It was a warm, misty morning, and in the absence of my companion I found considerable amusement in the screams of multitudes of wild birds, high aloft "among the holes of the rocks, and the tops of the rugged rocks,"--probably all of them birds of prey,--which echoed and reverberated with sounds closely resembling the laughter and shouts of children in their vociferous games. On their return, the Fellahheen were rapacious in demands for remuneration of their services, but were at length contented. This was the signal for the others to take their advantage. They wanted toll to be paid for crossing part of the desert on which they thought the Jehaleen had no right or precedent for bringing strangers. So, on our preparing to leave the ground, they rushed up the bank, secured commanding points for their guns, and thus exacted their fee. The screams and hubbub were at length terminated by some small backsheesh, (to our surprise, how little was required,) and we all marched away in a northern direction, the opposite to that of our arrival. This gave us an opportunity of passing again in front of the principal edifices, if they may be so denominated, including what I had not before seen, the sepulchre with the Latin inscription in large letters, QVINTVS. PRAETEXTVS. FLORENTINVS. It is to be noticed that Petra itself is called by the Arabs, Wadi Pharaon, {316} not Wadi Moosa. The two valleys are adjoining, but in the latter there are no antiquities or wonders. At a distance, however, the journey to Petra is usually called a journey to Wadi Moosa, because the Fellahheen of the region about there, and to whom toll is paid, are cultivators of the Wadi Moosa. Before leaving the place, it may be observed that the neighbourhood must have been kept in a high state of cultivation during the Roman empire for the maintenance of so numerous and luxurious a population of the city, instead of the absence of necessaries of civilised life that we now see there; and that good state of things must have continued in later Christian periods, when the district formed "the third Palestine," and deputed bishops to the synods of Jerusalem and elsewhere. With respect to the colouring of the hills and rocks, it is truly surprising to behold such huge masses of deep red colour, variegated with wavy lines of violet and purple and blue, especially in the direction towards Mount Hor. We did not, however, remark so much of yellow and orange as Laborde or Irby and Mangles describe. I find since that Dr Wilson states these rocks to be highly saliferous, and says the Arabs scrape them with knives to obtain saltpetre for making their rude gunpowder. He is of opinion that in some geological era the whole place has been formed in a salt-water lake. Few people have had so much leisure for making researches there as he had.