NOTICE OF ME. EOBEETS’S JOUENEY IN THE EAST. 
While at Cairo, he made the acquaintance of M. Linant, who had been De Laborde’s 
companion in his visit to Petra; he kindly showed Mr. Roberts the original sketches 
which had been made in that excursion, and thus added stimulants, which were 
unnecessary, to his undertaking the interesting journey to Wady Moosa, or Petra. 
He immediately made preparations for crossing the Desert by the route of the Israelites 
to Mount Sinai—by Akaba, and through the great valley of El Glior to Petra, 
and thence to Hebron, instead of entering Palestine by El Arish and Gaza, as he 
had intended. 
On the 8th of February, 1839, having been joined by Mr. Pell and Mr. Kinnear, 
(the latter of whom has since published an account of this journey,) they assumed 
the Arab dress, and, with their servants well armed, left Cairo: taking with them 
twenty-one camels, and escorted by nearly as many Bedouin Arabs, of the tribe of 
the Beni Saids. 
On the 27th they reached the Fortress of Akaba, on the Red Sea; here they 
parted with the Arab tribe hitherto their friends and guides, and put themselves 
under the escort of the tribe of Alloeens, who were to conduct them to Petra and 
thence to Hebron. On the 6th of March they reached Mount Hor, upon which 
rests the tomb of Aaron: at its base, deeply seated in its ravines and bounded by 
its precipitous sides and lofty peaks, lies the excavated city of Petra, the Idumea 
of the Greeks, the Edom of the prophet Jeremiah — the city of impregnable position, 
which gloried in its strength, but which strikes the traveller, who is fortunate enough 
to visit it, as an awful realisation of the prophetic denunciations :—“ Thy terribleness 
hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts 
of the rock, that boldest the height of the hill : though thou shouldest make thy 
nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the Lord.” 1 
Mr. Roberts and his companions were the first who had been permitted to pitch 
their tents within Petra; it was the result of a long and violent altercation between 
the Arab tribe inhabiting Wady Moosa and the Alloeens, with whom an old grudge 
remained unsettled. At length a sufficient amount was agreed upon as a peace-offering 
for a truce, and the occupation of an encampment within the city for five days without 
molestation; during this time our Artist, fortunately, w r orked incessantly on his studies, 
for on the fifth night the little party was assailed and some of their arms were carried 
off; but it was suspected by our travellers, that the attack of the Arabs of Wady 
Moosa was connived at by their guides, who were impatient to return; the next 
morning they struck their tents, and bade farewell to Petra, the wonder of the Desert. 
On the 16th, the party having reached Hebron, and learnt that the plague had 
barred access to Jerusalem, proceeded to the coast, visiting Gaza, Askelon, and Jaffa; 
but being informed here that no recent case had occurred in the Holy City, and 
that the quarantine would shortly be removed, they set out for Jerusalem, and arrived 
there on the 29th of March, the day before Palm Sunday, a day held by the Christians 
in the East in great veneration. While at Jerusalem, Mr. Roberts received much 
Jeremiah, xlix. 16 . 
