Till within these few years, these ruins have been to Europeans, as if they did not exist. In 1807, M. Seetzen, travelling under the name of Morse, made an excursion into Arabia Petræa, as far as what he calls the frontiers of Idumea, but he did not approach the ruins of the capital[92]. The first traveller, who gave to modern Europe any knowledge of this city, was Burckhardt. In this journey, made in the summer of 1812, he encountered many dangers and difficulties; not so much from the inaccessible nature of the country, as from the rapacity and prejudices of the Arabs, who conceive that their ruined towns are all filled with hidden treasures; and that European visitors come for the sole purpose of carrying these away. “I see now clearly,” said his guide, “that you are an infidel, who have some particular business among the ruins of the city of our forefathers; but, depend upon it, we shall not suffer you to take out a single para of all the treasures hidden therein; for they are in our territory, and belong to us.” With these difficulties, Burckhardt had little opportunity of doing more than merely ascertaining, that such ruins as those of Petra did actually exist. “I was particularly anxious,” says he, in his journal, under date of August 22, “of visiting Wady Mousa, of the antiquities of which I had heard the country people speak in terms of great admiration; and from thence I had hoped to cross the desert in a straight line to Cairo; but my guide was afraid of the hazards of a journey through the desert. I therefore pretended to have made a vow to slaughter a goat in honour of Haroun (Aaron), whose tomb I knew was situated at the extremity of the valley; and by this stratagem I thought that I should have the means of seeing the valley in my way to the tomb. To this my guide had nothing to oppose; the dread of drawing upon himself, by resistance, the wrath of Haroun, completely silenced him.” Farther on, speaking of the antiquities of Wady Mousa, the same traveller says, “Of these I regret that I am not able to give a very complete account. I well knew the character of the people around me. I was without protection in the midst of a desert, where no traveller had ever before been seen; and a close examination of these works of the infidels, as they are called, would have excited suspicions that I was a magician in search of treasures. I should at least have been detained, and prevented from prosecuting my journey to Egypt, and in all probability should have been stripped of the little money which I possessed, and, what was infinitely more valuable to me, of my journal-book. Future travellers may visit the spot under the protection of an armed force; the inhabitants will become more accustomed to the researches of strangers, and the antiquities of Wady Mousa will then be found to rank amongst the most curious remains of ancient art.”