of Petra^ a City excavated from the solid Rock. 235 



the world that resembles it. Only a portion of a very extend 

 sive architectural elevation is seen at first, but it has been so 

 contrived that a statue with expanded wings, perhaps of vic- 

 tory, just fills the centre of the aperture in front, which, being 

 closed below by the sides of the rock folding over each other, 

 gives to the figure the appearance of being suspended in the air 

 at a considerable height, the ruggedness of the cliffs below set- 

 ting off the sculpture to the highest advantage. The rest of 

 the design opened gradually at every pace as we advanced, till 

 the narrow defile, which had continued thus far without any 

 increase of breadth, spreads on both sides into an open area of 

 a moderate size, whose sides are by nature inaccessible, and 

 present the same awful and romantic features as the avenues 

 which lead to it. This opening gives admission to a great 

 body of light from the eastward. The position is one of the 

 most beautiful that could be imagined for the front of a great 

 temple, the richnesss and exquisite finish of whose decorations 

 offers a most remarkable contrast to the savage scenery which 

 surrounds it. 



It is of a very lofty proportion, the elevation comprising 

 two stories. The taste is not exactly to be commended, but 

 many of the details and ornaments, and the size and propor- 

 tions of the great door-way especially, to which there are five 

 steps of ascent from the portico, are very noble. No part 

 is built, the whole being purely a work of excavation, and its 

 minutest embellishments, wherever the hand of man has not 

 purposely effaced and obliterated them, are so perfect that it 

 may be doubted whether any work of the ancients, excepting 

 perhaps some on the banks of the Nile, have come down to our 

 time so little injured by the lapse of ages. There is, in fact, 

 scarcely a building of forty years' standing in England so well 

 preserved in the greater part of its architectural decorations. 

 Of the larger members of the architecture nothing is deficient 

 excepting a single column of the portico. The statues are nu- 

 merous and colossal. Those on each side of the portico re- 

 present in groups, each of them, a centaur and a young man. 

 This part of the work only is imperfect, having been mutilat- 

 ed probably by the fanaticism of early Christians or Mussel- 

 men, directed against idolatry, and particularly the human 



