tion, with some diplomatic concessions on both sides, it is enough to say that at last, to my great relief, he withdrew his demand and took what I offered.

Before daybreak the next morning we had struck our tent, and sending it and the other baggage by another route, the sheik being afraid to take with us anything that might tempt the Bedouins, and leaving behind us several of our men, the sheik, his brother, three Arabs, Paul, and myself, with nothing but what we had on, and provisions for one day, started for Wady Moussa and the city of Petra. Our course was a continued ascent. I have found it throughout difficult to give any description which can impart to the reader a distinct idea of the wild and desolate scenes presented among these mountainous deserts. I have been, too, in so many of the same general nature, that particular ones do not present themselves to my mind now with the force and distinctness of perfect recollection; and, in the few rough and hurried notes which I made on the spot, I marked rather the effect than the causes which produced it. I remember, however, that the mountains were barren, solitary, and desolate, and that, as we ascended, their aspect became more and more wild and rugged, and rose to grandeur and sublimity. I remember, too, that among these arid wastes of crumbling rock there were beautiful streams gushing out from the sides of the mountains; and sometimes small valleys, where the green grass, and shrubs, and bushes were putting forth in early spring; and that, altogether, I saw among the stony mountains of Arabia Petræa more verdure than I had observed since I left the banks of the Nile. I remember, moreover, that the ascent was difficult; that our camels toiled laboriously; and that even our sure-footed Arabian horses often slipped upon the steep and rugged path. Once the sheik and myself, being in advance of the rest, sat down upon an eminence which overlooked, on one side, a range of wild and barren mountains, and, on

APPROACH TO PETRA.

49

the other, the dreary valley of El Ghor; above us was the venerable summit of Mount Hor; and near us a stone blackened with smoke, and surrounded by fragments of bones, showing the place where the Arabs had sacrificed sheep to the Prophet Aaron. From this point we wound along the base of Mount Hor, which, from this great height, seemed just beginning to rise into a mountain; and I remember, that, in winding slowly along its base, as our companions had objected to our mounting to the tomb of Aaron, Paul and I were narrowly examining its sides for a path, and making arrangements to slip out as soon as they should all be asleep, and ascend by moonlight. Not far from the base of Mount Hor we came to some tombs cut in the sides of the rocks, and standing at the threshold of the entrance to the excavated city. Before entering this extraordinary place, it would not be amiss, in few words, to give its history. VOL. II.-E

CHAPTER IV.

Petra.-Arrival.-Entrance to the City.-The Temple of Petra.-A Record. The Theatre.-Tombs of Petra.-Arab Simplicity.-Departure from Petra.-A Night in a Tomb.-Dangers of the Route.

PETRA, the excavated city, the long-lost capital of Edom, in the Scriptures and profane writings, in every language in which its name occurs, signifies a rock; and, through the shadows of its early history, we learn that its inhabitants lived in natural clefts 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 dies 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