Adjoining to it is a hill, where stones in like manner are covered with writing, and which bears the name of Djebel Mokatteb, or the Written Mountain. Intermingled with the inscriptions, images and figures of men and animals are of frequent occurrence, all executed in so rude a style, as may be well supposed to have belonged to the time, when men first began to inscribe upon the rocks their abiding memorials, and evidently with the same instruments and by the same hands as those which formed the inscriptions. Indeed, those who have taken the pains to copy portions of these, declare that it was often difficult to distinguish these figures from the letters. This suggests that the writers sometimes employed images as parts of letters, and, vice versa, images for groups of letters. The letters are in an alphabetic character, not otherwise known to palæographists, and many attempts have been made to decipher them, but not until lately with any degree of success. Professor Beer of Leipsic, made these inscriptions the object of special study. It is his opinion that they afford the only remains of the language and character once peculiar to the Nabathæans of Arabia Petræa; and he supposed that if, at any future time, stones with the writing of the country should be found among the ruins of Petra, the character would prove to be the same with those of the inscriptions of Sinai. He did not know that the fact of this resemblance has been substantiated. But we can point out that in the (then unpublished though printed) travels of Irby and Mangles, mention is made of a tomb in Petra, with an oblong tablet, containing an inscription in five long lines, and immediately underneath a single figure on a large scale, probably the date. "The characters were such as none of the party had seen before, excepting Mr. Banks, who stated them to be precisely similar to those he had seen scratched on the rocks in the Wady Mokatteb and about the foot of Sinai." This, from so accurate an antiquarian observer as Mr. Banks, is of more conclusive value than even that of the two gallant travellers themselves could have been; as the inexperienced eye fancies resemblance, where the experienced one finds large difference. According to this view, the inscriptions will probably be found to have been made by the native inhabitants of these mountains. They are, as Mr. Banks well defines, rather "scratched" than engraven, and certainly present a very rude appearance. The contents of the inscriptions, as made out by Professor Beer, and so far as he has proceeded, consist only of proper names, preceded by a word signifying "peace;" but sometimes memoriatus sit; and sometimes "blessed." Before the names the word bar or ben, that is, "son," sometimes occurs; and they are sometimes followed by one or two words at the end, thus the word "priest" appears twice as a title. In one or two instances the name is followed by a phrase or sentence, which has not yet been deciphered. Among the names, some Jewish or Christian ones have been found; and the words which are not proper names, seem to belong to the Aramæan dialect. A language of this kind the Professor conceives to have been spoken by the Nabathæans before the Arabic language prevailed over those parts, and of that language and writing he regards these as the only monuments now known to exist. This somewhat disappointing theory seemed at one time likely to receive general acceptance; but it has now been given up, even in Germany, where the very learned Professor Tuich has argued for a date some centuries earlier than Beers' explanation will allow; and the Rev. Charles Forster has just set forth a claim to the discovery of a new key to the reading and interpretation, by which he finds that they were the work of the Israelites during their sojourn in this wilderness. According to him, the nation, during their various wanderings after the passage of the Red Sea, and before the publication of the Pentateuch, not in accordance with any public decree, but in its private capacity as represented by individuals, recorded upon the rocks among which it temporarily sojourned, the various miracles it witnessed, the sufferings and adventures it underwent. This is in itself not improbable. They came from a country, possessed in all its members, high and low, with a rage for turning mountains into books-from a country which is covered with inscriptions of every degree of magnitude, wherever there is a rock to receive the chisel; and this familiarity with the practice might easily suggest to many of them, the fitness of employing their abundant leisure, in the giving the like enduring records to the signal events whic had marked their pilgrimage. As rendered by Mr. Forster, these records comprise, besides the healing of the waters of Marah, the passage of the Red Sea, with the introduction of Pharaoh twice by name, and two notices of a vain attempt of the Egyptian tyrant to save himself by flight on horseback from the returning waters; together with hieroglyphical representations of himself and his horse. They comprise, further, the miraculous supplies of manna and of flesh. The battle of Rephidim, with the mention of Moses by his office, and of Aaron and others, by their name; the same inscription repeated, describing the holding up of Moses' hands by Aaron and Hur, and their supporting him with a stone, illustrated by a drawing apparently of the stone, containing within it the inscription, and over it the figure of Moses, with uplifted hands; and lastly, the plague of fiery serpents, with the representation of a serpent in the act of coming down, as if from heaven, upon a prostrate Israelite. These references to the recorded events of the Exode, compose, however, but a small part of the Sinaite inscriptions as yet in our possession; the great mass of which, Mr. Forster informs us, consist of descriptions of rebellious Israel, under the figures of kicking asses, restive camels, rampant goats, sluggish tortoises, and lizards of the desert. The following are a few specimens of Mr. Forster's translations of these inscriptions: "The red geese rise from the sea; Lusting, the people eat of them." "The hard stone the people satiates with water thirsting." "Prayeth unto God the prophet [upon] a hard great stone, [his] hands sustaining Aaron, Hur." "The people Moses provoketh to anger, kicking like an ass." "[At] the water-springs muster the people, raileth against Jehovah, crying out." "The people of Marah drinketh like a wild ass." A WHISPER TO THE SELF-INDULGENT. My name I need not mention, as you will soon find it out from my narration. Like the better castes among the Hindoos, I am a son of the Sun. For ages I have done as I pleased, roaming wherever I chose. It used to be thought that I was a general benefactor, and I was accordingly welcomed everywhere ; and a very pleasant life I led. For, independently of the luxury of doing good, I had a delightful time of it amongst the tall tree-tops, the dainty flowers, and the flashing billowy grass. I need not tell you what I did upon the loud ocean. Sometimes I overdid it a little, to be sure; but generally I made myself exceedingly useful. I do so still, though I am sadly afraid, if folks go on as they have begun, in fettering my privileges, that by and bye, the poor sailors, whose best friend I have been hitherto, will be dipped carefully in dissolved gutta percha, lest I should visit them too roughly. The time was when I was supposed to possess curative virtues; but I am now denounced and shunned as the fruitful cause of almost all the ills that flesh is heir to. I can remember how I once used to light up the languid eye, and put colour into the worn and wasted cheek. But I can only now look at them through double windows; and if bent on burglariously obtaining possession of the sick-room, I find myself half-choked with wadding, or nonplussed by a sluggish sand-bag. I must not even attempt a whistle at the key-hole. I could not, indeed do it; my voice would die away in the dark dusty lock, even if it could go so far; and, as to a frolic in the chimney, I can only dance solemnly on the crackling paper pasted over it, without any music of my own, which is very tame work to what I have been used to. But, thanks to I know not who, there is at least one place where my vested rights are not interfered with. I am still master of the revels in an omnibus. Like a brisk barber's man, I blow down the necks of man, woman, and child, being enabled by some felicitous arrangement in the construction of these vehicles to take both sides at once. But I suppose the march of medicine will, by and bye, deprive me of this liberty; and our omnibuses grow gradually as close as the serpents' room at the Zoological gardens. I don't know what I have done to deserve such treatment. Perhaps I have cheated the doctors. Reasoning, indeed, from analogy, I rather think so, for they begin to find out that their nasty medicines have fair play only just as my kind offices are excluded, as your engineers and architects do, when they talk of warming and ventilating a building. You must have seen, sir, the rapid extension of the suffocating principle. No doubt, like discontent, revolution, and the abolition of three farthings a year in taxation, it is a "great principle." But I can't think SO. The blood is the life; but I have always flattered myself that I am the life of the blood itself. Sensible men have long thought so, and experience has proved them right, for a change of air has certainly done wonders in my younger days. But our doctors now leave us little air to change. Look at the room of a valetudinarian-nay, often of a person in robust health. A stranger unwittingly opens a window in the dog-days, and his friend begins by fearing he will take cold. This move does not tell; and one subterfuge after another is resorted to, ostensibly in kindness to the guest, but really out of fear that the host himself will die by the visitation of fresh air. I am saying nothing about draughts, though, after all, mine are not so bad as the doctor's. But I do think it a sin and a shame, that in the balmy days of June, I should not enjoy the entrée of sitting or drawing-room. In many cases I am even shut out of the bed-room. You may enter it for me, sir, and judge for yourself. Bah! what a lair! You may well exclude me. I should lose my character pretty soon, I reckon, unless I succeeded in driving the enemy up the chimney. I don't think I could do that, for, ten to one, it is gagged, and the swallows have littered it, inch deep, with old rubbish from the useless shaft. What a pleasure it used to be to me to sweep over the little box of mignionette, or between the balsams on the window-sill; and then leap up and rattle the fringes of the white windowcurtain, or give a saucy fillip to the cornice hangings. And the young ladies themselves-bless their joyous hearts-in those simple days when they were little cognisant of doctors, used to brighten up as they felt my breath amongst their ringlets, and think me as innocent as I still think myself. But now, poor creatures, they are armed cap-á-pie in knitted polkas and mysterious under-clothing, whilst I am scarcely allowed to come near them. I have made no claim for compensation for these wrongs and a thousand others, for the fact is, I hardly know who to sue in the business. The doctors are, perhaps, to |