built, a great city stood here. When Esau, having sold his birthright for a mess of pottage, came to his portion among the mountains of Seir; and Edom, growing in power and strength, became presumptuous and haughty, until, in her pride, when Israel prayed a passage through her country, Edom said unto Israel, 'Thou shalt not pass by me, lest I come out against thee with the sword.'

"I would that the sceptic could stand as I did among the ruins of this city among the rocks, and there open the sacred book, and read the words of the inspired penman, written when this desolate city was one of the greatest cities in the world. I see the scoff arrested, his cheek pale, his lip quivering and his heart quaking for fear, as the ruined place cries out to him in a voice loud and powerful as that of one risen from the dead: though he would not believe Moses and the prophets, he believes the handwriting of God himself in the desolation and eternal ruin around him.

"Perfect as has been the fulfilment of the prophecy in regard to this desolate city, in no one particular has its truth been more awfully verified than in the complete destruction of its inhabitants in the extermination of the race of the Edomites. In the same day, and by the voice of the same prophets, came the separate denunciations against the descendants of Israel and Edom, declaring against both a complete change of their temporal condition; and while the Jews have been dispersed in every country under heaven, and are still, in every land, a separate and unmixed people, the Edomites have been cut off for ever, and there is not any remaining of the house of Esau.'

6

"Wisdom has departed from Teman, and understanding out of the mount of Esau ;' and the miserable Arab who now roams over the land cannot appreciate or understand the works of its ancient inhabitants. In the summer he cultivates the few valleys in which seed will

grow, and in the winter makes his habitation among the tombs; and, stimulated by vague and exaggerated traditionary notions of the greatness and wealth of the people who have gone before him, his barbarous hand is raised against the remaining monuments of their arts; and as he breaks to atoms the sculptured stone, he expects to gather up their long-hidden treasures. I could have lingered for days upon the steps of that theatrebut the sheik was hurrying me away. From the first he had told me that I must not pass a night within the city, and was perpetually urging me to make my retreat while there was yet time. He said that if the Arabs at the other end of the great entrance heard of a stranger being there, they would be down upon me to a man. Every moment he was becoming more and more impatient; and spurring my horse, I followed him on a gallop among the ruins. We ascended the valley, and rising to the summit of the rocky rampart, it was almost dark when we found ourselves opposite a range of tombs in the suburbs of the city. Here we dismounted; and selecting from among them one which, from its finish and dimensions, must have been the last abode of some wealthy Edomite, we prepared to pass the night within its walls. I was completely worn out when I threw myself on the rocky floor of the tomb... The singular character of the city, and the uncommon beauty of its ruins, its great antiquity, the prophetic denunciations of whose truth it was the witness, its loss for more than a thousand years to the civilized world, its very existence being known only to the wandering Arab; the difficulty of reaching it, and the hurried and dangerous manner in which I had reached it, gave a thrilling and almost fearful interest to the time and place, of which I feel it utterly impossible to convey any idea . . . Now we thought only of rest; and seldom has the tenant of a palace laid down with greater satisfaction on his canopied bed than I did upon the stony floor of this tomb in Petra. In the front part it was a large cham

ber, about twenty-five feet square, and ten feet high; and behind this was another of smaller dimensions, furnished with receptacles for the dead, cut lengthwise in the rock, like ovens, so as to admit the insertion of the body with the feet foremost. We built a fire in the outer chamber, thus lighting up the innermost recesses

of the tombs... The Bedouins stretched themselves in the former, while I went within; and seeking out a tomb as far back as I could find, I crawled in feet first. I was very tired, the night was cold, and here I was completely sheltered... Little did the Edomite for whom the tomb was made, imagine that his bones would one day be scattered to the winds, and a straggling American

GLEN IN WADY MOUSA-LUXURIANT VEGETATION. 415

and a horde of Bedouins, born and living thousands of miles from each other, would be sleeping quietly in his tomb, alike ignorant and careless of him for whom it was built."-Incidents of Travel.

GLEN IN WADY MOUSA.

"THE hills gradually closed in around our path, while here and there appeared small platforms of rock decked with verdant shrubs. As we advanced into this romantic glen, the scene became at every step more lovely; oleanders of thirty feet high, innumerable wild flowers, and creepers in full bloom, sprang from the fissures of the cliffs. The evergreens were so thick that they had been cut away to open out a camel track. The vine, too, spread its tendrils among the branches that sheltered us from the sun, and clusters of grapes were hanging, in festooned arches, over our heads. Further on were large mulberry-trees covered with fruit; myriads of birds started from the cliffs, pigeons and doves were upon the wing in every direction, and we heard the wild call of the partridge on all sides."-VISC. CASTLEREagh.

LUXURIANT VEGETATION.

THE river which flows through Wad Mousa is in some parts difficult to follow," from the luxuriance of the shrubs that surround it, and obstruct every track. Besides the oleander, which is common to all the watercourses in this country, one may recognise among the plants which choke this valley, some which are probably the descendants of those that adorned the gardens, and supplied the market of the capital of Arabia; the carob, fig, mulberry, vine, and pomegranate, line the river side; a very beautiful species of aloe also grows in this

valley, bearing a flower of an orange hue, shaded to scarlet; in some instances it had upwards of one hundred blossoms in a bunch.”—Irby and ManGLES.

REMARKABLE COLOURING OF THE ROCKS.

"THE rocks about Petra are remarkable for their varied hues.

"Nowhere is the extraordinary colouring of these mountains more striking than in the road to the tomb of Aaron (on mount Hor) which we followed, where the rock sometimes presented a deep, sometimes a paler blue, and sometimes was occasionally streaked with red, or shaded off to lilac or purple; sometimes a salmon-colour was veined in waved lines and circles, with crimson and even scarlet, so as to resemble exactly the colour of raw meat; in other places there are livid stripes of yellow or bright orange, and in some parts all the different colours were ranged side by side in parallel strata; there are portions also with paler tints, and some quite white, but these last seem to be soft, and not good for preserving the sculpture. It is this wonderful variety of colours observable throughout the whole range of mountains, that gives to Petra one of its most characteristic beauties; the tombs, tastefully as they are sculptured, owe much of their imposing appearance to this infinite diversity of hues in the stone."-IRBY AND MANGLES.