(4) Extensive Excavations. The attention of travelers has, however, been chiefly engaged by the excavations which, having more success fully resisted the ravages of time, constitute at present the great and peculiar attraction of the place. These excavations, whether formed for temples, tombs or the dwellings of living men, surprise the visitor by their incredible number and extent. They not only occupy the front of the entire mountain by which the valley is en compassed, but of the numerous ravines and re cesses which radiate on all sides from this en closed area. Were these excavations, instead of following all the sinuosities of the mountain and its numerous gorges, ranged in regular order, they probably would form a street not less than five or six miles in length. By far the largest num ber of excavations were manifestly designed as places for the interment of the dead ; and thus exhibit a variety in form and size, of interior arrangement and external decorations, adapted to the different fortunes of their occupants, and conformable to the prevailing tastes of the times in which 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 deposits; 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.
(5) Ornamental Architecture. 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 quite plain and destitute of all decoration. Pass the threshold, and nothing is seen but perpendicular walls, bear ing the marks of the chisel, without moldings, columns, or any species of ornament. But the
exteriors of these primitive and even rude apart ments 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 facades of splendid temples, rivaling 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 of the native mass, transform the base of the mountain into a vast, splendid pile of archi tecture, while the overhanging cliffs, towering ahove in shapes as rugged and wild as any on which the eye ever rested, form the most striking and curious of contrasts.
But nothing contributes so much to the almost magical effect of some of these monuments as the rich and various colors of the rock out of which, or more properly in which, they are formed. Red, purple, yellow, azure or sky blue, black and white, are seen in the same mass dis tinctly in successive layers, or blended so as to form every shade and hue of which they are ca pable—as brilliant and as soft as they ever ap pear in flowers, or in the plumage of birds, or in the sky when illuminated by the most glorious sunset. It is more easy to imagine than describe the effect of tall, graceful columns, exhibiting these exquisite colors in their succession of regu lar horizontal They are displayed to greater advantage in the walls and ceilings of sonic of the excavations where there is a slight dip in the strata. Laborde (Voyage en Arabia Petrcra), Robinson (Biblical Researches), and Olin (Travels in the East, from which the above description has been chiefly taken). Interesting notices of Petra may also be found in the re spective Travels, Journeys, etc., of Burckhardt• Macmichael, Irby and Mangles, Stephens, Lord Lindsay and Schubert.