“For about two miles it lies between high and precipitous ranges of rocks, from five hundred to a thousand feet in height, standing as if torn by some great convulsion, and barely wide enough for two horsemen to pass abreast. At the end was a large open space, with a powerful body of light thrown down upon it, and exhibiting in one full view the facade of a beautiful temple, hewn out of the rock, with rows of Corinthian columns and ornaments, standing out fresh and clear as if but yesterday from the hands of the sculptor. “Though coming directly from the banks of the Nile, where the preservation of the temples excites the admiration and astonishment of every traveller, we were roused and excited by the extraordinary beauty and excellent condition of the great temple at Petra (Wady Mousa). The whole temple, its columns, ornaments, porticoes, and porches, are cut out from and form part of the solid rock; and this rock, at the foot of which the temple stands like a mere print, towers several hundred feet above, its face cut smooth to the very summit, and the top remaining wild and misshapen as Nature made it. “The whole area before the temple is perhaps an acre in extent, enclosed on all sides, except at the narrow entrance, and an opening to the left of the temple, which leads into the area of the city by a pass through perpendicular rocks five or six hundred feet in height. “Ascending several broad steps, we entered under a colonnade of four Corinthian columns, about thirty-five feet high, into a large chamber of some fifty feet square and twenty-five feet high. The outside of the temple is richly ornamented, but the interior is perfectly plain, there being no ornament of any kind upon the walls or ceiling; on each of the three sides is a small chamber; and on the back wall of the innermost chamber I saw the names of Messrs. Leigh, Banks, Irby, and Mangles, the four English travellers who with so much difficulty had effected their entrance to the city; of Messieurs Laborde and Linant, and several others. “Leaving the temple and the open area on which it fronts, and following the stream, we entered another defile much broader than the first, on each side of which were ranges of tombs, with sculptured doors and columns; and on the left, in the bosom of the mountain, hewn out of the solid rock, is a large theatre, circular in form, the pillars in front fallen, and containing thirty-three rows of seats, capable of containing more than three thousand persons. Above the corridor was a range of doors opening to chambers in the rocks, the seats of the princes and wealthiest inhabitants of Wady Mousa (Petra), and not unlike a row of private boxes in a modern theatre. The whole theatre is at this day in such a state of preservation that if the tenants of the tombs around could once more rise into life, they might take their old places on its seats and listen to the declamation of their favourite player.