by Moses and the elders to the chief command of the Hebrew soldiers.

The road led first through a level mountain valley, then it crossed the
pass known as the "Sword-point ", which was the only means of
communication between the mines and the Red Sea.

The rocky landscape was wild and desolate, and the path to be climbed
steep. Joshua's old father, who had grown up on the flat plains of
Goshen and was unaccustomed to climbing mountains, was borne amid the
joyous acclamations of the others, in the arms of his son and grandson,
to the summit of the pass; but Miriam's husband who, at the head of his
men, followed the division of Ephraim's companions, heard the shouts of
the youths yet moved with drooping head and eyes bent on the ground.

At the summit they were to rest and wait for the people who were to be
led through the wilderness of Sin to Dophkah.

The victors gazed from the top of the pass in search of the travellers;
but as yet no sign of them appeared. But when they looked back along the
mountain path whence they had come a different spectacle presented
itself, a scene so grand, so marvellous, that it attracted every eye as
though by a magic spell; for at their feet lay a circular valley,
surrounded by lofty cliffs, mountain ridges, peaks, and summits, which
here white as chalk, yonder raven-black, here grey and brown, yonder red
and green, appeared to grow upward from the sand toward the azure sky of
the wilderness, steeped in dazzling light, and unshadowed by the tiniest
cloudlet.

All that the eye beheld was naked and bare, silent and lifeless. On the
slopes of the many-colored rocks, which surrounded the sandy valley, grew