Travels in Syria and the Holy Land | Page 5

on
the fifth to Gaza. It will be seen by the map that these positions, as now
settled, furnished exactly five convenient marches, the two longest
being naturally through the desert of total privation, which lies between
El Arish and Katieh. As the modern route, instead of following the sea
shore, passes to the southward of the lagoon, the site of Ostracine has
not yet been explored.
[p.viii]It would seem, from the evidence regarding Petra which may be
collected in ancient history, that neither in the ages prior to the
[p.ix]commercial opulence of the Nabataei, nor after they were
deprived of it, was Wady Mousa the position of their principal town.
When the Macedonian Greeks first became acquainted with this part of
Syria by means of the expedition which Antigonus sent against the
Nabataei, under the command of his son Demetrius, we are informed
by Diodorus that these Arabs placed their old men, women, and
children upon a certain rock [Greek text], steep, unfortified by walls,
admitting only of one access to the summit, and situated 300 stades
beyond the lake Asphaltitis. [Diod. Sic. l.19.c.95, 98.] As this interval
agrees with that of Kerek from the southern extremity of the Dead Sea,
and is not above half the distance of Wady Mousa from the same point;
and as the other parts of the description are well adapted to Kerek,
while they are inapplicable to Wady Mousa, we can hardly doubt that
Kerek was at that time the fortress of the Nabataei; and that during the
first ages of the intercourse of that people with the Greeks, it was
known to the latter by the name Petra, so often applied by them to

barbarian hill-posts.
When the effects of commerce required a situation better suited than
Kerek to the collected population and increased opulence of the
Nabataei, the appellation of Petra was transferred to the new city at
Wady Mousa, which place had before been known to the [p.x]Greeks
by the name of Arce [Greek text], a corruption perhaps of the Hebrew
Rekem.[Joseph. Antiq. Jud. l.4,c.4.] To Wady Mousa, although of a
very different aspect from Kerek, the name Petra was equally well
adapted; and Kerek then became distinguished among the Greeks by its
indigenous name, in the Greek form of Charax, to which the Romans
added that of Omanorum, or Kerek of Ammon,[Plin. Hist. Nat. l.6,c.28.]
to distinguish it from another Kerek, now called Kerek el Shobak. The
former Kerek was afterwards restored by the Christians to the Jewish
division of Moab, to which, being south of the river Arnon, it strictly
belonged, and it was then called in Greek Charagmoba, under which
name we find it mentioned as one of the cities and episcopal dioceses
of the third Palestine.[Hierocl. Synecd. Notit. Episc. Graec.]
When the stream of commerce which had enriched the Nabataei had
partly reverted to its old Egyptian channel, and had partly taken the
new course, which created a Palmyra in the midst of a country still
more destitute of the commonest gifts of nature, then Arabia Petraea,[A
comparison of the architecture at Wady Mousa, and at Tedmour,
strengthens the opinion, that Palmyra flourished at a period later than
Petra.] Wady Mousa was gradually depopulated. Its river, however, and
the intricate recesses of its rocky valleys, still attract and give security
to a tribe of Arabs; but the place being defensible only by considerable
numbers, and being situated in a less fertile country than Kerek, was
less adapted to be the chief town of the Nabataei, when they had
returned to their natural state of divided wanderers or small agricultural
communities. The Greek bishopricks of the third Palestine were
obliterated by the Musulman conquest, with the sole exception of the
metropolitan Petra, whose titular bishop still resides at Jerusalem, and
occasionally visits Kerek, as being the only place in his province which
contains [p.xi]a Christian community. Hence Kerek has been
considered the see of the bishoprick of Petra, and hence has arisen the

erroneous opinion often adopted by travellers from the Christians of
Jerusalem, that Kerek is the site of the ancient capital of Arabia
Petraea.
The Haouran being only once mentioned in the Sacred Writings,
[Ezekiel. c. xlvii v. 16. ] was probably of inconsiderable extent under
the Jews, but enlarged its boundaries under the Greeks and Romans, by
whom it was called Auranitis. It has been still farther increased since
that time, and now includes not only Auranitis, but Ituraea also, or Ittur,
of which Djedour is perhaps a corruption; together with the greater part
of Basan, or Batanaea, and Trachonitis. Burckhardt seems not to have
been aware of the important comment upon Trachonitis afforded by his
description of the singular rocky wilderness of the Ledja, and by the
inscriptions which he copied at Missema, in that