Mount Sinai stands about 120 miles south from Jerusalem, and nearly 260 eastward from Grand Cairo in Egypt. The mountain is of no great extent, but extremely high, and has two tops; the western of which is called Horeb, and the eastern, which is about a third higher, Sinai. There are several springs and fruit-trees on Horeb, but nothing except rainwater on the top of Sinai. The ascent of both is very steep, and can only be effected by steps, now much effaced, which the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, caused to be cut in the marble rock. At the foot of Mount Sinai, on the north, and near to the ascent of Mount Horeb, there was a monastery dedicated to Saint Catherine, but now in ruins, not far distant from which there stands a fountain of very clear water, formed like a bow or arch. A little above which is to be seen the Cave where Elijah rested when God spoke unto him, 1 Kings xix. From the top of Sinai, God proclaimed his law to the Hebrews amid devouring flames of fire, Exod. xxiv. The Rock Rephidim, which seems to have been a clift fallen off from the side of Sinai, and lies like a large loose stone in the midst of the valley, gives name to that part of the desert nearest the mountain. There are twelve openings in it, whence, on being struck by Moses, the waters gushed out for the supply of the Israelites, during the forty years they tarried in the desert, Exod. xvii.
The ruins of Dryburgh Abbey are surpassingly interesting, from their antiquity, history, picturesque appearance, and more than all, from the GREAT MINSTREL being buried there. The grave of Sir Walter Scott is in St. Mary's Aisle of the Abbey Church of Dryburgh, which is in the form of a cross, and the Poet lies in the left transept of the Cross, part of which is still standing, and close to where the high altar formerly stood. This transept is divided into three burial-places; that of Sir Walter Scott, Baronet, in right of his grandmother, Lady Haliburton's family; that of James Erskine, Esq. of Shieldhall and Melrose; and that of James G. Haig, Esq. of the ancient family of Bemersyde. These, with the tomb-house of the Earl of Buchan, in St. Moden's Chapel, and that of James Anderson, Esq. of Gledswood, form, I believe, the only cemeteries in Dryburgh. These venerable ruins stand on a romantic peninsula, formed by one of the great windings of the Tweed, commonly called the crescent of that river, in the south-west nook of Berwickshire, where the river divides that county from Roxburghshire. The land rises in a sloping bank from the margin of the Tweed to the top of Dryburgh Hill, about 800 feet high, on which stands the colossal statue of _Wallace_, erected by the late revered Earl of Buchan. The trees in the neighbourhood of Dryburgh have a very luxuriant appearance, and some of them are rather remarkable. There are many vestiges of old oaks to be found, and the ash and the yew have grown to a surprising height and circumference; and there is still, in the cemetery of the Abbey, a yew-tree of uncommon beauty, which is upwards of ten feet in circumference, at six feet from the ground. In the grounds opposite the mansion house of Dryburgh, there are also some fine trees, particularly a noble cedar, which has been much admired. Many interesting remains of antiquity have been dug up in Dryburgh Abbey and places adjacent.