THE EASTERN END OF THE VALLEY. 
In advancing towards the termination of the valley, two masses of sculpture peculiarly 
attract the eye. One, the more distant in the present view, resembling the Khasnb, 
but having eight Corinthian pillars. The edifice in front is of larger dimensions, 
and has four entrances, adorned by pilasters and ornaments in the florid style. A 
part of the work has fallen down, probably in some earthquake, hut it still has four 
stories, with a row of fourteen pilasters extending across each of the three upper ones. 
Only three pilasters of the highest tier, however, remain. The excavations within 
form four apartments; but they are totally destitute of decoration, and they all contain 
simple recesses, of whose purpose nothing distinct is known. Travellers have, in 
general, pronounced them “either temples or tombs.” But while this indecision lasts, 
there still is room for conjecture; and the writer of these pages conceives, that their 
primary purpose was neither. That places of public worship should be formed in 
the face of cliffs, some a thousand feet above the City, and almost inaccessible to 
the frequent approach of the people; without the space in front, or the depth within, 
which were essential to all ancient worship, whether Eastern or Western, seems 
improbable; and that these places of worship should be multiplied almost in every 
direction seems equally improbable. We are to remember also, that the actual City 
was below, in a valley of two miles every way, where we still discover vestiges of the 
public buildings. It is in this extensive area that we are naturally to look for the site of 
edifices so important, and in such constant public use, as the temples of heathenism. 
The opinion now offered is, that the majority of those sculptured excavations were 
for the sole purpose of gratifying the eye; a noble indulgence of the national taste 
for ornament, a natural and fine employment of the superfluous wealth of an active 
and opulent people compressed within a boundary, narrow but singularly adapted for 
the most novel and magnificent decoration. In other sites, the wealth of cities flows 
into the surrounding landscape. But Petra saw round it only a circle of cliffs, from 
three hundred to a thousand feet high; those cliffs rugged, and forming the strongest 
contrast to the profuse elegance of an Oriental City, reared by the richest traffic in 
the world. The Citizens, unable to pass beyond their barrier, converted it into 
beauty; exchanged the wildness of its rocks for resemblances of the most graceful 
and stately architecture ; and thus surrounded themselves with that picturesque, singular, 
and richly-embellished scenery, which, to this horn’, excites the admiration of mankind. 
Nor is it necessary to the conception, that this embellishment should have begun 
in any public design of the community. An unemployed architect, finding an easily 
wrought material, open to all, might have naturally adopted it to display his ability, 
in a position conspicuous to every eye. An opulent and childless citizen might have 
