riod, the stronger fibre of flax was used in the
manufacture, but the date of this improvement is also unknown, because
at first the paper so made, like that made from the papyrus fibre, was
also too weak to last. It was doubtless an Alexandrian improvement.
Flax was an Egyptian plant; paper-making was an Egyptian trade; and
Theophilus, a Roman writer on manufactures, when speaking of paper made
from flax, clearly points to its Alexandrian origin, by giving it the
name of Greek parchment. Between the papyrus of the third century, and
the strong paper of the eleventh century, no books remain to us but
those written on parchment.

The monks of Mount Sinai suffered much during these reigns of weakness
from the marauding attacks of the Arabs. These men had no strong
monastery; but hundreds of them lived apart in single cells in the
side of the mountains round the valley of Feiran, at the foot of Mount
Serbal, and they had nothing to protect them but their poverty.
They were not protected by Egypt, and they made treaties with the
neighbouring Arabs, like an independent republic, of which the town of
Feiran was the capital. The Arabs, from the Jordan to the Red Sea,
made robbery the employment of their lives, and they added much to the
voluntary sufferings of the monks.

[Illustration: 267.jpg THE PAPYRUS PLANT]

Nilus, a monk who had left his family in Egypt, to spend his life in
prayer and study on the spot where Moses was appointed the legislator
of Israel, describes these attacks upon his brethren, and he boasts over
the Israelites that, notwithstanding their sufferings, the monks spent
their whole lives cheerfully in those very deserts which God's chosen
people could not even pass through without murmuring. Nilus has left
some letters and exhortations. It was then, probably, that the numerous
inscriptions were made on the rocks at the foot of Mount Serbal, and on
the path towards its sacred peak, which have given to one spot the name
of Mokatteb, or the valley of writing. A few of these inscriptions are
in the Greek language.

The Egyptian physicians had of old always formed a part of the
priesthood, and they seem to have done much the same after the spread
of Christianity. We find some monks named _Parabalani_, who owned
the Bishop of Alexandria as their head, and who united the offices of
physician and nurse in waiting on the sick and dying. As they professed
poverty they were maintained by the state and had other