ARCHITECTURAL ORNAMENTS.

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they were made. There are many tombs consisting of a single chamber, ten, fifteen, or twenty feet square by ten or twelve in height, containing a recess in the wall large enough to receive one or a few deposites; sometimes on a level with the floor, at others one or two feet above it, and not unfrequently near the ceiling, at the height of eight or ten feet. Occasionally oblong pits or graves are sunk in the recesses, or in the floor of the principal apartment. Some of these are of considerable depth; but they are mostly choked with stones and rubbish, so that it is impossible to ascertain it. In these plebeian tombs there is commonly a door of small dimensions, and an absence of all architectural decorations. In some of larger dimensions there are several recesses occupying two or three sides of the apartment. These seem to have been formed for family tombs.

Besides these unadorned habitations of the humble dead there is a vast number of excavations enriched with various architectural ornaments. To these unique and sumptuous monuments of the taste of one of the most ancient races of men with whom history has made us acquainted, Petra is indebted for its great and peculiar attractions. This ornamental architecture is wholly confined to the front, while the interior is perfectly plain, and destitute of all decoration. Pass the threshold, and nothing is seen but perpendicular walls, bearing the marks of the chisel, without mouldings, columns, or any species of ornament. But the exterior of these primitive and even rude apartments exhibit some of the most beautiful and imposing results of ancient taste and skill which have remained to our times. The front of the mountain is wrought into façades of splendid temples, rivalling, in their aspect and symmetry, the most celebrated monuments of Grecian art. Columns of various orders, graceful pediments, broad, rich entablatures, and sometimes statuary, all hewn out of the solid rock, and still forming part

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SPLENDID COLOURS.

of the native mass, transform the base of the mountain into a vast, splendid pile of architecture, while the overhanging cliffs, towering above in shapes as rugged and wild as any on which the eye ever rested, form the most striking and curious of contrasts. In most instances it is impossible to assign these beautiful façades to any particular style of architecture. Many of the columns resemble those of the Corinthian order; but they deviate so far, both in their forms and ornaments, from this elegant model, that it would be impossible to rank them in the class. A few are Doric, which are precisely those that have suffered most from the ravages of time, and are probably very ancient.

But nothing contributes so much to the almost magical effect of some of these monuments as the rich and various colours of the rock out of which, or, more properly, in which they are formed. The mountains which encompass the vale of Petra are of sandstone, of which red is the predominating hue. Their surface is a good deal burned and faded by the elements, and is of a dull brick colour. These remarks are sufficiently descriptive of Mount Hor; and most of the sandstone formations in this vicinity, as well as a number of the excavations of Petra, exhibit nothing remarkable in their colouring which does not belong to the same species of rock throughout a considerable region of Arabia Petræa. Many of them, however, are adorned with such a profusion of the most lovely and brilliant colours as, I believe, it is quite impossible to describe. Red, purple, yellow, azure or sky-blue, black, and white, are seen in the same mass distinctly in successive layers, or blended so as to form every shade and hue of which they are capable—as brilliant and as soft as they ever appear in flowers or in the plumage of birds, or in the sky when illuminated by the most glorious sunset. The red perpetually shades into pale, or deep rose or flesh colour. The purple is sometimes very dark, and again approaches the hue of the lilach or violet. The white,

SPLENDID COLOURS.

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which is often as pure as snow, is occasionally just dashed with blue or red. The blue is usually the pale azure of the clear sky or of the ocean, but sometimes has the deep and peculiar shade of the clouds in summer when agitated by a tempest. Yellow is an epithet often applied to sand and sandstone. The yellow of the rocks of Petra is as bright as that of saffron. It is more easy to imagine than describe the effect of tall, graceful columns, exhibiting these exquisite colours in their succession of regular horizontal strata. They are displayed to still greater advantage in the walls and ceilings of some of the excavations where there is a slight dip in the strata. This gives, in the perpendicular sides of the excavation, greater breadth and freedom to the exhibition of colours, while in the ceiling, the plane of which makes a very acute angle with that of the strata, the effect is indescribably beautiful. The colours here have full play and expansion, and they exhibit all the freedom of outline and harmonious blending of tints observable in a sunset The ceiling of a large excavation just at the entrance of Wady Syke, and nearly opposite to the amphitheatre, affords an example of the magnificent effect which I so vainly attempt to describe. In the northern half of the ceiling a brilliant deep red is the predominant hue, intermingled, however, with deep blue, azure, white, and purple. No painter ever transferred to his canvass with half so much nature and effect, the bright and gorgeous scene painted on the western clouds by a brilliant sunset in summer. On the northern or front part of the ceiling these hues are deeply shaded with black, and no one, I am sure, can look upon it without being strongly reminded of a gathering tempest, and almost imagining that he listens to the voices of coming winds and thunder. I shall probably fall under the suspicion of extravagance and exaggeration in what I have written upon this subject, and I would plead guilty to a charge of imprudence in attempting to portray by

scene.

words scenes which the painter alone could exhibit with any approach to the reality. I am told that Mr. Roberts, an eminent English artist, has made the attempt, and that the public may very soon look for the fruit of his labours. I shall be eager to see with what success his skilful hand has exhibited on canvass what I must yet consider the inimitable beauties of at least one of the monuments of Petra.

I have been not a little mortified at ascertaining the impossibility of obtaining and transporting specimens of the beautiful Petra stone. It happens that the strata which are of the softest and most elegant colours are precisely those which possess the most frail and delicate texture. The yellow, rose-colour, azure, and white strata are disintegrated by the falling rain, and it is extremely difficult to disengage them from the rock, either separately or in a mass of various colours, without resolving them into their constituent particles; and I deem it quite impracticable to transport them on camels without some method of preserving them not now at my command.

I have said that we arrived in Petra on the 30th day of March. We pitched our tents on a level area, the largest, probably, in the ancient city, and elevated fifteen or twenty feet above the southern embankment of the river. It is situ. ated in the angle of a perpendicular rock nearly twenty feet in height, which has been faced by art, so as to form, as far as it extends, two sides of a square. The eastern side is completed by a massive wall in good preservation. The southern and western sides were also enclosed by some barrier, of which a mound of rubbish and a part of the foundation stones still mark the direction and extent. This great central area was certainly a place of public resort, probably the Forum of Petra. Several bridges, or, perhaps, one broad bridge, of which the substantial foundations still remain, gave access thither from the opposite side of the river; and two staircases still exist, in ruins, by which the

multitude ascended to this theatre of business or pleasure. Several pedestals, and an immense prostrate column, mark the unquestionable position of a colonnade, the magnificent entrance to the forum, fronting towards the north, and standing immediately above the bridge, from which it is separated by a broad, paved thoroughfare, that extended from the great eastern entrance of Petra westward, through the most central and splendid portion of the city, to the palace of Pharaoh. West of this forum, and about half way to the palace which I have described as the only remaining edifice of Petra, is another level of about the same dimensions, bounded on the south by a nearly semicircular bulwark of solid rock, excavated by art. To this are joined the walls that form the eastern and western sides of this area, the extremities of which are united by a low, thick mass of masonry, forming the chord. This, too, was unquestionably a place of public meetings for amusements or business, though the structure is in too ruinous a condition to allow us determine with certainty to what particular object it was to devoted. On the summit of that part of the rock which forms the east side of this area are considerable remains of a cistern. The cement with which it was lined is still solid, and uninjured by time. The two public places which I have just described fronted, as did the other principal edifices, the great thoroughfare along the bank of the river. This must have been a magnificent street.

I shall proceed to give a brief description of a few of the excavations, and of the objects connected with them, which engaged my attention during our stay in Petra. My tent was no sooner arranged than I sallied out alone. I prefer, when not pressed for time, to be left to my own guidance in such a place as Petra. Ascending the steep hill which rises immediately east of our camp, or, as I have ventured to conjecture, of the ancient forum, I proceeded to the base of the mountain which bounds the valley on that side, and proseVOL. II.-C