law to have been given. But _it this objection conclusive_? We read, indeed, that Israel ‘camped <g>_before the mount_</g>’ and that ‘the Lord came down in sight of all the people’ moreover, that bounds were set to prevent the people from breaking through and violating even the precints of the holy solitude. Although <g>_these_</g> conditions are more <g>_literally_</g> fulfilled at Er Rahah, yet, if we understood them as couched in general terms, _they apply, perhaps, well enough, to the vicinity of the Serbal_. A glance at the view, and a reference to this small rough map [here follows a sketch of the plan] will show the reader that the main encampment of the host must have been in Wadi Feiran itself, from which the summit of the Serbal is only here and there visible, and that it is by the lateral Wadi Aleyal that the base of the mountain itself by a walk of about an hour is to be reached. It certainly struck me, in passing up this valley, as a very unfit, if not impracticable, spot for the encampment of any great number of people, _if they were all in tents_; though well supplied with pure water, the ground is rugged, and rocky, towards the base of the mountain awfully so; but still _it is quite possible that a certain number might have established themselves there, as the Arabs do at present_, while, as on other occasions, the principal masses were distributed in the surrounding valleys. I do not know that there is any adequate ground for believing, as Robinson does, that because the people were warned not to invade the seclusion of the mount, and a guard was placed to prevent them from doing so, that <g>_therefore the encampment itself_</g> pressed closely on its borders. Curiosity might possibly enough lead many to attempt this even from a distance, to say nothing of those already _supposed to be located_ in the Wadi Aleyat, near the base of the mountain, to whom the injunction would more especially apply. Those, however, who press closely the literal sense of one or two passages, should bear in mind all the difficulties previously cited, and the _absolute destitution of verdure, cultivation, running streams, and even of abundant springs, which characterise the fearfully barren vicinity of the monkish Sinai_, where there is indeed room and verge enough for encampment, _but no resources whatever_. If we take up the ground of a _continual and miraculous provision for all the wants of two millions of people_, doubtless they may have been subsisted there as well as in any other place; _otherwise it seems incredible_ that _Moses_ should ever have abandoned a spot, offering such _unique advantages as Feiran_, to select instead _the most dreary and sterile spot in its neighbourhood_.”