he waters in obedience to a new decree. She
adopted the boy, gave him an Egyptian name, and brought him up in her
palace as a prince. She had him educated and the fair inference is that
he was schooled in the culture of the Egyptians. The royal lady made of
the Hebrew slave-child an Egyptian gentleman.

Yet, although his face was shaved, and outwardly he appeared to be an
Egyptian, at heart he remained a Hebrew. One day, when he was grown,
Moses went slumming among his own people to look at their burdens, and
he spied an Egyptian smiting a Hebrew. He was so overcome by passion at
this scene that he killed the man on the spot. The crime became known,
there was a hue and cry raised, and the king had a search made for Moses
with the intention of slaying him. With all hope of a career in Egypt
ended, Moses escaped to the Peninsula of Sinai, and entered the family
of an Arab sheik.

The Peninsula of Sinai lies clasped between two arms of the Red Sea. It
is a wilderness of mountains covered with a thin, almost transparent
coating of vegetation which serves as pasture to the Bedouin flocks.
Among the hills that crown the high plateau there is one which at the
time of Moses was called the "Mount of God." It was holy ground to the
Egyptians, and also to the Arabs, who ascended as pilgrims and drew off
their sandals when they reached the top. Now is it strange that Sinai
should have excited reverence and dread? It is indeed a weird land. Vast
and stern stand the mountains, with their five granite peaks pointing to
the sky. Avalanches like those of the Alps, but of sand, not of snow,
rush down their naked sides with a clear tinkling sound. A peculiar
property resides in the air, the human voice can be heard at a
surprising distance and swells out into a reverberating roar, and
sometimes there rises from among the hills a dull booming sound like the
distant firing of heavy guns.

Let us attempt to realize what Moses must have felt when he was driven
out of Egypt into such a harsh and rugged land. Imagine this man, the
adopted son of a royal personage, who was accustomed to all the splendor
of the Egyptian court, to the busy turmoil of the streets of the
metropolis, to reclining in a carpeted gondola or staying with a noble
at his country house. In a moment all is changed. He dwells in a tent,
alone on the mountain side, a shepherd with a crook in his hand. He is
married to the daughter of a barbarian; his career is at an end.