thus exhibited his taste, or transmitted his memory. The example set by individual 
caprice might have been followed by public munificence. The habits of ancient times 
were highly favourable to the conjecture. The want of those innumerable channels 
by which superfluous wealth finds its productive discharge in our day; the local pride 
of small commonwealths; the love of public decoration congenial to climates where 
nothing decays, and where the population live in the open air; and the actual existence 
of the finest monuments of the ancient world in their unmutilated beauty, naturally 
stimulated the popular spirit to respond to a call so deep as that uttered by the 
stupendous grandeur of the rocks of Petra. 
That some of those excavations may, in after ages, have been used as temples or 
tombs is perfectly possible. That they may have been used as dwellings is probable, for 
such is the course of a declining state; pauperism readily takes refuge in a shelter which 
costs it nothing. But that the original and general purpose was the gratification of 
public taste — the expenditure of national means on the most striking and splendid 
national ornament, and the conversion of a rude and savage circumvallation into a 
circle of the most superb imagery of Europe and Asia; if but a conjecture, is one 
not unsuitable to the incomparable effect before the eye, to the striking locality, or 
the operation of a people of genius and power. 
TOMB OF AAEON, SUMMIT OF MOUNT HOR. 
Among the hills in the approach to Petra, the most striking is Mount Hor, from its 
boldness and height, and still more, from its connexion with Scripture. The ascent 
to the supposed Tomb of Aaron, which stands on its brow, occupies about an hour, 
and in its latter portion is extremely steep, often requiring to be climbed on the 
hands and knees. In many parts, where it would have been otherwise impracticable, 
the steepness is relieved by flights of stairs. The upper clefts of the mountain are 
enriched with a large growth of juniper and other shrubs; and on the summit is a 
grotto, in which a kind of Arab hermit dwelt for forty years, the greater part within 
the present century. He has lately died and seems to have had no successor. 
The Tomb is alluded to prior to the Crusades; it is in a vault, and for preservation 
it has long been enclosed in a building similar to a Mahometan Saint’s Sepulchre. 
An iron grating once protected it from the unhallowed touch, hut it has been broken 
down, and all may now approach. The visitors, however, are compelled to descend 
into the vault with naked feet; an embarrassing necessity, in a place which may 
naturally be supposed to breed vipers and scorpions. It is still much resorted to by 
the Christian pilgrims, and is held in veneration even by the Mahometan. 
