of Suez, Niebuhr says, undoubtedly extended further north ages ago than it does at present. In former times, ships entered the harbour of Kolsoum, which stood higher up than Suez, but, in consequence of the retreat of the waters, that harbour was deserted, and Suez, which was not in existence towards the end of the fifteenth century, rose on its ruins. Niebuhr crossed the creek at low water on his camel, near the supposed ruins of Kolsoum, and the Arabs, who attended him on foot, were only up to their knees; but no caravan, he says, could pass here without great inconvenience, and certainly not dry-foot.*

Nor

could the Israelites, he remarks, have availed themselves of any coral rocks, as they are so sharp that they would have cut their feet. Moreover, if we suppose that the agency of the tides was employed by Divine Providence in favouring the passage of the Israelites, the east wind which, blowing all night, divided the waters of the gulf in the middle, preserving a body of water above and below, and laying bare the channel between the walls, was clearly supernatural. The wind here constantly blows six to cross the sea at Suez, where, perhaps, the channel was only half a league in breadth, after he had seen the Israelites go over; but he would have been wanting in prudence, if, after having seen so many prodigies in Egypt, he had entered a sea three leagues and more in extent; and all the Egyptians must have been out of their minds, to have been willing to pursue the Israelites through such a sea.'. -NIEBUHR, Description de l'Arabie, pp. 353, 4. See also his Voyage en Arabie, tom. i, p. 204; and Calmet's Dict. by TAYLOR, Frag. xxxix, vol. iii, p. 66.

*When Burckhardt left Suez, the tide was at flood, and he was obliged to make the tour of the whole creek, which, he says, at low water can be forded;' but, in winter time, and immediately after the rainy season, the circuit is rendered still greater, because the low grounds to the northward of the creek are then inundated, and become so swampy that the camels cannot pass them.' He rode for an hour and three quarters in a straight line northwards, before he turned to the

months north and six months south.* And as this unprecedented ebb of the waters must have been preternatural, not less so was the sudden tempestuous reflux by which the Egyptians were overwhelmed. Perhaps a thick fog, it is suggested, might hasten their destruction. The depth at high water now does not exceed from eight to ten feet, but the same causes which have enlarged the land on the eastern shore, have rendered the gulf shallower. The winds, blowing the sands of Arabia into the Red Sea, are constantly forming shallows among the rocks, and threaten in time to fill up the gulf.

Dr Shaw, however, displays his usual learning and ingenuity in fixing the passage of the Israelites opposite the desert of Shur. Supposing Rameses to have been Cairo, there are two roads, he remarks, by which the Israelites might have been conducted to Pihahhiroth on the coast; the one through the valleys of Jendily, Rumeleah, and Baideah, which are bounded on each side by the mountains of the Lower Thebais; the other, more to the northward, having these mountains for several leagues on the right, and the desert on the left, till it turns through a remarkable breach or ravine in the northernmost range, into the valley of Baideah. The latter he presumes to have been the road taken by the Israelites. Succoth, the first station, signifies only a place of tents; and Etham, the second station, he considers as probably on the edge of the mountainous district of the

* The north-east monsoon prevails from the 15th of October to the 15th of April, rendering the entrance of the Red Sea easy, which is impracticable during the opposite monsoon. These periodical winds have great influence on the height of the tides, so that the extremity of that arm which divides Suez from Arabia, may sometimes be passed on foot.' MALTE BRUN, vol. ii, p. 191. The exodus took place on the 15th of the month Nisan (the beginning of April), during the prevalence, therefore, of the northern monsoon.

Lower Thebais. Here the Israelites were ordered to turn (from their line of march), and encamp before Pihahhiroth, i. e. the mouth of the gullet or defile, betwixt Migdol and the sea. * This valley, he supposes to be identified with that of Baideah, which signifies miraculous, and it is also still called Tiah Beni Israel, the road of the Israelites. Baal-tzephon, over against which they encamped, is supposed to be the mountain still called Jebel Attakkah, the mountain of deliverance. Over against Jebel Attakhah, at ten miles' distance, is the desert of Sdur, or Shur, where the Israelites landed. This part of the gulf would, therefore, be capacious enough to cover a numerous army, and yet, might be traversed by the Israelites in a night; whereas, from Corondel to Tor, the channel is ten or twelve leagues broad, which is too great a distance to have been travelled by a multitude with such incumbrances, and the passage from Suez appears as much too short. Having once entered this valley, it might well be said, that the wilderness had shut them in,' inasmuch as the mountains of Mokattem would deny them a passage to the southward; those in the neighbourhood of Suez would be a barrier to the northward, towards the land of the Philistines; the Red Sea was before them to the east, while Pharoah with his army closed up the defile behind them. The valley ends in a small bay formed by the eastern extremities of the mountains.§

The Arabian Gulf is supposed to derive its Hebrew name, Yam Sif, from the algae and fuci with which

* Exod. xiv, i.

+ Exod. xv, 22.

The Israelites amounted to 600,000 men, besides children and a mixed multitude; and the army of Pharoah, which included 600 chosen chariots, could not have been less nume

rous.

§ Shaw's Travels, folio, pp. 344

6, and Supplem. p. 98.

the sea abounds, by which the ancients accounted for its remarkably green colour, sûf being rendered weed, reed, or any submarine plant. Dr Shaw, however, says, he nowhere observed any species of the flag kind; M. Forskal denies that any reeds grow on the shore; and Mr Bruce says, that he never saw a weed of any sort in it. The opinion of the latter writer is, that it is from the large trees, or plants, of white coral, spread every where over the bottom of the Red Sea, that the sea has obtained this name,' which he proposes to translate, the Sea of Coral. Against this it is objected, that the proper word for coral is ramuth, but the meaning of that term has been disputed. The name by which the gulf is invariably designated in the Old Testament, is still preserved in the Arabic appellation, Bahr Souf. It is also called Bahr el Kolsoum, the Sea of Kolsoum (the Greek Clysma), which signifies drowning, or overwhelming, and seems to allude to the destruction of the Egyptians. By the Septuagint, the original word is rendered θαλασσα Σιφ, the Sea of Ziph,† Ερυθρα θαλασσα, the Erythrean Sea,] and εσχατην θάλασσαν, the furthest sea. The latter, it has been contended by some, is the true meaning of the Hebrew, suph sometimes signifying limit, boundary, or extremity; and this sea is repeatedly mentioned in Scripture as the boundary of the possessions of Israel. At what time it received the name of the Sea of Edom, is uncertain; but this is believed to be the name which the Greeks, mistaking a proper name for an appellative, rendered the Erythrean, or Red Sea. Pliny and Pomponius

+ Judges xi, 16.

§ 1 Kings ix, 26. Psalm lxxii, 8. See

* Job xxviii, 18. Ezek, xxvii, 16. Exod. xiii, 18, et passim. Exod. xxiii, 31. Num. xxxiv, 3. Harris's Nat. Hist. of the Bible, Art. Flag. But query, whether this be not only a secondary meaning of the word suf, (i. e. post, or stake,) and not likely to be applied to a sea?

Mela state, that it obtained this name from a King Erythros who reigned in Arabia, and whose tomb was to be seen in the island Tyrine, or Agyris. This king is plausibly supposed to be no other than Edom, or Esau; and the Sea of Sûf (or Zuf) is expressly said to have been in the land of Edom.* Its western branch is, by the Greek and Latin geographers, styled. the Gulf of Heroopolis and the Sea of Clysma,† from the towns on its western shore. The Erythrean Sea is the name applied by the Greeks to all the seas round the Arabian peninsula; but the Red Sea is now understood as exclusively denoting the Arabian Gulf. We shall have further occasion to advert to the dangers of the navigation; but, while we are adverting to its many names, it may be as well to mention, that in calm weather, according to Forskal, the bottom of the gulf, 'covered with a carpet of greenish coral,' presents a resemblance to a series of verdant submarine forests and meadows, affording an agreeable contrast to the gloomy uniformity of arid and sandy country by which it is encircled,' Well may it be called, then, the Coral Sea.

We shall now proceed to avail ourselves of Burckhardt's journal of his tour in the peninsula of Sinai. He left Suez early on the 25th of April, 1816, attended by his guide and another Arab. After passing several mounds of rubbish, which afford no object of curiosity except a few large stones, supposed to be the ruins of Clysma, or of Arsinoet, he rode northward for an hour and three quarters, and then turned

* 1 Kings ix, 26; 2 Chron. viii, 17.

+ Clysma, or Kolsoum, is placed by Niebuhr at Suez; but Shaw supposes Suez to be the ancient Arsinoe.

Probably the remains of the castle which the Turks built upon' (or from) the ruins of the ancient Kolsoum,' referred to by Niebuhr, who says, that of Kolsoum con siderable ruins still remain to the north of Suez.