"The Gulfs of Suez and Akaba are distinctly visible; from the dark-blue waters of the latter, the island of _Tiran_, considered by the ancient geographers as sacred to _Isis_,[13] rears itself. Mount Agrib (_Garib_), on the other hand, points out 'the land of bondage.' Before me is St _Catherine_, its bare, conical peak now capped with snow. In magnificence and striking effect, few parts of the world can surpass the wild, naked scenery everywhere met with in the mountain-chain which girds the sea-coast of Arabia." ... The monkish "Mount _Sinai_ itself, and the hills which compose the district in its immediate vicinity, rise in sharp, isolated, conical peaks. From their steep and shattered sides huge masses have been splintered, leaving fissures rather than valleys between their remaining portions. These form the highest part of the range of mountains that spread out over the Peninsula, and are very generally, in the winter months, covered with snow, the melting of which occasions the torrents which everywhere devastate the plains below. The peculiarities of its _conical_ formation, render this district yet more distinct from the adjoining heights that appear in successive ridges beyond it, while the valleys which intersect them are so narrow that few can be perceived. No villages and castles, as in Europe, here animate the picture; no forests, lakes, or falls of water, break the silence and monotony of the scene. All has the appearance of a vast and desolate wilderness, either grey, darkly-brown, or wholly black."[14] Footnote 13: _Isis_ is supposed to be the same as _Io_, and the island of Tiran is evidently, as I have already stated in a preceding note, that which Procopius names Iôtabê, _Iotabe_. This word is probably derived from Ious ta abata,--the _shrine_, or sacred place, of _Io_. Footnote 14: Travels in Arabia, vol. ii., p. 97. And Dr Lepsius remarks on this mountain, that-- "Although it is certainly a high mountain, still it is a _secondary_ one, and almost eclipsed by others of the Great Southern Chain, the geographical centre of which is neither in _Gebel Mousa_, nor the loftier _Gebel Katherin_, but in the more southern, and considerably more elevated _Gebel-um-Schomar_." _Gebel Katherin_, composed principally of a coarse _red granite_, presents the same _conical peaks_. But in Wadi _Owasz_, S. by W., from the last mountain, Burckhardt noticed "a small chain of _white_ and _red sandstone_ hills in the midst of _granite_."