From early in 1848, Lear was thinking about a trip to Egypt. After nine months of travelling through the eastern Mediterranean, Lear finally reached Egypt in January 1849. The visit was brief: in Cairo he met up with his friend John Cross, with whom he set out for Sinai and Palestine. They reached Sinai in January 1849 and spent three nights at the monastery there. Lear remarked in a letter to his sister Ann that 'the excessive & wonderful grandeur of the spot is not to be described, though i hope to shew [sic] you drawings of it - : the adaptation of the whole scene to that recorded in Scripture is equally astonishing' (Letter to his sister Ann, 16 January 1849, in V. Noakes, Edward Lear 1812-1888, London, 1985, p. 148).