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VOL. 6.]

Wonders of Arabia Petraa.

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A grand colonnade runs from the eastern to the western gates of the city, formed on both sides of marble columns of the Corinthian order, and terminating in a semi-circle of sixty pillars of the Ionic order, and crossed by another colonnade running north and south. At the western extremity stands a theatre, of which the proscenium remains so entire, that it may be described as almost in a state of undecayed beauty. Two superb amphitheatres of marble, three glorious temples, and the ruins of gorgeous palaces, with fragments of sculpture and inscriptions, mingled together, form an aggregate of ancient elegance, which surpasses all that popery has spared of the former grandeur of Rome.

gloomy windings of this awful corridore which greatly exceed in magnitude and for about two miles, the front of a su- beauty those of Palmyra. perb temple burst on their view. A statue of Victory, with wings, filled the centre of an aperture in the upper part, and groups of colossal figures, representing a centaur, and a young man, stood on each side of the lofty portico. This magnificent structure is entirely excavated from the solid rock, and preserved from the ravages of the weather by the projections of the overhanging precipices, About three hundred yards beyond this temple they met with other astonishing excavations; and, on reaching the termination of the rock on their left, they found an amphitheatre, which had also been excavated, with the exception of the proscenium: and this had fallen into ruins. On all sides the rocks were hollowed into innumerable chambers and sepulchres; and a silent waste of desolated palaces, and the remains of constructed edifices, filled the area to which the pass led.

From the same source that we collected these brief conversational notices, we have received a literal translation of a Bedoueen love-song, that would even furnish ideas of delight to the elegant author of Lalla Rookh.

BEDOUEEN LOVE-SONG.

The morning star has not yet appeared, nor the beams of the moon retired; nor has the dew yet begun to rise from the valley, but my soul beholds In my love.

These ruins, which have acquired the name of WADI MOOSA, from that of a village in their vicinity, are the wreck of the city of PETRA, which, in the time of Augustus Cæsar, was the residence of a monarch, and the capital of Arabia Petraa. The country was conquered by Trajan, and annexed by him to the province of Palestine. more recent times Baldwin I. king of Jerusalem, having made himself also master of PETRA, gave it the name of the Royal Mountain.

The travellers having gratified their wonder with the view of these stupendous works, went forward to Mount HOR, which they ascended, and viewed a building on the top containing THE TOMB OF AARON; a simple stone mon. ument, which an aged Arab shows to the pilgrims. Having remained in this spot, consecrated by such great antiquity, they returned next morning, and again explored other portions of the ruins of Petra; after which they went back to Karrac. They then turned their attention to other undescribed ruins, of which they had received some account from the Arabs; and finally, proceeded to view those of JERRASCH,

She comes in white robes

fairer than the flower of the jessamine :

her breath is sweeter than new milk,
and her eyes sparkle like those of the
gazelle when the day is falling. How
Her
weary is the time till she comes.
tardy steps fill my bosam with thrab-
bings. Come, fairest of beauty, come,
my cry till she appears.

is

We trust that the narratives of these bold and adventurous researches, will not be limited to the description of the remains of antiquity; objects to which the generality of English travellers have been too apt to pay exclusive attention: for, although considerable light has been thrown on the manners of the Arabs, by the members of the Roman Propaganda, as well as by the missionaries of the Jesuits, we are still greatly in want of some liberal account of the Arabic mind. The tales of Arabia are

well known to all readers as the most amusing fictions which have hitherto been produced; and Arabian discoveries in science, are also very surprising instances of intellectual acumen. It is therefore greatly to be desired, that we should obtain some account of their modes of thinking, and of their opinions on other subjects than the dogmas of religious faith, or their usages in war, The attention of the public has recently been drawn in an unusual degree to the mysteries of Egypt, by the result of Belzoni's enterprising and indefatigable research. We are, however, still greatly in want of a circumstantial account of the extent of his discoveries, as well as of some curious particulars respecting different castes of the inhabitants; we use the term in its strictest oriental signification. The same source that has supplied us with the interesting conversational notices of the antiquities of Arabia, has furnished the facts which constitute the basis of the following ob

servations.

It has been ascertained that, between the first and second cataracts of the Nile, there is a caste of the inhabitants, who do not consider themselves as the aborigines of the country. They do not resemble the other inhabitants in appearance, and they not only possess many customs peculiar to themselves, but even speak a language which has no affinity to that of Arabic; speaking also that language, but in a broken and rude dialect. This people possess a tradition among them, that their ancestors were led from their homes by a great king, with whom they conquered the country, and were left behind to keep it in possession; and they look forward to their native king coming again, and resuming his authority.

A classical reader would be apt, at first sight, to say that this people are the descendants of the troops of Cambyses; but they do not resemble the Persians in appearance, nor indeed any of the Asiatic nations. By the account that we have received, they are more like the Caffrees, or that idolatrous race which possess the greatest part of southern Africa; who, although described hy the professors of the Mahomedan

religion under that name, yet in reality constitute a great variety of nations, some of which are of no despicable power. We are therefore disposed to think, that this unknown race are of Ethiopian descent: at the same time, it must be confessed that, upon the epoch to which they refer their arrival in Egypt, authentic history throws but very little light.

The latest great invasion of Egypt from southern Africa, was about the years of Rome 725, when Aurelius Gallus, having withdrawn most of the Roman forces from that province in order to invade Arabia, Candace, the queen of Ethiopia, made an irruption, with a numerous army, into the district of Thebais; leading her troops, accorcording to Dio, in person. She ravaged all the country; took Syene, and the islands of the Nile, Elephantine, and Philæ, and made three Roman cohorts prisoners. She then retired towards her own territory, but was pursued by Petronius, the Roman governor, and defeated with great slaughter. could not, therefore, be at this period, that these aliens settled in Egypt, and their origin must be ascribed to a much higher antiquity.

It

Besides the great excavated temple of Ysambiel, which Belzoni has laid open, four gigantic sitting statues have been discovered, sculptured in the adjacent rocks, and of the enormous proportions of more than one hundred feet in height.

In the island of PHILE, are the unfinished remains of a temple, which tends to throw considerable light on the mode of construction used in those everlasting edifices which the ancient Egyptians, under the influence so far of good taste, raised to their gods. It appears, th at their architects polished at first only four sides of those enormous masses of stone which they employed; and, having laid them together, and thus completed the edifice in the rough, as it may be aptly termed, then polished and sculptured the surfaces of the walls. The same method was adopted by the French in the ornamental parts of Versailles.

Three distinct classes of architecture

VOL. 6.]

A Tiger and Lion Hunt.

are evidently discernible in the Egyptian monuments; for, under this denomination, the antiquities of Nubia may be included. The rudest, the greatest, and therefore perhaps the oldest, are those of Lower Egypt,-the companions and cotemporaries of the pyramids. The structures of Upper Egypt, and in the vicinity of the first cataract, are works of more skill; and, though inheriting the same strong and bold features, possess a more juvenile appearance. The ruins, in Nubia, are of a still more elegant species, combining with the same characteristics a feminine cast, as compared with the malemuscularity of the architecture of Egypt, We should not omit to mention here, that the head, said to be that of Memnon, now in the British Museum, did not belong to that lebrated statue. The real head of Memnon is so defaced as not to be worth the trouble of sending home, even if it were easily practicable, for it has been computed to weigh about four hundred and fifty tons. We are likely soon however, to be gratified with the possession of the foot of Memnon, which is about two yards in length; and, among other curiosities, we also understand, the entire hand and arm of the same statue to which the gigantic fist already in the Museum belongs, may soon be expected in Britain. About two days' journey above Cairo, is a lofty insulated rock, on the top of which a Coptic monastery is situated. This singular mass, which seems strangely to have escaped the wonder-working sculptors of Egypt, is called Gibraltar,

13

a name which it derives from the number of wild fowl that hover round it, the term in Arabic signifying the mountain of birds; and is, for the same reason, applicable to the British fortress of that name at the entrance to the Mediterranean.

But what we regard as one of the most curious of all these discoveries, is the result of a visit lately made to the holy island of Flowers, the Coptic name of which we do not recollect; but the island is situated in the Nile, between Philæ and Elephantine. In this sequestered spot, no stranger is permitted to enter, except as a pilgrim; and the Mahomedans are not often so under the influence of curiosity, as to make religious pretexts for gratifying it. Here a number of unburied mummies are still to be seen, without coffins, and placed only in their cearments, as if denied the rites of sepulture. We do therefore conceive, that it was from the customs of burying the good in this island, that the story of Charon, and the ferrying of the river Styx, took its rise. Hitherto the fable has been supposed to refer to an island in the Lake Marcotes; but the circumstance of the ferry being across a river, and the constant sanctity with which the isle of Flowers has been regarded, points it out, in our opinion, as more likely to have been the place. Besides, the unsepultured coffinless mummies, would seem to indicate a posthumous adjudication of the merits. of the persons, and that to these, in particular, the judgment had not been favourable.

A TIGER AND LION HUNT.

From the New Monthly Magazine, for August, 1819. [The following narrative of a Tiger and Lion Hunt, in the upper regions of Hindostan, is extracted from the familiar correspondence of the dauntless

heroine of the chase, who is a British Lady of high rank, recently, or not long ago, returned from India.]

Sanghee, 60 miles N. W. of Dihlee, 22d March.

WE

E had elephants, guns, balls, and all other necessaries prepared, and about seven in the morning we set off. The soil was exactly like that we

had gone over last night; our course lay N. W. The jungle was generally composed of Corinda bushes, which were stunty and thin, and looked like ragged thorn bushes: nothing could be more desolate in appearance; it it seemed as if we had got to the furthest limit of cultivation, or the haunts of man. At times, the greener bunches of jungle, the usual abodes of the beasts of prey during the day-time, and the

few huts scattered here and there, which could hardly be called villages, seemed like islands in the desert waste around us. We stopped near two or three of these green tufts, which generally surrounded a lodgment of water, or little ponds, in the midst of the sand.

The way in which these ferocious animals are traced out is very carious, and, if related in England, would scarcely be credited. A number of unarmed, half-naked villagers go prying from side to side of the bush, just as a boy in England would look after a strayed sheep, or peep after a bird's nest. Where the jungle was too thick for them to see through, the elephants, putting their trunks down into the bush, forced their way through, tearing up every thing by the roots before them. About four miles from our tents we were all surrounding a bush, which might be some 50 yards in circumference (all includes William Frazer, alone up. on his great elephant, Mr. Barton and myself upon another equally large, Mr. Wilder upon another, and eight other elephants; horsemen at a distance, and footmen peeping into the bushes). Our different elephants were each endeavouring to force his way through, when a great elephant, without a houdah on on his back, called "Muckna," a fine and much esteemed kind of elephant, (a male without large teeth,) put up, from near the centre of the bush, a royal tiger. In an instant Frazer called out, "Now, Lady H, be calm, be steady, and take a good aim, here he is." I confess, at the moment of thus suddenly coming upon our ferocious victim, my heart beat very high, and, for a second, I wished myself far enough off; but curiosity, and the eagerness of the chase, put fear out of my head in a minute: the tiger made a charge at the Muckna, and then ran back into the jungle. Mr. Wilder then put his elephant in, and drove him out at the opposite side. He charged over the plain away from us, and Wilder fired two balls at him, but knew not whether they took effect. The bush in which he was found was one on the west bank of one of those little half dry ponds of

which I have spoken. Mr. Barton and I conjecturing that, as there was no other thick cover near, he would probably soon return, took our stand in the centre of the open space in a minute the tiger ran into the bushes on the east side; I saw him quite plain :-we immediately put our elephant into the bushes, and poked about till the horsemen, who were reconnoitring round the outside of the whole jungle, saw him slink under the bushes to the north side : hither we followed him, and from thence traced him by his growling, back to the outer part of the eastern bushes. Here he started out just before the trunk of our elephant, with a tremendous growl or grunt, and made a charge at another elephant, farther out on the plain, retreating again immediately under cover. Frazer fired at him, but we supposed without effect; and he called to us for our elephant to pursue him into his cover.

With some difficulty, we made our way through to the inside of the southern bushes; and, as we were looking through the thicket, we perceived beau Tiger slinking away under them. Mr. Barton fired, and hit him a mortal blow, about the shoulder or back, for he instantly was checked; and my ball, which followed the same instant, threw him down. We two then discharged our whole artillery, which originally consisted of two double-barrelled guns, loaded with slugs, and a pair of pistols. Most of them took effect, as we could discover by his wincing, for he was not above ten yards from us at any time, and at one moment, when the elephant chose to take fright and turn his head round, away from the beast, running his haunches almost into the bush, not five. By this time William Frazer had come round, and discharged a few balls at the tiger, which lay looking at us, grinning and growling, his ears thrown back, but unable to stir. A pistol, fired by me, shattered his tower jaw-bone; and immediately, as danger of approaching him was now over, one of the villagers, with a matchlock, went close to him, and applying the muzzle of his piece to the nape of his neck,

VOL. 6.]

Sports of India-A Tiger and Lion Hunt.

shot him dead, and put him out of his to obtain information.
pain. The people then dragged him
out, and we dismounted to look at him,
pierced through and through; yet one
could not contemplate him without sat-
isfaction, as we were told that he had
long infested the high road, and carried
off many passengers. One hears of the
roar of a tiger, and fancies it like that of
a bull, but, in fact, it is more like the
grunt of a hog, though twenty times
louder, and certainly one of the most
tremendous animal noises ore can im-
agine.

Our tiger was thrown across an elephant, and we continued our course to the south-west. In a jungle at the distance of about two miles, we started a a wild hog, which ran as hard as it could away from us, pursued by a Soowar, without success. Scon after we started, in a more open part of the plain, a herd of the nilghau. This animal is in appearance something between a horse, a cow, and a deer; delicate in its legs and feet like the latter, of a bluish grey colour, with a small hump on its shoulders, covered with a mane. Innumerable hares and partridges started up on every side of us. The flat, dreary waste still continued, though here and there at the distance of some miles, we met with a few ploughed lands, and boys tending herds of buffaloes.

In a circuit of about sixteen miles we beat up many jungles, in the hope of rousing a lion, but without success. One of these jungles, in particular, was uncommonly pretty it had water in the midst of it, in which was a large herd of buffaloes, cooling themselves. We returned home at 3 P. M.

On the 23d, we again set off at 9 A. M. in quest of three lions, which we heard were in a jungle about six miles to the north-east of our tents. The ground we passed over was equally flat with that of yesterday, but it was ploughed. When we came to the edge of the jungle, not unlike the skirts of a coppice in England, and which was principally composed of stumpy peeple trees, and the willow-like shrub I observed the other evening, Frazer desired us to halt, whilst he went on foot

15

The people

from the neighbourhood assembled round us in crowds, and in a few minutes all the trees in the jungle appeared to be crowned with men, placed there by Frazer for observation. After waiting nearly an hour, we were at last sent for. We found him posted just by the side of the great canal, which was cut by the Emperor Firoze, across the country, from the Jumna, at Firozeabad, to Dehlee, for the purpose of supplying the cultivation of this part of the country with water. Frazer had received intelligence of both a lion and a tiger being in this jungle, which now chokes up this canal. He desired Barton and myself to go down upon our elephant, and watch the bed of the canal; moving slowly towards the south, while he should enter and advance in the contrary direction; the rest of the party were to beat the jun gle above, where it was so very thick, that in most places, it would have been impossible for an elephant to attempt to force a passage through it.

When he had gone about a quarter of a mile down the Nulla, there being but just room at the bottom for our elephant to walk clear of the bushes, we came to a spot where it was a little wider, and where some water had collected. Here we fell in with Frazer, on his elephant, who had met with no better success than ourselves, though we had all searched every bush as closely as we could with our eyes, in passing along. He desired us to wait there a few minutes, while he mounted the bank above to look after the rest of the elephants; though none of us were very sanguine of sport here, from the jungle being so thick, and so extensive on every side.

He had hardly gone away, when the people in the trees called out, that they saw the wild beast in the bushes, on our left hand; and in a few minutes, a lioness crossed the narrow neck of the canal, just before us, and clambered up the opposite bank. immediately fired, but missed her; the men pointed that she had run along the bank to the westward. We turned round, and had the mortification of see

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