Mount Sinai, where Robinson supposes, principally for that reason, the