II. Arabia Dosorta, called by the Greeks it tried ..liabta. and by the Arabs hi Radiate, the Desert. This takes in that portion of the country which lies north of Arabia Felix. and is bounded on the northeast by the Euphrates, on the north west by Syria, and on the west by Palestine and Arabia P•tra'a The Arabs divide this great wilderness into three parts, so called front their proximity to the respective countries, viz.. Badiah t'sh Sham (Syria). Badiah of /es/lira/1 (the pen insula• i Arabia), and Rinfiah el leak (Baby lonia) From this word l3saiiab comes the name of the nomadic tribes Ity whom it is traversed, viz , iiedattays, better knoscn to 11S by the French corruption of Bedouins. %dm are not, however, confined to this portion of Arabia, but range throughout the entire region.
(a) Physical Features. So far as it has been explored, Desert Arabia appears to be one con tinuous, elevated, interminable steppe, occasion ally intersected by ranges of hills. Sand and salt are the chief elements of the soil, which in many places is entirely bare, but elsewhere yields stinted and thorny shrubs or thinly-scattered saline plants. That part of the wilderness called El Hharnmad lies on the Syrian frontier, extending from the Hauran to the Euphrates, and is one immense dead and dreary level, very scantily supplied with water, except near the banks of the river, where the fields are irrigated by wheels and other arti ficial contrivances.
(b) Climate. The sky in these deserts is gen erally cloudless, but the burning heat of the sun is moderated by cooling winds, which, however, raise fearful tempests of sand and dust. Here, too, as in other regions of the East, occasionally prevails the burning, suffocating southeast wind, called by the Arabs El Hharur (the Hot), but more commonly Samunt, and by the Turks Sam yeli, the Poisonous, the effects of which, however, have by some travelers been greatly exaggerated. This is probably the 'east wind' and the 'wind from the desert' spoken of in Scripture. Another phenomenon, which is not peculiar, indeed, to Desert Arabia, but is seen there in greatest fre quency and perfection, is what the French call the mirage, the delusive appearance of an expanse of water, created by the tremulous, undulatory movement of the vapors raised by the excessive heat of a meridian sun. It is called in Arabic serab, and is no doubt the Hebrew sarab of Is. xxxv :7, which our translators have rendered 'the parched ground.' III. Arabia Petra appears to have derived its name from its chief town Petra, a rock, in Heb. Selah: although the epithet is also appro. priate on account of the rocky mountains and stony plains which compose its surface. It em braces all the northwestern portion of the coun try; being bounded on the east by Desert and Happy Arabia, on the north by Palestine and the Mediterranean, on the west by Egypt, and on the south by the Red Sea. This division of Arabia has been of late years visited by a great many travelers from Europe, and is con sequently much better known than the other portions of the country.
(a) General Description. Confining ourselves at present to a general outline, we refer for de tails to the articles SINAI, EXODUS, EDOM, MOAB ITES. Beginning at the northern frontier one meets the elevated plain of Belka, to the east of the Dead Sea, the district of Kerak (Kir), the ancient territory of the Moabites, their kinsmen of Ammon having settled to the north of this, in Arabia Deserta. The north border of Moab was the brook Arnon, now the Wady-el-Mojib; to the south of Moab, separated from it by the Wady-el-Altsy, lay Mount Seir, the dominion of the Edomites, or la'unitea, reaching as far as to Elath on the Red Sea. The great valley which runs from the Dead Sea to that point consists, first, of El-Ghor, which is comparatively low, but gradually rises by a succession of limestone cliffs into the more elevated plain of El-Arabah, formerly mentioned.
It was once believed that through this great valley the Jordan anciently flowed, before the catastrophe of the cities of 'the plain (Arabah) ;' but from the depressed level of the Dead Sea found by Lieut. Symonds to be no less than 1337 feet below that of the Mediterranean, and from the great elevation of the Arabah,the long descent northward, and the run of the watercourses in the same direction, the hypothesis is found to be no longer tenable.
(b) Mountains of Edom. The structure of the mountains of Edom on the east of the Arabah is thus described by Robinson (vol. ii, p. 551) : 'At the base low hills of limestone or argillaceous rocks; then the lofty masses of porphyry, consti tuting the body of the mountain ; above these sand stone broken up into irregular ridges and grotesque groups of cliffs; and again, farther back and higher than all, long elevated ridges of lime stone without precipices. East of all these stretches off indefinitely the high plateau of the great east ern desert. The character of these mountains is quite different from those on the west of the Ara bah. The latter, which seemed to be not more than two-thirds as high, are wholly desert and sterile; while these on the east appear to enjoy a sufficiency of rain, and are covered with tufts of herbs and occasional trees. This mountainous region is divided into two districts: that to the north is called Iebal (i. e. mountains, the Gebal of Ps. lxxxiii :7) ; that to the south Esh-Sherah, which has erroneously been supposed to be allied to the Hebrew `Seir whereas the latter (written with a 1') means 'hairy,' the former denotes a tract or region. To the district of Esh-Sherah belongs Mount Hor, the burial place of Aaron, towering above the Wady Mousa (valley of Moses), where are the celebrated ruins of Petra (the ancient capital of the Nabathno-Idumeans), brought to light by Seetzen and Burckhardt.