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or excavations made in the solid rock. Desolate as it now is, we have reason to believe that it goes back to the time of Esau, the father of Edom;' that princes and dukes, eight successive kings, and again a long line of dukes, dwelt there before any king 'reigned over Israel ;' and we recognise it from the earliest ages as the central point to which came the caravans from the interior of Arabia, Persia, and India, laden with all the precious commodities of the East, and from which these commodities were distributed through Egypt, Palestine, and Syria, and all the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, even Tyre and Sidon deriving their purple and dyes from Petra. Eight hundred years before Christ, Amaziah, the king of Judea, 'slew of Edom in the Valley of Salt' ten thousand, and took Selah, (the Hebrew name of Petra,) by war.' Three hundred years after the last of the prophets, and nearly a century before the Christian era, the 'king of Arabia' issued from his palace at Petra, at the head of fifty thousand men, horse and foot, entered Jerusalem, and, uniting with the Jews, pressed the siege of the temple, which was only raised by the advance of the Romans; and in the beginning of the second century, though its independence was lost, Petra was still the capital of a Roman province. After that time it rapidly declined; its history became more and more obscure; for more than a thousand years it was completely lost to the civilized world; and until its discovery by Burckhardt, in 1812, except to the wandering Bedouins, its very site was unknown. And this was the city at whose door I now stood. . . In a few words, this ancient and extraordinary city is situated within a natural amphitheatre of two or three miles in circumference, encompassed on all sides by rugged mountains. The whole of this area is now a waste of ruins, dwelling-houses, palaces, temples, and

1 This valley was probably the Ghôr south of the Dead Sea, adjacent to the Mountain of Salt.-See "Scripture Topography," Part I. Palestine, chap. vii.

triumphal arches, all prostrate together in undistinguishable confusion. The sides of the mountains are cut smooth, in a perpendicular direction, and filled with long and continued ranges of dwelling-houses, temples, and tombs, excavated with vast labour out of the solid rock; and while their summits present nature in her wildest and most savage form, their bases are adorned

with all the beauty of architecture and art, with columns, and porticoes, and pediments, and ranges of corridors, enduring as the mountains out of which they are hewn, and fresh as if the work of a generation scarcely yet gone by.

"Nothing can be finer than the immense rocky

rampart which encloses the city. Strong, firm, and immovable as nature itself, it seems to deride the walls of cities, and the puny fortifications of skilful engineers."-Incidents of Travel.

WADY MOUSA-VALLEY OF MOSES.

"We found our tent pitched under a huge rock.. Oleanders are blooming at our feet, wild flowers of every hue cover the crags, and the air is filled with the perfumes of jessamine.

The

"Our home is in the bosom of Wady Mousa, that mysterious valley, the land of accomplished prophecy, the spot where prophecy has still to be fulfilled... Now it is indeed the valley of the shadow of death. king of terrors frowns over the hollow rocks, the owl hoots, the vulture screams through the desolate dwellings and ransacked sepulchres, and the passing traveller learns a solemn lesson from beholding what neither books nor recital can adequately convey."-VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH.

THE SYK.

"THE Syk, or approach leading into Petra, is a magnificent defile. Narrow as a mere footpath in some parts, it rends asunder crags more than 200 feet high, excluding the sun, and in many spots almost closing over head. This remarkable chasm is covered from end to end with a copse of oleanders (watered by a limpid brook which flows along the whole distance), so that it is difficult to pass through the flowers, which bloom on all sides. The wild fig springs from the clefts of the rock; the briar and the ivy fall in festoons from the crags; the desert broom and other evergreen shrubs

grow among the stones in the wildest luxuriance; and the bright lights and shadows, cast upon the streaked sides of the gorge, form a remarkable combination of exquisite beauty and savage grandeur.

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(The Fellah or the Bedouin brushes the wild flowers aside without a thought of their colour or their fragrance, and passes with equal neglect the magnificent efforts of skill of former ages).

"The length of this wonderful approach is considerable; the impression which it makes is utterly indescribable. The bottom of the passage was anciently paved with squared stones, of which many remain.

"As we advanced, the natural features of the defile grew more and more imposing at every step, and the excavations and sculpture more frequent on both sides, till it presented at last a continued street of tombs, beyond which the rocks gradually approaching each other seemed all at once to close without any outlet. There is, however, one frightful chasm for the passage of the stream, which furnishes, as it did anciently, the only avenue to Petra on this side. It is impossible to conceive anything more awful or sublime than such an approach; the width is not more than just sufficient for the passage of two horsemen abreast, the sides are in all parts perpendicular, varying from 400 to 700 feet in height, and they often overhang to such a degree, that without their absolutely meeting, the sky is intercepted and completely shut out for 100 yards together, and there is little more light than in a cavern.

"The screaming of the eagles, hawks, and owls, who were soaring above our heads in considerable numbers, seemingly annoyed at any one approaching their lonely habitation, added much to the singularity of this scene. The tamarisk, the wild fig, and the oleander, grew luxuriantly about the road, rendering the passages often difficult; in some places they hung down most beautifully from the cliffs and crevices where they had taken root; the caper-plant was also in

luxuriant growth, the continued shade furnishing them with moisture.

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APPROACH TO PETRA.

pass,

Very near the first entrance into this romantic a bold arch is thrown across at a great height, connecting the opposite sides of the cliff. As the traveller passes under it, its appearance is most surprising, hanging thus above his head betwixt two rugged masses apparently inaccessible."-IRBY AND MANGLES.