_ CHAPTER XXIX. VIEW OF MOUNT SINAI IN THE DISTANCE
When the professor concluded his lecture for the forenoon, the audience scattered, some of them feeling the need of more exercise; but Captain Ringgold went to the pilot-house. Like the cabin passengers, he immediately gave his attention to the mountains of the peninsula; for the African shore was little better than a blank, with nothing there worthy of notice. The pilot was an intelligent man, and he proceeded to question him in regard to the peaks in sight.
Just then there was nothing difficult in the navigation; and Twist, the quartermaster, was at the wheel, steering the course which had been given out, south south-west half west. The pilot knew the mountains as though they had been old friends of his for a lifetime. It did not take the commander long to learn his lesson; and he returned to the deck, where the passengers were gazing at the lofty points, thirty to forty miles distant, but still very distinctly seen in the clear air of the day. As soon as the captain appeared they gathered around him. He had ordered all the spy-glasses on board to be brought out, and those who had opera or field glasses had been to their staterooms for them.
"Isn't it time to see something, Captain Ringgold?" asked Mrs. Belgrave, to whom he had directed his steps.
"There is always something to be seen in a narrow gulf like this, though we shall be out of sight of land to-morrow morning when you come on deck. We are now abreast of a plateau 1,600 feet high, which extends for about thirty miles along the coast. It is a part of the desert of Kaa, which extends to the southern point of the peninsula, over which you would have had to travel first by camel for nearly twenty miles, if we had gone to Mount Sinai by the only route open to us.
"We have seen about deserts enough," added the lady.
"Then you are the better prepared for the immense contrast between plains of sand and the rich lands of India, covered with the most luxuriant foliage. Now we have it at its best!" exclaimed the commander.
"What do we have? I don't see anything."
"We have Mount Serbal, which some believe is the genuine Mount Sinai," continued the commander, as he pointed out the loftiest peak in sight, and which was readily distinguished from all others.
All the passengers had by this time gathered near him; for all of them were anticipating a sight at the lofty height which had given a name to the peninsula, though its real name is Arabia Petraea, as we used to read about it in "Stephens's Travels" sixty years ago.
"That mountain is the highest on the peninsula; and if it is not the real Mount Sinai, where the law was delivered to Moses, some insist that it ought to be, for they say it is loftier, grander, nobler, and more worthy the great event than the one which is generally assigned as its location," said the captain. "As you have been informed before, Serbal is 8,712 feet high."
Mrs. Blossom did not appear to be satisfied. Evidently she desired to "gush" over the Holy Mountain; but the doubt as to "which was which," as she stated it, bothered her very seriously, and she was not at all friendly to the "pesky Bible critics," who had raised the doubt as to its identity.
"Jebel Musa!" shouted the commander a couple of hours later; and the party gathered around him again.
"What on earth is that?" demanded the good lady.
"Keep cool, Sarah," said Mrs. Belgrave to her. "The captain will tell you all about it in due time."
"Jebel, or gebel, means a mountain in Arabic; Musa is sometimes spelled Moosa; and the whole name, I suppose, is 'Mountain of Moses,'" the commander explained as soon as he had enabled every one to see the peak that went by this name. "In other words, that is what nearly everybody who knows anything about the matter believes to be the true Mount Sinai."
"Mount Sinai!" almost screamed Mrs. Blossom, who had apparently determined not to be harassed by any more doubts, for what everybody believed to be true must be so. "I should like to die on that mountain," she declared, wringing her hands in a sort of rapture.
"Don't make yourself ridiculous, Sarah," interposed Mrs. Belgrave in a whisper.
"How can a body look on Mount Sinai without being stirred up?" demanded the good woman.
But whether it was Jebel Serbal or Jebel Musa, Mount Sinai was there; and doubtless most of the company were as much impressed by the fact as the excellent lady from Von Blonk Park, though they were less demonstrative about it. Mrs. Belgrave was silent for a time; and then she struck up one of Watts's familiar hymns, in which the others joined her:--
"Not to the terrors of the Lord,
The tempest, fire, and smoke,
Not to the thunder of that word
Which God on Sinai spoke;
But we are come to Zion's hill,
The city of our God,
Where milder words declare his will,
And spread his love abroad."
As the gong sounded for lunch the ship was off Tur, but too far off to see the place, if there was anything there to see; and the commander mentioned it only as the port to which they would have sailed if they had gone to Mount Sinai. The "Big Four" were more interested in the Arabian craft they saw near the shore, for they always keep close to the land. Their captains are familiar with all the intricate reefs where large vessels never go. They are very cautious sailors, and on the least sign of foul weather they run into one of the creeks which indent the coast. They never sail at night; and if they have to cross the sea, they wait for settled weather.
At the hour appointed for the afternoon conference the passengers were all in their places; and however the report of his lectures may read, the listeners were deeply interested, partly because they were inspired by a desire for knowledge, and partly on account of their proximity to the countries described. A map of the peninsula of Arabia had been unrolled on the frame, with enough of its surroundings to enable the audience to fix its location definitely in their minds. The professor came up smiling and pleasant as he always was, and the boys saluted him with a round of applause.
"My subject this time is Arabia, which the natives call Jezirat-al-Arab, and the Turks and Persians Arabistan. It is a peninsula, the isthmus of which reaches across from the south-eastern corner of the Mediterranean to the head of the Persian Gulf," the professor began, indicating on the map the localities mentioned with the pointer. "Asia abounds in peninsulas, and Arabia is the great south-western one. From north-west to south-east it extends 1800 miles, and is about 600 wide. It has an area of 1,230,000 square miles, which is a very indefinite statement to the mind, though given in figures, and I will adopt the commander's method of giving a better idea by comparison with some of the States of your own country.
"It is nearly five times as large as the State of Texas, the most extensive of the Union, and almost twenty-six times as large as the State of New York. They do not take a census here; and estimates from the best information that could be obtained make the population five millions, which is less than that of the State of New York. Mr. Gaskette has colored a strip of it along the Red Sea, about a hundred miles wide, in green, as he has Palestine and the other parts of Turkey in Asia shown before you. A large portion of Arabia consists of deserts, the principal of which is the Syrian in the north.
"Ptolemy, not the king but the geographer, divided Arabia into three sections,--Arabia Petraea, after the city of Petra; Arabia Deserta, the interior; and Arabia Felix (Arabie Heureuse in French), which does not mean 'the happy land,' as generally translated. Milton says, 'Sabean odors from the spicy shores of Araby the blest.' The words meant the land lying to the right, or south of Mecca, the Oriental principal point of the compass being the east and not the north.
"The proper divisions at the present time are the Sinai peninsula, Hedjaz, which is the northern part of the green strip; Yemen, the south part (formerly Arabia Felix); Hadramaut, which borders the Arabian Gulf, the ante-sea of the Red; and Oman, a mountainous region at the entrance of the Persian Gulf, an independent country, under the government of the sultan or imam of Muscat, as the territory is also called.
"We do not know much about the interior of Arabia, one-third of which is a desert, part of a zone reaching over all of Africa and Asia. El-Hasa, along the Persian Gulf in the east, for such a country, is level and fertile, and is really a Turkish province, like those on the west coast. A short rainy season occurs on the west coast, which only fills up the low places; and there is hardly a river, if there is anything entitled to the name, which is strong enough to go alone to the sea from any distance inland. Fine fruits are raised, especially in Yemen, as well as coffee, grain, tobacco, cotton, spices, aloes, frankincense, and myrrh.
"Sheep, goats, oxen, camels, and horses are raised for domestic use. Gazelles and ostriches live in some of the oases, where also the lion, panther, hyena, and jackal seek their prey. The magnificent Arabian horse has been raised here for a thousand years. The camel is one of the most useful animals of this country; and some suppose he is an original native, for his likeness is not found among Egyptian drawings and sculptures. There are plenty of fish and turtle along the coast.
"The original Arab is found here, and there is something about him to challenge our admiration. He is muscular, though of medium height, and is sharp and quick-witted by nature. He has some leading virtues, such as hospitality and good faith; he is courageous and temperate, perhaps because wine and spirits are forbidden in the Koran. But he is a sort of a natural robber, and seeks a terrible revenge for serious injuries. His wife, and there are often several of her, does the work, keeps house, and educates the children. Some Arabs are settled in towns or oases, and others lead a wandering life.
"'Blessed is the country that has no history,' for it is usually the record of wars. Arabia has nothing that can properly be called history; but it has been concerned in the wars of Turkey and Egypt. What there is relates to the birth and life of Mohammed, and his wars to promote the increase of his followers; and I shall tell you the story of the Prophet at another time."
The professor retired after the usual applause. Some walked the deck, watching whatever was to be seen, especially the Arabian dhows, and occasionally a large steamer passed; and some went to sleep in their staterooms. The course of the Guardian-Mother had been varied as much as the soundings would permit as she approached the Jubal Strait, which is the entrance to the Gulf of Suez, in order to give the passengers a view of some interesting scenery.
"There is the Jebel Zeyt," said the commander, as he pointed out a group of hills, called mountains by courtesy, of a reddish hue. "Those hills are 1,530 feet high, and this locality is famous in story. The material of the elevations is haematite, which Dr. Hawkes can explain better than I can."
"It is a native sesquioxide of a reddish color, with a blood-like streak," added the surgeon, laughing.
"Do you understand it, Mrs. Blossom?" asked the captain, turning to that worthy lady.
"I am sure I don't," protested she, blushing.
"The sesquipedality of that word is trying to all of us, I fancy, and I am in the same box as the lady; for I am as sure as she is that I don't know the meaning of the word," added the professor.
"Of course you don't, for it is a technical term," replied the doctor. "It means an oxide in which two atoms of a metal combine with three atoms of oxygen. Please to remember it, Mrs. Blossom."
"I don't even know what an ox-hide is," returned the lady promptly; for the professor had vindicated her by not understanding a definition himself.
"We will settle that another time, if you please," interposed the commander. "These rocks are said to be so powerfully magnetic as to affect the compasses of ships passing them. The water is sometimes marked about here with patches of oil. Large sums were expended in this vicinity in boring for petroleum; but none of any account was found. Probably the red mountain has given its name to the sea, though that is not known."
"Possibly Sinbad the Sailor was in this strait when the loadstone drew out the bolts in his ship, though he does not give the latitude and longitude of the place in the story of his adventure," suggested Louis. In the evening the passengers looked at the lights, and retired at a seasonable hour. _