Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. Vol. 13, no. 3.

Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. Vol. 13, no. 3. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    89/128 page 219
    the aneroid accurate at all. They had five of these instruments working together, and they all differed; though at a lower level they all agreed. Mr. Samuel Woods said he had read with great interest, a few years hack, a book by the llev. Charles Foster, called ‘ Sinai Photographed,’ in which was laid down a system of interpretation, founded upon the discovery that the ancient Sinaitic letters agreed very nearly with those of the ancient Hebrew, but formed words in ancient Arabic. His interpretation was extremely interest- ing to the Biblical scholar, inasmuch as, simply aided by an Arabic Dictionary, it professed to give an accurate description of the circumstances of the Exodus engraven by the Israelites themselves upon the rocks at the time. It would be°singular if a double system of interpretation were discovered, each giving a sense widely different from the other. Mr. Holland said that on this point his tongue was tied. He had pro- mised Mr. Palmer that he would not explain what could very easily be ex- plained, because Mr. Palmer was himself anxious to make known the work that he had in his note-book. But he might call attention to the copy exhibited to the meeting, of a large inscription decidedly Sinaitic and Greek. The inscriptions occurred on granite, limestone, and sandstone. They were not all equally clear. Some were more weathered than others ; some were made on stone with a dark external covering, so that the lighter character of the stone shone through when chipped away. Some were engraven more deeply than others ; some had been washed by floods. A great number were quite as plain as on the day they were made. They had copied 2500 per- fectly legible inscriptions : 12 of them were bilingual,—Greek and Sinaitic,— out by the same hand, as far as could be judged. 2. Journey across the Great Salt Desert from Hanfila to the Foot of the Abyssinian Alps. By Werner Munzinger. [Abstract.] In June, 1867, M. Munzinger, H.M. Consular Agent at Massowa, was employed by the British Government to explore the route which leads from Hanfila, on the coast of the Bed Sea, to the Abyssinian highlands. This route, passing over the great salt desert so graphically described by Fathers Mendez and Lobo in the seventeenth century, has never since been traversed by any European capable of recording his impressions. M. Munzinger had eight men with him, all armed with muskets, and he took a small supply of necessary provisions and medicines. Iiis instruments were two watches, an azimuth compass, and an aneroid by Pastorelli. On the 10th of June he landed on the arid coast of Hanfila Bay, where there was neither tree nor shrub. The village of Hanfila consists of about twenty huts, and is ruled by a chief who remembered the visit of Mr. Salt in 1810, and whose mother, Alia, was famous in youth for her beauty, and in maturer years for great wisdom and a generous hospitality. But the people ■of the coast have no influence inland, and M. Munzinger had to make friends with Fridello, the principal chief of the Dumhoitas, vol. xm. • R
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