Travels in Syria and the Holy Land | Page 3

the once populous but now
deserted region, formerly known by the names of Edom, Moab,
Ammon, and the country of the Amorites.
The principal geographical discoveries of our traveller, are the nature of
the country between the Dead Sea and the gulf of Aelana, now
Akaba;-- the extent, conformation, and detailed topography of the
Haouran;--the site of Apameia on the Orontes, one of the most
important cities of Syria under the Macedonian Greeks;--the site of
Petra, which, under the Romans, gave the name of Arabia Petraea to the
surrounding territory;-- and the general structure of the peninsula of
Mount Sinai; together with many new facts in its geography, one of the
most important of which is the extent and form of the AElanitic gulf,
hitherto so imperfectly known as either to be omitted in the maps, or
marked with a bifurcation at the extremity, which is now found not to
exist.
M. Seetzen, in the years 1805 and 1806, had traversed a part of the
Haouran to Mezareib and Draa, had observed the Paneium at the source
of the Jordan at Banias, had visited the ancient sites at Omkeis, Beit-er-
Ras, Abil, Djerash and Amman, and had followed the route afterwards
taken by Burckhardt through Rabbath Moab to Kerek, from whence he
passed round the southern extremity of the Dead Sea to Jerusalem. The
public, however, has never received any more than a very short account
of these journeys, taken from the correspondence of M. Seetzen with M.

de Zach, at Saxe-Gotha.[This correspondence having been
communicated to the Palestine Association, was translated and printed
by that Society in the year 1810, in a quarto of forty-seven pages.] He
was quite unsuccessful in his inquiries for Petra, and having taken the
road which leads to Mount Sinai [p.vi]from Hebron, he had no
suspicion of the existence of the long valley known by the names of El
Ghor, and El Araba.
This prolongation of the valley of the Jordan, which completes a
longitudinal separation of Syria, extending for three hundred miles
from the sources of that river to the eastern branch of the Red Sea, is a
most important feature in the geography of the Holy Land,--indicating
that the Jordan once discharged itself into the Red Sea, and confirming
the truth of that great volcanic convulsion, described in the nineteenth
chapter of Genesis, which interrupted the course of the river, which
converted into a lake the fertile plain occupied by the cities of Adma,
Zeboin, Sodom and Gomorra, and which changed all the valley to the
southward of that district into a sandy desert.
The part of the valley of the Orontes, below Hamah, in which stood the
Greek cities of Larissa and Apameia, has now for the first time been
examined by a scientific traveller, and the large lake together with the
modern name of Famia, which have so long occupied a place in the
maps of Syria, may henceforth be erased.
The country of the Nabataei, of which Petra was the chief town, is well
characterized by Diodorus,[Diod. Sic.l.2,c.48.] as containing some
fruitful spots, but as being for the greater part, desert and waterless.
With equal accuracy, the combined information of Eratosthenes,
[Eratosth. ap. Strab. p.767.] Strabo,[Strabo, p.779.] and Pliny, [Plin.
Hist Nat.l.6,c.28.] describes Petra as falling in a line, drawn from the
head of the Arabian gulf (Suez) to Babylon,--as being at the distance of
three or four days from Jericho, and of four or five from Phoenicon,
which was a place now called Moyeleh, on the Nabataean coast, near
the entrance of the AElanitic gulf,--and as situated in a valley of about
two miles in length surrounded with deserts, inclosed within precipices,
and watered by a river. The latitude of 30 degrees 20 minutes

[p.vii]ascribed by Ptolemy to Petra, agrees moreover very accurately
with that which is the result of the geographical information of
Burckhardt. The vestiges of opulence, and the apparent date of the
architecture at Wady Mousa, are equally conformable with the remains
of the history of Petra, found in Strabo,[P.781.] from whom it appears
that previous to the reign of Augustus, or under the latter Ptolemies, a
very large portion of the commerce of Arabia and India passed through
Petra to the Mediterranean: and that ARMIES of camels were required
to convey the merchandise from Leuce Come, on the Red Sea,[Leuce
Come, on the coast of the Nabataei, was the place from whence AElius
Gallus set out on his unsuccessful expedition into Arabia, (Strabo, ibid.)
Its exact situation is unknown.] through Petra to Rhinocolura, now El
Arish. But among the ancient authorities regarding Petra, none are
more curious than those of Josephus, Eusebius, and Jerom, all persons
well acquainted with these countries, and who agree in proving that the
sepulchre of Aaron in Mount Hor, was near