Page 107 - Travels in Arabia (Vol 2)_Neat

88 SHEKM TO SINAI. [CII.

is owing to the uneven nature of the ground;
but much of this might have been remedied
had the architect consulted convenience or
appearance, when each succeeding portion
was added. Two ranges, or stories of cells,
now occupy the eastern and northern sides,
but only the upper tier, containing also the
travellers’ apartments, is inhabited, the lower
being converted into lumber and store-rooms.

The remaining space, chiefly filled with chapels
and court-yards, has a very neat appearance,
being paved at the sides, and ornamented
in their centre with shrubs and flowers. There
are twenty-seven chapels within the walls,
devoted to the service of different sects of
Christianity. I visited all, but found them
remarkable for nothing save some miserable
daubs of St. George and the Dragon, the
Virgin Mary, and the Infant Jesus. Each has
a small altar, on which incense is kept burn­

ing. They seem to be quite abandoned; divine
service being now only performed in the large
church. The antiquity and remarkable ap­
pearance of this latter edifice, braving, as it
has done for so many ages, the wild tribes of
the desert by which it is surrounded, and still
untouched, though so feebly defended, in all