Again, if the Israelites approached by way of Tûr, as some suppose, their route directly opens into this wadi. If, on the other hand, they journeyed by es-Sheik, Wadi es-Sheik opens directly into Wadi es-Sebaiyah. A man must be fastidious about localities who can cavil with a tradition that maintains this wadi and its impending mountain to be the scene of the giving of the law. But let us ascend Jebel Mousa. You are fatigued; well, sit you down, and I will give you a full and true account of my ascent, when I was passing a few days at the convent, early in the spring of 1845.

One fine afternoon I had employed myself in taking the dimensions of this wadi we have just stepped; and, having some time on hand before the day closed, the bright thought took me of climbing the mountain, exactly opposite to where we are now sitting. A little Arab urchin had been following me for some distance, so for lack of better company I took him with me, and up we began to trudge. As you can perceive, the ascent was exceedingly easy in the commencement (I have ridden up many a more difficult hill); but, after a while, the path became steep, though neither rough nor wearisome; in fact, we encountered nothing to retard our progress until we reached that crest of rock above there here we came to "a stand still"-for, although we clambered over the cliffs with ease, a deep chasm ran along their inner base, penetrating, as it appeared, the very roots of the mountain, and extending all the way across. However, after a short search, we found a natural bridge of rock which spanned the chasm, and by it we reached the opposite side; here another barrier of crags ran parallel with the former, and this we climbed.

To my surprise, I now found myself descending into a basin deep and spacious, carpeted with a close green turf; while directly opposite me rose a vast perpendicular wall of rock, terminating in that dark grey peak before us. On its extremity to the right, this wall of rock gradually subsides into a series of low crags, while its left wing slopes gently till it meets the outer and higher margin of the basin in which I stood. I dare say the summit might be gained by mounting the crags on the right hand; but

VOL. XXXIII.-NO. CXCVII.

at the extremity on the left, a very slight detour must bring one with ease to the top of the peak.

Such a scene of secluded solitude I never before witnessed. A barrier of rock cut off the plain below, and red and rugged peaks of sterile mountains reared their bleak heads on either side; but towering above all, in savage grandeur, there rose the awful front of Sinai. The loneliness and desolation of the spot was indescribable-not a sound to break the solemn stillness-not a moving thing to indicate life-not even a passing cloud to chequer the deep, monotonous, unbroken blue of heaven. The poor child I brought up with me had got terrified, and crept down. I was, indeed, alone. Could I regret it? No. I could now give utterance to my feelings without restraint; thoughts crowded on me. I was hurried back in thought, through a lapse of ages, to the days when Moses was wont to lead his flock to Horeb-" this mount of God." How often had he climbed this hill-side?—how often meditated, mused, and prayed, even on this lonely spot?-loving it for its loneliness, lingering in its solitude. Moses the Egyptian exile-then the mountain shepherd-then the great deliverer, the law-giver of Israel-the mediator between Jehovah and his backsliding people-Moses a child of nature, the man of God. I thought of Moses; but I remembered one greater than Moses had stood here; that above me, on that mysterious pinnacle, the presence of God incomprehensible had been manifested. There "Clouds and darkness were around him; righteousness and judgment were the habitation of his throne; his lightnings enlightened the world; the earth saw and trembled; the hills melted like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth; the mountains melted from before the Lord, even Sinai from the God of Israel." The cloud of glory had departed, the presence of Jehovah no longer burned "like a devouring fire" on the heights of Sinai. But had the secret, spiritual presence of the Lord departed also with his visible glory? No, truly; my heart then told me— "Surely God is in this place." I shall never, I trust, forget that hour upon the mountain.

2 s

I have now, I hope, said sufficient to show that the hypothesis advanced by Dr. Robinson is in itself untenable, and even if tenable, unnecessary to elucidate the narrative of the Word of God. Dr. Robinson is, I should think, a talented, a learned, and what is better far, a good man, and a sincere inquirer after truth; but he affords an example of the danger of examining a subject under the influence of a pre-conceived theory. Had he been less satisfied with his supposed discovery of the "adaptedness" of Wadi-er-Rahah to the scriptural account of the encampment of Israel before the Mount, he would, no doubt, have exhibited more energy in pursuing his inquiry with respect to the immediate localities of Jebel Mousa, and thereby saved himself a dangerous clamber, and much disappointment; but we all of us are too much given to play the part of the country smith. A horse is brought into the forge to be shod, and the smith takes down a ready-turned shoe; the shoe is a thought too small-so what does our knight of the bellows? Not take his bar of iron and turn his shoe to match. No, he has a readier method; he takes the horse's hoof, and pares and burns until he makes the hoof to fit the shoe, not the shoe the hoof. Our readyturned theory is the shoe, the subject to be fitted is the horse-hoof, ourself the sapient smith, and so we pare, and cut, and burn, till we make a "neat job of it." "Tis true the horse is crippled, and goes wondrous lame? but what of that. Ply whip and spur, urge the ill-used animal, and you will scarcely notice the defalcation when he "warms to his work." I may add, I was not the only member of the party who came to a like conclusion with respect to the local claims of Jebel Mousa and its subadjacent valley. Two German gentlemen, both men of learning and intelligence, went over the same ground, and made a similar examination. They went by themselves; we had not even told each other of our respective intentions ; but on comparing notes in the evening, we found the result of our investigations materially the same. According to their measurements, however, the valley in question was more

extensive than my less accurate computation of its dimensions led me to suppose. Some months after, I had the pleasure of meeting a talented American artist, who had gone over the same ground, and made some admirable sketches of Jebel Mousa from the quarter I have endeavoured to describe. His opinion concurred with my own; indeed I always made it a point to pencil down my observations on the spot, before I wrote the proceedings of the day in my journal. In my account, I omit many names of places given me by the Arabs at the time, not only to avoid complexity in my narrative, as an Arab has a name for every little turn in a wadi or angle of a mountain, but principally to save myself superfluous annoyance from the printer's devil in correcting for the press, said demon not only making sad and, I grieve to say, habitual blunders in the proof-sheet, but falling foul, with especial malignity, of all foreign terins, phrases, and expressions, as if he thought one language was sufficient for the universe, and that his vernacular tongue. I trust most sincerely he will attend to this friendly hint. To the dry disquisition I have inflicted on the reader, I could add sundry other impertinences-as, how I as cended Mount St. Katharine, and lost my way at nightfall; how that mad monk, Pietro, broke bounds, and ran away from the convent; also the true narrative of the old Bowab's skeleton in the cemetery, who, three times incarcerated in the sepulchre, three times broke ground again, and took up his position at the doorway, sitting sentinel over the ghastly dead, and there he remains in his obstinacy, with drooping head and eyeless sockets, an impracticable ghost. The convent chapel, the shrine of the burning bush, the imaginary rock of Rephidim, even the very mould in which Aaron is fabled to have cast the golden calf, have all been abundantly described; and although truth and falsehood, fact and fiction, blend in the wild traditions of this region, yet surely enough re mains to convince the unprejudiced inquirer that on Sinai may be traced, even to the present day, true records of Israel's wanderings, as well as an unfading imprint of Israel's God.

66

we

SARDINIA, although in the highway of the Mediterranean, has become so little known that, as Heeren says, are less acquainted with it than with Owhyhee or Otaheite ;" and yet, in size, as well as in fertility, it is nearly equal to Sicily; and several of the ancient, and some amongst the modern writers, even hold that it is the larger island of the two: of the former is Herodotus, and of the latter, Captain Smyth, R. N., who surveyed its coasts, and published an account of it in 1828. Lord Nelson's letters afford abundant evidence of the importance which he attached to Sardinia, both as a naval station, and as an insular possession. "If I lose Sardinia," said he, "I lose a French fleet;" and he repeatedly pressed upon the government the policy of gaining it either by conquest or by purchase. "This," he writes to Lord Hobart, "which is the finest island in the Mediterranean, possesses harbours fit for arsenals, and of a capacity to hold our navy within twenty-four hours' sail of Toulonbays to ride our fleets in, and to watch both Italy and Toulon ; no fleet could pass to the eastward, between Sicily and the coast of Barbary, nor through the Faro of Messina. Malta, in point of position, is not to be named in the same year with Sardinia. All the fine ports of Sicily are situated on the eastern side of the island; consequently of no use to watch anything but the Faro of Messina." He adds: "In the hands of a liberal government, and free from the dread of the Barbary States, there is no telling what its produce would not amount to. It is worth any money to obtain; and I pledge my existence it could be held for as little as Malta in its establishment, and produce a larger income." Nelson's view of the capabilities of Sardinia is fully corroborated by the careful examination of its resources, as exhibited in the work before us; and it is melancholy to contrast it with the actual condition of the people of

that island, of all ranks, with their common misery and degradation-induced, partly by the many revolutions to which their country has been exposed the various powers to which it has been from time to time a dependency Phoenicians, Tyrrhenians, Greeks, Carthagenians, Romans, Saracens, Pisans, Genoese, Spanish, and Piedmontese. The evils incident to such vicissitude of rule have been immeasurably increased by the neglect which this unhappy island appears to have experienced from all alike, and especially owing to the restrictive policy and injudicious legislation which have been its fatal dowry since its union with the House of Savoy-from the earliest date of that connection up to almost the present hour. We say almost, because within a year or two there have been some hopeful improve

ments.

Sardinia was, we are told, in early times named Ichnusa, from its resemblance in form to nor-the track of a foot; and that on the arrival of Sardus-known as the Theban Herculeswith a Libyan colony, this appellation was exchanged for that of Sardinia. Captain Smyth represents the island as 163 miles long, and 70 wide. It is most advantageously placed for commerce with Spain, France, Italy, Sicily, and Africa, and is about 170 miles distant from Sicily, and 120 from Tunis. In the year 1843, Mr. Tyndale, who we find has travelled in very many distant lands, took into his head the strange notion of visiting Sardinia ; strange, because nobody goes there now more strange, as he was travelling for his health, and this island has had, in all time, classic and modern, the bad reputation of being unhealthy. We have to rejoice that he returned at all; and chiefly, that by his bold adventure he has been enabled to supply us with a mass of information on the subject of this lost Atalantis and forgotten land. His work is "work," showing wide observation and research,

with, however, a fair allowance of such lighter reading as is likely to make it popular.

We shall endeavour to collect for our readers enough of matter to enable them to form their own opinion on the resources of this country, and the character and condition of its people; and shall, then, if our space permit us, advert to one or two topics of interest peculiar to the island. The first is connected with antiquities-the unexplained and remarkable remains called the Noraghe and Sepolture de is Gigantes; the other is historicalthe singular institution of the Giudici, so long connected with the Sardinian polity.

In the spring of the year 1843, Mr. Tyndale left Genoa in one of the government steamers, bound for Porto Torres, in Sardinia, where he just touched, and then proceeded in the same vessel to Alghero, to which place it was conveying a passenger of importance, the new bishop of that diocese. Having rounded the island of Assinara, they coasted a shore of great beauty, and passed the Capo dell Argentiera, the highest and most westerly point of the island, upwards of 2,000 feet above the level of the sea. The whole of this western coast has, we are told, from thirty to forty fathoms of water, within a mile of the shore :—

"Some thirty Neapolitan boats in the offing had commenced the coral fishery, and in their form, and the cut of their sails, resembled the nautilus, numbers of which were basking around us, and spreading their transparent canvas to the light breeze, which scarcely ruffled the deep blue sea. Shoals of dolphins occasionally bared their backs of gold,' and made those timid, fragile wanderers of the ocean appear and disappear from the surface; while thousands of seabirds, floating and flying before us, gave a cheerful animation and voice to the surrounding beauties of nature."—Vol. i. p. 51.

The bishop, whose acquaintance our author now made, had filled some high ecclesiastical offices in Greece, Turkey, and Wallachia, and having been lately appointed to the see of his native town, Alghero, was returning there. described as a well-informed and agreeable man, with handsome features, set off by a long beard, which, in Oriental fashion, he was continually stroking

He is

and smoothing. Alghero, where they landed, derives its name from the word alga, the Latin for the sea-weed which lies in great quantities on its shores. The province of which it is the capital is about 536 miles square, with a popu lation of about 32,000 souls. Twothirds of this territory is, we are told, mountainous; and though most of it is fertile, not more than one-sixth of the whole is cultivated. The pastur age also is neglected, and there is not much timber, which in most of the other districts of the island forms a fine feature, and a material source of wealth. The chief productions of this province are corn, wine, and oil, but the quantities exported are small; and the coral fishery, which ought to be a great source of industry, is altogether in the hands of the Neapolitans and the Genoese. There are no manufactures, and education is neglected. Out of the whole population of the district, amounting to about 32,000, not more than 150 attended schools, while of the adults engaged in rural occupation, only one in sixty can read or write. The moral character of the people is not, as may be inferred, high. The principal crimes are "vendetta," cattle stealing, and the burning of underwood. Of the first we shall presently speak; the others are much encouraged by the want of pasturage and by inattention. Judging from the na ture of their crimes, we should form no very unfavourable idea of the ele ments of the Sarde character. The term fuorusciti-homeless-or, as Mr. Tyndale renders it literally "outgoers," embraces large numbers, and includes the bandit, the petty robber, the fugitive from the arm of the law, and those who fly from the consequences of the "vendetta," or revenge of an insult or an injury. The petty robbers are few, and the two last-named classes constitute, we are told, seven-eighths of the whole fuorusciti:

"Innocent or guilty-for they are a mixed herd-they lead a vagabond life in the forests and mountains with greater security and happiness than were they to undergo the risk of a trial by the law authorities, finding their own revenge for injury or insult more satisfactory and attainable than any legal justice and retribution. Facinorosi, the wicked, and Malviventi, the evil livers, are the names generally applied to these two classes

by way of contradistinction to the banditto and ladro, the bandit and the robber; for, continually in communication with their families, they obtain from them what they require, and only when hard pressed will a sheep from a neighbour's flock be stolen, or the stranger be stopped and applied to for assistance.' -Vol. i. p. 93.

This state of things has arisen from long negligence and the maladministration of bad laws. Carlo Alberto, the present king, has done a good deal towards remedying it; but his efforts have been too exclusively directed to improving the police, without enough attending to the true source of the evil the defective administration of justice. Some of Mr. Tyndale's bandit stories remind us of those gentlemen robbers of whom Mr. Ford makes honourable mention in his Hand-book of Spain. We shall indulge our readers with the main facts of one of them, especially as it comes in an authentic form, and illustrates the condition of the country at the present day.

In

Pepe Bona was born in the neighbourhood of Alghero, in 1787. 1814 he was accused of the murder of a baronial law officer, and fled to the mountains, where he remained for five years, a fuoruscito, but returned to his home on the accusation being disproved. He lived with his family for many years industriously, and bearing a good character; but the friends of the law officer cherished against him a rancorous vendetta feeling, and in 1829 charged him with another crime. Conceiving that anything was better for him than to stand his trial, he fled again to the mountains, where he was joined by friends, partisans, and other fugitives, of whom he became the absolute and all-famed leader. In the year 1836, Pepe Bona sought an interview with the Marquis de Boyl, the principal proprietor in the neighbourhood of Alghero, of which the following extract is an account. It was given by the Marquis himself to Mr. Tyndale, and is in fact part of a letter which he wrote immediately after the circumstance to the Marchioness :

"Towards nine o'clock in the evening, as I was finishing my dinner, a servant came and whispered to me that the celebrated Pepe Bona desired to have the honour of presenting himself to me.

The minister of justice, and all the official authorities of the village being at table with me, I ordered in a low voice which none could hear, that he should be conducted to my bed-room without passing through the room where we were dining. I then went there, and soon saw enter a man of middle stature, about forty-seven years of age, of calm and majestic deportment. His hair was grey, as was also his long beard; his eyes were dark, and his face much wrinkled. Four others were behind him, one of whom was a very handsome young man of twenty-one, of slender figure, with light beard and dark eyes. All were armed from head to foot, each carrying a gun, a bayonet, and a brace of pistols; and each of them held by a cord a dog of most ferocious aspect-a thorough Cerberus. Pepe Bona, followed by his sons-for thus he calls his comrades-advanced towards me, and they all kissed my hand with the greatest courtesy imaginable. After apologising for presenting himself thus armed before me, he hoped I understood his position, being continually pursued by his enemies and the hand of the law. He then proceeded to narrate to me the kind of life he had led for eleven years in the mountains, and, as he said, from having been calumniated by his enemies and the law authorities, without having killed any one-alluding to the Primo and second affair of 1829. I was extremely delighted with his conversation, and questioned him on many subjects. He then begged me to ask pardon for him; and I replied that he could obtain it easily himself, as he already knew, per impunità-that is, by giving up another who had a price fixed on his head. At these words, my hero, drawing himself back a couple of steps, and grasping the handle of the bayonet, which was placed diagonally in his waistband, said, My lord, Pepe Bona has never betrayed any one; if the government does not choose to change the sentence on me, and I am to buy my liberty by treachery, I do not wish for that change; I prefer a thousand times to reside in the mountains with my sons and my honour-yes, with my honour, which I regard more than my life.' At this answer, I

could no longer restrain myself, and giving him my hand, he kissed it most respectfully, bending his head. I commended the honourable sentiments with which he was animated; and after having promised to do all in my power to intercede with the government for his pardon, on the other condition, I endeavoured to reason with him, and make him see that some day or other he might be wounded, and then easily arrested. The four men