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Pilgrimage of Etheria

Egeria, tr. McClure and Feltoe, 1919

7. Faran to Clysma

Now when we had arrived at Faran, which is thirty-five miles distant from the mount of God, we were obliged to stay there for two days to rest ourselves. On the third day, hastening thence, we came to a station in the desert of Faran, where we had stayed on our outward journey, as I said above. On the next day we came to water, and, travelling for a little while among the mountains, we arrived at a station which was on the sea, at the place where the route leaves the mountains, and begins to run continuously by the sea.¹ It runs by the sea in such a manner that at one time the waves touch the feet of the animals, while at another the course is through the desert, a hundred, two hundred, and sometimes even more than five hundred paces from the sea, for there is no sort of a road there, the whole being sandy desert. The inhabitants of Faran, who are accustomed to travel there with their camels, put signs in different places, and make for these signs when they travel in the day time, but the camels mark the signs at night. In short, the inhabitants of Faran travel more quickly and safely by night in that place, being accustomed thereto, than other men can travel in places where there is a clear road. Thus on our return journey we emerged from the mountains at the place where we entered them on our journey out, and so turned towards the sea. So also did the children of Israel return from Sinai, the mount of God, to this place by the way they had come, that is, to the place where we left the mountains and reached the Red Sea. But while we turned back from this spot along the route by which we had made our journey out, the children of Israel marched hence on their own way, as it is written in the books of holy Moses.² So we returned to Clysma by the same route and the same stations by which we had come out, and when we had arrived at Clysma we were obliged to stay there also for rest, because we had travelled hard along the sandy way of the desert.

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