Travels in Syria and the Holy Land | Page 3

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 Petra.[Euseb. et Hieron. Onomast. in Greek text]. Joseph. Ant. Jud.l.4.c.4.] For hence, it seems evident, that the present object of Musulman devotion, under the name of the tomb of Haroun, stands upon the same