ANCIENT KINGS OF ARABIA. 145 



Utter desolation which now reigns over those once 

 celebrated regions, described by an inspired pen as 

 " the fatness of the earth." It is scarcely possible 

 to imagine how a wilderness so dreary and desolate 

 could ever have been adorned with walled cities, or 

 inhabited for ages by a powerful and opulent people. 

 The aspect of the surrounding country is singularly 

 wild and fantastic. On one side stretches an ini- 

 mense desert of shifting sands, whose surface is 

 covered with black flints, and broken by hillocks into 

 innumerable midulations ; on the other are rugged 

 and insulated precipices, among which rises Mount 

 Hor with its dark summits, and near it lies the 

 ancient Petra, in a plain or hollow of unequal sur- 

 face (Wady Mousa), enclosed on all sides with a 

 vast amphitheatre of rocks. 



The entrance to this celebrated metropohs is from 

 the east, through a deep ravine called El Syk ; and 

 it is not easy to conceive any thing more awful or 

 sublime than such an approach. The width in 

 general is not more than sufficient for the passage 

 of two horsemen abreast ; through the bottom winds 

 the stream that watered the city. As this rivulet 

 must have been of great importance to the inhabit- 

 ants, they seem to have bestowed much pains in 

 protecting and regulating its course. The channel 

 appears to have been covered by a stone pavement, 

 vestiges of which yet remain ; and, in several places, 

 walls were constructed to give the current a proper 

 direction, and prevent it from running to waste. 

 Several grooves or beds branched off as the river 

 descended, in order to convey a supply to the gar- 

 dens, and higher parts of the city. On either hand 

 of the ravine rises a wall of perpendicular rocks, 

 varying from 400 to 700 feet in height, which often 

 overhang to such a degrree that, Avithout their abso- 

 lutely meeting, the sky is intercepted; scarcely 

 leaving more light than in a cavern, for a hundred 

 yards together. The sides of this romantic chasm, 



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