the ruins of a city, which M. Laborde calls Ameimé, having an extensive aqueduct. Nearer to Akaba, several of the valleys which afford a passage to the interior, are shut up with walls, and defended by other fortifications, probably the work of the Arabs. The great valley of Jetoum exhibits in one place the ruins of such a wall, of which Burckhardt also received information.* It was while passing from the gulf around the land of Edom, that the Israelites were bitten by serpents; † and M. Laborde expressly affirms, that on his return from Petra, he found in this region "vast numbers of these reptiles." We subjoin here a list of those cities of ancient Idumea, (exclusive of Petra,) of which some traces are supposed to remain in the names or other circumstances of modern places.§ Zoara, the Zoar and Bela of Genesis, is spoken of by Eusebius, under the names of Zoar, Bala, and Segor, as near the southern extremity of the Dead Sea on the eastern shore, and as being a Roman garrison. It was afterwards one of the episcopal cities of Palæstina Tertia. It stood, most probably, in the entrance of the Wady el Draah or Daru, which comes down to the sea from the east, and forms the usual route of travellers from Hebron to Kerek. Captains Irby and Mangles describe this as a beautiful spot, and add; "There is very clearly to be perceived an ancient site. Stones that have been used in building, though for the most part unhewn, with bricks and fragments of pottery, are strewed over the uneven surface for at least half a mile, quite down to the plain."¶ Phænon, or Phanon, situated, according to Eusebius, between Zoar and Petra. Burckhardt finds a resemblance in the modern Tafyle, a town of six hundred houses, and corresponding with Phænon in its situation.** Psora may perhaps be the modern Beszeyra. Thana is mentioned by Ptolemy, and corresponds well with the modern Dhana. Zodocotha seems to have its corresponding name in the * Laborde, p. 207 seq. Engl. Burckhardt, p. 511. Num. xxi. 4 seq. p. 138, Engl. The names of Idumean cities, as far down as to the fifth century, have been faithfully collected by Reland, Palæst. p. 204-234. Compare Bibl. Repos. III., p. 272 seq. ** Reland Pal. p. 1064 seq. Reland, p. 951. Burckh. p. 402. ¶p. 448. modern Szadeke, where is a hill with extensive ruins of an ancient town.* Arindela was the seat of a bishop, but no trace of it remains; except that Burckhardt suggests a resemblance in the name of Wady Gharendel, near the mouth of which M. Laborde remarked some ruins. The ruined city which the latter traveller calls Ameimé is in the vicinity of this valley; is this perhaps the ancient Arindela? It would seem to be too far south for the Havara marked on the maps as one of the Roman posts. Elath and Ezion-geber, the former called also by the Greeks and Romans Elana, and by the Arabs Ailah. These two cities were situated at the northern extremity of the Gulf of Akaba, and must have been near each other; perhaps on different sides of the embouchure of the great valley. Eziongeber was the port of Solomon. Josephus says it was afterwards called Berenice; † and it may not improbably have been afterwards revived in the later Albus Pagus, mentioned above. But Elath appears early to have supplanted it in importance; ‡ and in the first centuries of Christianity the latter was a great emporium, and the seat of a Roman garrison. The bishops of Ailah also held a prominent place in the councils of those days. The occupation of it by the crusaders in the twelfth century, and the recovery of it by Saladin, we have already spoken of in the preceding pages; as also of the unsuccessful assault upon its citadel by Rainald in A. D. 1182. In the fourteenth century, it was already abandoned; for Abulfeda, who wrote in the first half of that century, expressly says of Ailah; "In this our day it is a tower or castle, to which a governor is sent from Egypt. It had a small citadel in the sea; but this is now destroyed, and the governor transferred to the fortress on the shore." Such as Ailah was in the days of Abulfeda, is Akaba now. Mounds of rubbish alone mark the site of the city; while a fortress occupied by a Turkish governor, and a small garrison under the Pasha of Egypt, serve to keep the neighbouring tribes of the desert in awe, and to protect the pilgrims of the annual Egyptian Hadj. * Burckh. p. 435. † Jos. Ant. 8. 6. 4. For the notices of it by Greek and Roman writers, see Cellarius, Orb. Not. II. p. 582 seq. § Reland, p. 554 seq. p. 78. Schulten's Ind. Geogr. in Vit. Salad. voc. Aila. Rommel's Abulfeda, The "citadel in the sea," of which Abulfeda speaks, is probably the 'same which was besieged in vain by Rainald ;* and is doubtless the small island near the western shore of the gulf, opposite Wady Emrag, on which modern travellers have observed ruins. It was described to Burckhardt by his guides; but he did not himself see it.† Rüppell describes it under the name of Emrag; and gives a view of it as seen from the western shore. He supposes the buildings to be of Arabian structure, and refers them to the twelfth century. M. Laborde speaks of the island under the name of Graia; on what authority we are not aware. He and his companion swam over to it on a raft; and in a strange fit of national vanity, planted a flag upon the highest rock, and took possession of the island in the name of France! His description and views add little to the information afforded by Rüppell. Up to the time of Burckhardt, the darkness which rested upon the Elanitic Gulf, was not less than that which shrouded the neighbouring land of Edom. On many of the best maps, even in the earlier part of the eighteenth century, no such gulf is to be found. Danville, following a Turkish map, gave to its northern extremity a bifurcation; at one point of which he placed Elath, and at the other Ezion-geber. The information collected by Burckhardt served to do away this bifurcation; and this has been abundantly confirmed by the personal observation of later travellers. III. We turn now to PETRA, which in ancient times was the celebrated metropolis of this whole region, and received its name from its singular site. The Greeks and Romans named it toα, Petra, i. e. the rock; in Hebrew it was called, Sela, also signifying a rock. In the Scriptures it is spoken of only as the capital of Edom. The earliest distinct notice appears to be in Josh. i. 36. In 2 Kings xiv. 7, Amaziah is said to have taken Sela by war, and called the name of it Toktheel. It is mentioned again in Isa. xvi. 1; and also, as some suppose, in ch. xlii. 11. The last of these notices cannot be later than 700 B. C. Four centuries afterwards, it had already passed into the hands of the Nabatheans, and had become a place of trade. The two expeditions sent against it from Babylon by Antigo * Wilken, Gesch, der Kr. III. ii. p. 223. † p. 511. nus, who died B. C. 301, we have already had occasion to mention. In speaking of these expeditions, Diodorus describes Petra as being a very strong place, though without walls, not far distant from a celebrated emporium. At the time of the first expedition, under Athenæus, the Nabatheans were mostly absent at this emporium for the sake of traffic. Athenæus seized the place by surprise; and found in it a great quantity of frankincense and myrrh, and also five hundred talents of silver. But on his retreat the Nabatheans pursued him, and, attacking him unawares, killed not less than eight thousand of his troops. Of the second expedition the Nabatheans had notice, and made preparations to resist an attack by depositing all their wealth under a strong garrison in Petra, to which there was but a single approach," made, as Diodorus says, by hand, zegoлoinτos. * During the reign of the Roman emperor Augustus, Petra was the capital of the kingdom of Arabia Petræa, of which we have already spoken. It is thus described at this period by Strabo ; "The metropolis of the Nabatheans is called Petra; because it lies in a situation which in other respects is plain and level, but is surrounded by a circular rock or mountain, externally precipitous, but internally affording several fountains, sufficiently copious for a supply of water, and for the irrigation of gardens. Beyond this enclosure the whole region is a desert, and particularly towards Judea." The stoic philosopher Athenodorus, the friend of Strabo, spent some time in Petra, and related that he found many Romans and other strangers residing there; that these often had legal processes with one another, and with the inhabitants; while the latter lived in entire harmony and union, under excellent laws.‡ The testimony of Pliny, in the first century, is still more definite and exact. "The Nabatheans inhabit the city called Petra, situated in a valley or amphitheatre less than two thousand paces in amplitude, surrounded by inaccessible mountains, with a stream flowing through the midst." About the same time, Petra is often mentioned by Josephus as the capital of Arabia Petræa. With that kingdom it passed under the immediate sway of the Romans, during the reign of Trajan. Adrian, his successor, would seem to have given his own *Diod. Sic. 19. 95 - 98. t Strabo Geogr. 16. 4. 21. Ibid. name to Petra; at least, coins apparently of this city are still extant, bearing the inscription Αδριάνη Πέτρα Μητρόπολις.* In succeeding centuries, Petra appears in the ecclesiastical records and notitia, as the principal see of Palæstina Tertia.† But in the notitia made at the time of the crusades, the see of Petra is no longer found mentioned. It would seem even then to have been abandoned and forgotten; and its site already bore in Arabic the name of Wady Mousa. Several ancient writers also assign the geographical position of Petra, with a tolerable degree of accuracy. Josephus, as also Eusebius and Jerome, speaks of Mount Hor, where Aaron died, as adjacent to Petra. § In their time, therefore, a long tradition had marked the mountain which overhangs Petra as the burial place of Aaron; and the same tradition has come down through the vicissitudes of ages to the present day. Diodorus places the city at the distance of three hundred stadia south of the Dead Sea. Strabo makes it three or four days' march from Jericho. Pliny says it is six hundred Roman miles distant from Gaza, and one hundred and thirty from the Persian Gulf; where we do not hesitate to assume, with Cellarius, a transposition of the numbers, which then will be nearly correct. The Tabula of Peutinger places Petra about eighty Roman miles northward from Ailah. The estimate of M. Laborde makes Wady Mousa to be twenty-two French leagues from Akaba; which is equivalent to some fifty or sixty English miles. All these notices, coupled with the descriptions of Strabo and Pliny above given, go to prove beyond question the identity of Petra and the ruins of Wady Mousa. Such was all that could be known of Petra to the Occidental world, before the time of Burckhardt. An Arab from that region had indeed described the spot to Seetzen, exclaiming; “Ah! how I always weep when I behold the ruins of Wady Mousa, and especially those of Faroun!" That traveller too would doubtless have wept tears of joy, had he likewise been permitted to behold those ruins; but the sight was denied to his eyes. Burckhardt could visit them only by stealth, as if in the performance of a pious vow to sacrifice a goat at the tomb of Aaron on Mount Hor. As it was, he could only pass through them, and return on the same day; and yet we * Eckhel Doctr. Nummor. III. p. 503. + Reland, p. 212, 218. p. 933. § Jos. Ant. 4. 4. 7. Euseb. Onom. art. "p. Reland, p. 220, 226. |