to look on this doomed City; so sad a memorial of Divine judgment* yet possessed 
of a strength which must have scorned all human instruments of destruction; placed 
in the bosom of impenetrable mountains, with walls so formed by nature, that to them 
the works of man shrank into insignificance. Though in the midst of deserts, its 
climate is not surpassed by any in salubrity; the soil watered by numerous streams 
and its mountains cultivated to the very summits; the plain below covered with the 
most splendid temples, and other public buildings, and the rocks themselves so filled 
with excavations that they resound under the foot. Yet with all this, and with a 
population of hundreds of thousands, all now is loneliness ; its history is almost unknown, 
and the wandering Arab attributes its very existence to enchantment .” 1 
1 Roberts’s Journal. 
THE ARCH CROSSING THE RAVINE. 
Near the mouth of the chasm El Sik, an Arch, at a considerable height, connects 
the rocks on either side. Time has destroyed whatever evidence might have existed 
of its actual purpose, and the question now is, whether it was formed for ornament, 
for defence, or for simple communication. But with that fondness for decoration which 
seems to have neglected no opportunity of exhibiting itself, the portion below the 
Arch is excavated into niches, which, it may be presumed, contained statues, possibly 
idols, the protecting deities of this extraordinary city. Some remains of a gateway, 
or barrier built of large square stones, show that the security of the entrance was 
intrusted to more sufficient guardians. 
Petra, though deserted, is not untrodden; a rude and infrequent traffic passes 
through it still; and it happened, that while the Artist, was employed on this sketch, 
a caravan from Gaza, consisting of forty camels on their way to Maan on the Damascus 
road, passed through the ravine. 
