prophets, testified of them who testified of Jesus. The capital of Edom, as well as the capitals of other ancient kingdoms, was heard of again; and its rocks now send forth a voice that may well reach unto the ends of the earth.

It entered not into the thoughts of the writer, and far surpassed his hopes, when first led to look into the prophecies concerning Edom, from the statement of an Arab report recorded by Volney, that in so short a time the fulfilment of these prophecies might be set before the eyes of men, even without their having to "come and see." And after having adduced new evidence in successive editions from striking facts, clearly illustrative of the predictions relative to Edom, and to its once terrible metropolis, an appeal may now be made to the sight as well as to the understanding of men. For just as these pages are passing through the press, the author has timely received from Paris (and would that that city would give heed to the truth, which it thus farther affords the means of confirming) the first six livraisons of a work entitled, Voyage de l'Arabie Pétrée par Mess. Leon de Laborde et Linant, now in the course of publication, which contains, in the numbers already published, seventeen splendid engravings of the Ruins of Petra alone, in which, by merely affixing a text, the beauties of art become immediately subservient to the interests of religion. Where, very recently, it was difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain a single fact, and where only indirect evidence could be obtained, men may now, as it were, look upon Idumea, and see how the lines of confusion and the stones of emptiness have been stretched over it. And we may now, in like manner, look upon the ruins of the chief city of Edom, of which the very existence was, till lately, altogether unknown. All the plates attest its vast magnificence, and the almost incredible and in

conceivable labour, continued as it must have been from age to age, prior to the days of Moses and later than the Christian era, by which so great a multiplicity of dwellings, tombs, and temples were excavated from the rock. And Truth speaks out, not from the lips of a lying spirit evoked by the fancy of a sceptical philosopher, but from the face of the live rock, which exhibits the dwellings in the clefts, singularly characteristic of the scene, and declares by the order of architecture, as if still told by every stroke of the chisel, that the citizens of Petra did build after the era of the prophets, while the fragments of ruins, of Grecian and Roman architecture, as well as of more ancient date, which are strewed over the ground, and cover the valley which was the site of the city, and which is surrounded by precipitous hills and excavated rocks, shew that those buildings, whose doom was pronounced before their erection, have, according to the same sure word, been thrown down.

The topographical view of the land of Idumea, taken from d'El Nakb, gives us to see that Edom is most desolate, the desolation of desolations; that the country which was given unto Esau, as the fatness of the earth, and in which many cities were built, has been made bare, and that the lines of confusion and the stones of emptiness have been stretched over it. In the brief explanatory note which accompanies the plate, it is stated that "no map, however well executed, can represent the aspect of a country so well as views taken from an elevated point, and comprehending a great extent. It is from such demi-panoramas alone

that a correct idea can be formed. Such has been the object proposed in drawing these two views." (The other view, of a similar character, represents the southern coast of Edom, on the borders of the Red Sea. The accompanying view has been selected, as comprehending the greatest extent, and shewing the aspect of the country.)

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"The view is taken from d'El Nakb, a precipitous ascent, six miles south of Mount Hor, and consequently of Petra. It comprehends to the left, or the west, Quadi Araba, (or the valley of Araba,) a long and straight plain of sand, which, commencing at the Red Sea, extends to the north, in a direct line, to the Jordan, and was, without doubt, the ancient bed of that river before the volcanic eruption which formed the actual basin of the Dead Sea, and of which the Bible has given so faithful a recital. On the right bank, towards the west, lies the adjoining valley of Ouadi Gebb, through which the Fellahs of Petra repair to Gaza. Towards the east, (on the right of the view,) there is seen, in the middle of a small plain, an insulated rock called El Aase, on which is a tomb of the same form of construction as those of Petra. Farther to the right is a high rock, which forms, as it were, the first rampart in the environs of Petra, elevated in the form of a cone, with a tree on the summit. Following the same direction, we meet with Mount Hor, the highest rock in the country, on the summit of which is seen the Tomb of Aaron, held in great veneration in that region. To the east of that mountain, in a small plain of unequal surface enclosed in the midst of rocks, of which the masses seem to be accumulated and pressed together, is built the city of Petra, the capital of the Nabatheans. The picture is terminated by the grand chain of mountains which separates Arabia Deserta from Arabia Petræa, properly so called.”

One engraving is peculiarly striking, as indirectly exemplifying the unique character of the scenery, by which, at a glance, Petra is identified, and distinguished from any other city that ever existed. The design of the picture is to represent an isolated column. But the back-ground exhibits to view "a part of the valley of Moses" (Ouadi Mousa) with the high rocks in the more distant perspective "pierced