During their youth they had the advantage of instruction under the best masters, and, among other things, acquired a wide knowledge of the modern and classical languages. Subsequent study and frequent visits to Greece and the Orient made them proficient in modern Greek, Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac. Becoming interested in the search for ancient manuscripts, they resolved to make the long and arduous journey to the Greek convent of St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai. In the latter part of January, 1892, these two brave and enterprising women left Suez for their destination in the heart of the Arabian desert. They were accompanied only by their dragoman and Bedouin servants. Eleven camels carried the two travelers, their baggage, tents and provisions for fifty days. They had laid in supplies not only for the two or three weeks they were to spend on the way to and from Sinai, but also for the month they expected to remain at the Convent of St. Catherine. Arriving at the end of their journey, they were most cordially received by the monks, who afforded them every facility for examining the treasures of their unique and venerable library. They immediately set to work, and before they left the room in which the manuscripts were preserved they had made one of the most remarkable finds of the century. For, in closely inspecting a dirty, forbidding old manuscript whose leaves had probably not been turned for centuries, they discovered a palimpsest, of which the upper writing contained the biographies of women saints, while that beneath proved to be one of the earliest copies of the Syriac Gospels, if not the very earliest in existence. No find since the celebrated discovery by Tischendorf of the Sinaitic Codex, in the same convent nearly fifty years before, ever excited such interest among Scriptural scholars or was hailed with greater rejoicings. It was by all Biblical students regarded as an invaluable contribution to Scriptural literature, and as a find which "has doubled our sources of knowledge of the darkest corner of New Testament criticism." To distinguish it from the _Codex Sinaiticus_, the precious manuscript brought to light by Mrs. Lewis has been very appropriately named after the fortunate discoverer, and will hereafter be known as the Codex Ludovicus.[223] Another find of rare importance made by the gifted twin sisters was a Palestinian Syriac lectionary similar to the hitherto unique copy in the Library of the Vatican. A special interest attaches to this lectionary from the fact that it is written in the language that was most probably spoken by our Lord.