Looking northwest from Jebel Musa to Wadi el
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Loja the traveler who for days has been wearied
by the sight of nothing else but the monotonous
blue of the burning sky and the dreary desert
all about him is exhilarated, pleased and rested
bv the sight of those beautiful cypress trees with
their cool, dark foliage down in the wadithe
Arabic name for hollow or valley. One can
scarcelj imagine anything more dreary than the
valley where these trees raise their heads above
the rock-bound hollow in the desert. They stand
in all their majesty in the gardens of the monas
tery of the Sinaitic monks on St. Catherine, one
of the mountains of the range called the "Forty
Martyrs," and great pride is taken by these men
of God in these trees, which for a thousand years
have broken the monotony of the desert waste
and have cast their welcome shade wherein the
weary traveler and the travel-stained caravan
may rest and take shelter.
For more than a year the Israelites were en
camped in the valley of Sinai when they again
took up their wanderings in search of the prom
ised land Through Asia Minor they proceeded
to the land of Canaan, their great leader, Moses,
dying as they came in sight of the country
which God had promised to Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob.
