Mr. Stephens’ former book, “Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia Petrea, and Palestine,” was everywhere well received, and gained him high reputation—reputation not altogether well deserved. No one can deny his personal merits as a traveller, his enthusiasm, boldness, acuteness, courage in danger, and perseverance under difficulty. His manner of narration is also exceedingly pleasing; frank, unembarrassed and direct, without pretension or attempt at effect. But neither were his reflections characterised by profundity, nor had he that degree of education which would have enabled him to travel, with benefit to himself or to others, through regions involving so much of historical importance as Egypt, and especially as Arabia Petrea. Through a deficiency of previous information in regard to the moot points of this classical ground, he suffered many things to pass unexamined, whose examination would have thrown light upon history, and lustre upon his own name. Our remarks here apply more particularly to the southern regions of Arabia. In regard to Arabia Petrea, he committed some errors of magnitude. Before entering upon his travels, he had been much interested in Keith’s book upon the literal fulfilment of the Biblical Prophecies. In this work the predictions of Isaiah, respecting the ancient Idumea, are especially insisted upon, and the sentence, “_None shall pass through thee forever and ever_,” quoted as a remarkable instance of literal fulfilment. Dr. Keith states roundly that all attempts at passing through Idumea have actually failed, and expresses his belief that such will always be the case. Mr. Stephens resolved to test this point, and congratulates himself and his readers upon the success of his attempt at traversing the disputed region from one end to the other. The truth is, however, that Arabia Petrea, through which he unquestionably did pass, _is not at all the Idumea alluded to in the prophecies_, this latter lying much farther to the eastward. The traveller had contented himself with the usual understanding upon this subject. In the matter of the prophecy, both he and Dr. Keith might have spared themselves much trouble by an examination of the Biblical text in the original, before founding a question upon it. In an article on this head, which appeared in the New York Review, we pointed out an obvious mistranslation in the Hebrew words of the prediction—a mistranslation which proves Mr. Stephens to have thrown away his courage and labor. The passage in Isaiah 34, 10, which is rendered in our bibles by the sentence, “And none shall pass through thee forever and ever,” runs in the original Hebrew thus— _Lenetsach metsachim ein over bah._