THE DESERT OF THE EXODUS.*

MR. PALMER'S two volumes contain the account of two distinct journeys. In 1868 he accompanied the Ordnance Survey Expe- dition to the peninsula of Sinai, and in the following year he undertook on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund an ex- amination of the" Desert of the Wanderings," Edoin, and Moab. Taken together, these journeys, which lasted, we are told by the author, for nearly twelve months, covered the whole of the route taken by the Israelites, from their departure from the eastern shore of the Red Sea down to their arrival at the border of the Promised Land. The object of the first journey was to deter- mine, firstly, the various stations of the march from the head of the gulf of Suez to Sinai, and secondly and chiefly, for this has been a matter of hot dispute among Biblical geographers, the position of Sinai itself, deciding, in this case, between the rival claims of Jebel Musa and Jebel Serbal. The field of exploration here was limited. The narrative of Exodus is very precise, and the features of the country, as they still present themselves to the observer, make it easy to identify with something like certainty nearly every spot that is mentioned. The three days' journey through the wilder- ness of Shur, or "the Wall" (so called from the steep cliff which bounds it on the north) ; Marah, with its bitter pools ; and Elim, with its twelve springs and seventy palm trees, remain .pretty much as we may suppose them to have been when the Hebrew host passed through them. About the latter part of the route, indeed, there seems to be some possible doubt, one member of the expedition differing here from the rest of his com- • As Desert of the Exodus ; Journeys on Foot in the Inhkrstess of Me Forty Years' Wanderings. By E. H. Palmer, M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. 2 vols. Cambridge: Delghton, Bell, and Co. London: Bell and Daldy. 1871.

panions, but the doubt, which chiefly concerns the position of Rephidim and the scene of the victory over Amalek, is not greater than what attaches to many events which are undoubtedly historical,—to Cm3ar's landing in Britain, for instance, about which even later critics differ considerably, and which one imaginative writer even believes to have taken place on the coast of Norfolk. We are not inclined to attach an ex- aggerated importance to these "testimonies," as they are called, to the truth of the Scripture narrative, which can indeed stand very well without them ; still it is not without some pleasure that we receive evidence so thoroughly satisfactory, and feel ourselves allowed to give to the Hebrew historian at least as much credit as if he had been a Greek or a Roman. The topography of the " Wanderings" is less certain. From Horeb to Kadesh-Barnea, indeed, the route is clearly detailed in Numbers and Deuteronomy, and can be easily identified ; but of their journeyings to and fro during the weary years which were to elapse before they were per- mitted to approach the Promised Land the Scripture account is of the very briefest kind, and though Mr. Palmer feels himself able to speak with some confidence as to the country in which they took place, there is little more to be discovered or conjectured about them. As to what is generally considered the very difficult question of their subsistence during this period, Mr. Palmer's opinion is very clearly expressed. He says :—

" The country, although of no considerable extent, supports even at the present day a large Bedawin population, and there is no difficulty in supposing that, at a time when we know it must have been more fer- tile, it was capable of supporting even so large a host as that of the Israelites. Their flocks and herds would afford them ample means of subsistence, as do those of the Arabs of the present day, whom they undoubtedly resembled in their mode of life."

It should be said that the opinion here incidentally expressed that the country was formerly more fertile than it is now Mr. Palmer supports elsewhere by a detailed argument, an argument which, coming as it does from so experienced, and we may add so candid an observer, ought to have the greatest weight.

The only fault we have to find with the book as a guide to the topography of the Exodus concerns the maps. We do not mean to say that a reader who is willing to give a very close attention to the comparison of the text with these maps may not be able to make out all that Mr. Palmer has to tell him, which is, in fact, all that he wants to know, but we do mean to say that the task might

have been made much easier for him. The first volume contains a.

map of the Sinai Peninsula, accurate of course, for it is a redac- tion of the Ordnance survey, but anything but clear, the names in particular, with which, for the purposes of the student, it is over- loaded, requiring very good sight to decipher them. The second volume is furnished with a mapillustrating the author's route through Negib, or the South Country, and part of the "Desert of the Wanderings," through Edom to Petra, and through Moab. This is all that could be desired in point of clearness, but it does not furnish us with all that the reader wants. What he wants, as it seems to us, is this,—a map giving the whole country traversed by the Israelites during the journeys of the Exodus, in which should have been marked the route which they followed, as far as it has been identified, and also the route which Mr. Palmer and his fellow-travellers took, and which should have been free from any names but such- (whether certain or conjectural) as are connected with the narrative. Mr. Palmer might supply this in a future edition, or he might extract from his book and publish separately such part of it as bears directly on the historical criticism of the Bible, furnishing such extract with a map of the kind we have indicated.

Of Mr. Palmer's qualifications as a traveller, as they are shown in his own very modest account of his journeys, it would be difficult to speak too highly. Some of these indeed, his patience especially, and firmness, he shares with many of his countrymen, who, all things considered, are the best travellers in the world; but in one, especially necessary for the execution of such a task, in a singularly extensive and practical knowledge of the Arabic lan- guage, he probably stands first among Englishmen. At the same time, he seems to have shown a most praiseworthy discretion in his method of obtaining information. An Arab, like a Celt, will tell

you anything you want, or that he thinks you want, to hear. He is so friendly and so willing a witness, that he wants as much and

as careful cross-examination as if he were utterly hostile and unwilling.

The opinion of so competent an observer on a matter which has been more discussed than it deserved, the so-called Sinaitic In- scriptions, will probably be considered final:—

" They are mere scratches on the rock, the work of idle loungers, con- sisting, for the most park of mere names, interspersed with rude figures of men and animals. In a philological point of view they do posttests a certain interest, but otherwise the ' Sinaitic inscriptions' are as worth- less and unimportant as the Arab, Greek, and European graffiti with which they are interspersed. The language employed is Aramasan, the Semitic dialect which in the earlier centuries of our era held throughout the East the place now occupied by the modern Arabic, and the character differs little f rom the Nabatbasan alphabet used in the inscriptions of Idumasa and central Syria. Thus far they accord with the amount given of them by Comas Indicopleustes in the sixth century; I see no reason why, without for a moment admitting a too remote origin, we should not believe that his Jewish fellow-travellers read, as he asserts that they did, inscriptions in a language and character so cognate to their own. It is not true that they are found in inaccessible places high up on the rock, nor do we ever meet with them unless there is some pleasant shade or convenient camp- ing ground close by. In such places they exist in a confused jumble reminding one forcibly of those spots which tourist Cockneyism hat: marked for its own."

As a book of travel, quite apart from the geographical and critical value which it possesses, Mr. Palmer's work is full of interest. Living among the Arabs as he did, and familiarly acquainted with their language, he has been able to give us a remarkably clear and graphic picture of their life and character. He tells many good stories about them, but the beat story that he tells is of a fox, which we shall take leave to quote :—

"Two travellers had halted in the desert, and had just killed a couple of fowls for their dinner. Before they could dress the birds, the hour of prayer arrived, and they turned, like good Muslims, to their devotions. A fox which had been skulking in the neighbourhood, seeing them thus engaged, came boldly up and carried off one of the fowls before their very eyes. Prayers over, they began lamenting over their loss, when, to their amazement, they beheld the thief at a little distance dragging his tail submissively behind him, and holding the fowl in his mouth ; he then deposited it on the ground, and slunk away with every sign of repentance and contrition. They at once bailed the occurrence as a miraculous testimony to their own piety, and ran to pick up the fowl which had been thus strangely restored to them ; on reaching the spot, however, they found that Reynard had only restored the skin, and in the meantime had slyly stolen round to their camp-fire, and made off with the remain- ing napiety of their dinner."

With a passage which completes the somewhat deplorable story of the Moabite Stone, we must take leave of a very instructive and entertaining book

-"A series of astounding blunders on the part of those to whom the discovery was first communicated ended in the stone being broken to pieces by the Arabs, whose cupidity had been excited by the anxiety displayed respecting it. Had a person well acquainted with Arabic and accustomed to deal with the Bedawin gone quietly down to Dhiban, without evincing any strong desire to obtain possession of the stone, he might have brought it to Jerusalem at the mere cost of the camel- hire. As it was, the Prussian authorities in Jerusalem obtained a &mein granting them permission to procure it, although the fact of Government interference was in itself certain to rouse the suspicions and hostility of the Bedawin. The next step was to offer a large reward to the Arabs if they would part with it. Here, again, were two grievous mistakes ; in the first place, the sum was so large that they began to conceive exaggerated ideas of the value of their treasure ; in the second place, it was supposed to belong to the Beni Hamideh tribe, whereas it

was really in the territory of the Hamaideh,—but the European resi- dents at Jerusalem had not yet learnt to distinguish between the two. The Ad wan, who were not on very friendly terms with either of the above-mentioned tribes, were next employed to negotiate for it ; and,

subsequently, a Christian Arab from Es Salt, and Ibn Nuseir, another stranger-chief, were commissioned to procure it! The result was what might have been expected,—the jealousy and greed of every tribe in the country were stimulated to the utmost, a quarrel took place, and the etone was broken."