Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][subsumed][merged small][merged small]

IT is difficult to afford any good idea by description of this City of Tombs. It is from the approach to the theatre that "the ruins of the city burst on the view in their full grandeur, shut in on the opposite side by barren, craggy precipices, from which numerous ravines and valleys, like those we had passed, branch out in all directions; the sides of the mountains, covered with an endless variety of excavated tombs,' and private dwellings, presented altogether the most singular scene we ever beheld; and we must despair to give the reader an idea of the singular effect of the rocks, tinted

1 Some of them are so high, and the side of the mountain is so perpendicular, that it seems impossible to approach the uppermost."-BURCK

HARDT.

with most extraordinary hues, whose summits present us with nature in her most savage and romantic form, whilst their bases are worked out in all the symmetry and regularity of art, with colonnades and pediments, and ranges of corridors adhering to the perpendicular surface."-IRBY AND MANGLES.

From the heights above the theatre, Lord Castlereagh thus describes the scene :- "Even at the summit of these towering cliffs, which are here at least 200 feet high, and extremely rugged and precipitous, the labours and skill of man are conspicuous every where. Upon every face of the hills where the eye rests, the vestiges of tombs and excavations are visible from the base to the pinnacles; almost all, however, are obliterated to a great degree by the waters and the action of the sun. Gardens cut in the rock supplied the Edomite with his grapes and figs; staircases cut in the stone are to be traced in all parts; and terraces and galleries are distinctly marked out. The mountains are intersected with numerous conduits, for the passage of the waters which once fertilized this Eden of the rock; but at this period of the year there is no stream even in the brook of Wady Mousa."

[graphic]

THE KHASNE.

ALL at once the beautiful temple cut in the rock which forms one of the splendid remains of Petra, bursts upon the view of the traveller opposite the mouth of the chasm; the hue of the rock out of which it is hewn is soft and rosy. It is called the Khasne; and "there it stands, as it has stood for ages, in beauty and loneliness; and the wild Arab, as he passes by it, looks at it with stupid indifference or scorn. The name by which the Arabs call this edifice, signifies 'the treasure,' which they suppose to be contained in the urn crowning the summit of its ornamented front, a hundred feet

or

the more above ground. Their only interest indeed in all these monuments, is to search for hidden treasures, and as they find nothing else

VIEW OF KHASNE, FROM THE CHASM.

where, they imagine them to be deposited in this urn, which to them is inaccessible. It bears the marks of many musket-balls, which they have fired at it, in the hope of breaking it to pieces, and thus obtaining the imagined treasure."-DR. ROBINSON.

[graphic][merged small][merged small]

ANOTHER striking ruin at Petra, is that called El-Deir. It was long unvisited by travellers, who never could find or reach it from the valleys beneath.

"We ascended into the recesses of the mountains, passing by the homestead of some peasants, where a hole in the rock contained an ass, a few goats, some wretched blankets, two naked children, and an old

crone.

At the base of the rocks are the remains of a

staircase, which conducts the Arabs and his goats, or the adventurous pilgrim from a foreign land, the only passers by, to the ruins of the temple. Facing Mount Hor, it overlooks deep precipices and ravines," and was probably used as a place of idolatrous worship.VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH.

THE THEATRE.

"IN the bosom of the mountain, hewn out of the solid rock, (is) a large theatre, circular in form, the pillars in front fallen, and containing thirty-three rows of seats, capable of containing more than 3,000 persons. Above the corridor was a range of doors opening to chambers in the rocks, the seats of the princes and wealthiest inhabitants of Petra. Day after day these seats had been filled, and the now silent rocks had echoed to the applauding shout of thousands; and little could an ancient Edomite imagine that a solitary stranger, from a then unknown world,' would one day be wandering among the ruins of his proud and wonderful city; meditating upon the fate of a race that has for ages passed away. Where are ye, inhabitants of this desolate city? ye who once sat upon the seats of this theatre, the young, the high-born, the beautiful, and brave? who once rejoiced in your riches and power, and lived as if there were no grave? Where are ye now? Even the very tombs, whose open doors are stretching away in long ranges before the eyes of the wondering traveller, cannot reveal the mystery of your doom: your dry bones are gone; the robber has invaded your graves, and your very ashes have been swept away to make room for the wandering Arab of the desert.

"But we need not stop at the days when a gay population were crowding to this theatre. In the earliest periods of recorded time, long before this theatre was 1 America.

« AnteriorContinua »