minds much excited by the novelty and strangeness of the scene around us. Yet, however glad we might have been to rest for a time beneath our tent, we thought it better to improve the remainder of the day in visiting the other principal objects; and we were the more stimulated to this course, because we had some foreboding of being interrupted.

We now followed down the left side of the bed of the brook, as it runs nearly westward through the open tract. It is everywhere skirted on both sides by a strip of level land; on the North and South of which, again, the ground rises into low irregular mounds and eminences; while back of these, a quarter of a mile from the brook in both directions, is a steeper and longer ascent, leading up to higher plains on the North and South. It is this lower tract, about half a mile square, which formed the actual circuit of the ancient city; being shut in on the East and West by high perpendicular walls of sandstone rock. "It is an area in the bosom of a mountain, swelling into mounds and intersected with gullies; but the whole ground is of such a nature as may be conveniently built upon, and has neither ascent nor descent inconveniently steep."

Keeping near the bed of the brook, we soon came to the fallen columns of a large temple. Each column had been formed of several stones, and the joints now lay in their order along the ground. Nearly opposite this spot, a Wady joins the brook from the North, over which are the remains of a bridge. Further west, the banks of the brook itself have once been built up with strong walls, and the stream apparently covered over for some distance; thus connecting the level tracts upon the sides.

We now passed along the remains of the paved 1) Irby and Manglos p. 424.

way, through the ruins of the arch of triumph, which stands near the brook, fronting towards the East. The architecture is florid and corrupt. It seems to have formed the approach to the palace or pile of building beyond, which the Arabs call Kŭsr Far'ôn, “Pharaoh's Castle." This mass of walls is the only structure of mason-work now standing in Wady Mûsa. It is of very inferior architecture and workmanship, and apparently of a late age. Joists of wood are in different parts let in between the courses of stone; intended doubtless to receive the fastenings for ornaments of wood or stucco. The walls are mostly entire; but the columns of the northern front, which were composed of separate pieces, are nearly gone. The distribution of the interior into several chambers and stories, seems to show conclusively, that it was not a temple; it would appear rather to have been a public edifice of a different character.

On the rising ground south of the Kusr and triumphal arch, stands the lone column called by the Arabs Zub Far'ôn; on ascending to it we found it composed of several pieces, and connected with the foundations of a temple, of which the fragments of several other columns were strewed around.

These are the chief remains of particular structures, which strike the eye of the wanderer upon the site occupied by the city itself; and they have been noticed and described by all travellers, as well as by the pencil of Laborde. But these writers have omitted to mention one circumstance, or at least all have not given to it that prominence which it deserves, viz. that all these are but single objects amidst a vast tract of similar ruins. Indeed the whole area above described, was once obviously occupied by a large city of houses. Along the banks of the stream, the violence of the water has apparently swept away the

traces of dwellings; but elsewhere, the whole body of the area, on both sides of the torrent, and especially on the North, is covered with the foundations and stones of an extensive town. The stones are hewn; and the houses erected with them, must have been solid and well-built. On looking at the extent of these ruins, it struck us as surprising, that they should hitherto have been passed over so slightly; although this may readily be accounted for, by the surpassing interest of the surrounding sepulchres. These foundations and ruins cover an area of not much less than two miles in circumference; affording room enough, in an oriental city, for the accommodation of thirty or forty thousand inhabitants.1

We were now near the western wall of cliffs, which are also of red sandstone and higher than those on the East; rising in some parts to an elevation of three or four hundred feet. This wall too is full of tombs, some of them high up in the rock; but in general less numerous and splendid than those in the eastern cliffs. One of the most conspicuous is the unfinished tomb of which a drawing is given by Laborde; showing that in sculpturing the façades of the sepulchres, the workmen, (as was natural,) after smoothing the face of the rock, began at the top and wrought downwards. We entered several of these tombs, which presented nothing worthy of particular notice. The great multitude of them are small and plain, mere excavations in the face of the rock.2

1) Burckhardt is here the most explicit: "The ground is covered with heaps of hewn stones, foundations of buildings, fragments of columns, and vestiges of paved streets; all clearly indicating that a large city once existed here. On the left side of the river is a rising ground, extending westwards for nearly a quarter of an hour, en

tirely covered with similar remains. On the right bank, where the ground is more elevated, ruins of the same description are also seen." Travels p. 427.

2) Very many of those plain sepulchres differ little from the multitudes of similar ones around Jerusalem; except in their position and the nature of the rock.

In the channel of the brook, which was dry below the Khuzneh quite across the open space, we now found, near the western cliff, water again springing up in several places, in small quantity indeed, but of excellent quality; much purer indeed than that in the brook above. It ran in a small stream along the bed of the Wady, which here enters the front of the western cliffs by a chasm similar to the eastern Sik; but broader and less regular. We entered and proceeded for some distance down the ravine, which is full of oleanders and other shrubs and trees, so that we could scarcely pass. The walls within the mouth are full of tombs, all small and without ornament. The high rock upon the left, which is isolated by a very narrow chasm behind it, is conjectured by Laborde to have been the acropolis of the ancient city; but we received the impression at the time, that there was no special ground to justify this supposition.'

We followed the ravine considerably below this point; and endeavoured to find the lateral chasm, marked on Laborde's plan as leading up towards the right quite to the Deir. There are short chasms enough in that direction; but none extending to the Deir, which indeed seems to be inaccessible from this quarter; as we found by our own experience, and from the testimony of Arab shepherds on the spot.

Further towards the West the ravine has never been explored; and no one could tell in what direction the waters, when swollen, find their way through the cliffs. This only is certain, that the Wady does not, as Wady Mûsa, extend down to the 'Arabah; and the course so marked upon Laborde's map has as little

1) We did not indeed ascend the rock; nor does Laborde appear to have done so. Irby and Mangles are silent as to it.-I have since learned from Mr. Roberts,

the distinguished artist, who visited Wady Musa in 1839, that he remarked traces of buildings, or at least of mason-work, upon the summit of this cliff.

actual existence, as the Wady Mûsa by which Schubert supposed himself to have ascended from the 'Arabah towards Mount Hor.1

It was now sunset; and we returned to our tent, fatigued, and our eyes for the present satisfied with seeing.' We had obtained, so far as we desired, a general idea of the valley and its wonders; and we left for the morrow a visit to the Deir, a closer ex-amination of the tombs in the eastern cliffs back of our tent, and a renewal of the impressions received from the Khuzneh and the region around the theatre. Our further plan was to ascend Mount Hor, and then take the usual road back to Hebron.

The pencil of Laborde has spread before the world the details of the strange remains, which give interest and celebrity to this valley; but his work presents no correct general idea of the whole. The best written descriptions are still those of the earliest visitors; first Burckhardt, and then Irby and Mangles. The account of the former is the most exact and simple; that of the latter is more full, but also more coloured and somewhat confused. Burckhardt was here but a part of a day, an object of jealous suspicion to his Arab guide; yet it struck me with astonishment, to remark, upon the spot, the exactness and extent of his observations during that short interval.

A single glance had been sufficient to correct a false impression, which I had received from previous accounts, viz. that the site of the ancient city was shut in on all sides by perpendicular cliffs, and that the entrance by the Sîk was the only feasible one from any quarter. This, as has been seen, is not the case. The

1) Reise II. pp. 414, 418. The road from 'Akabah ascends through

the Wady Abu Kusheibeh mentioned further on.