Near Saida I have been shown sepulchres that were entered by steps and passages, and coated with very hard stucco, on which were pictures in fresco of festoons of olive and vine leaves alternated, these leaves being diversified sometimes with tints of autumnal brown, also trees of palm or olive, with birds upon their branches; the birds being all of one kind, with long tails, and coloured bright yellow and red, with brown backs. Inasmuch as these portray living creatures they must be
ascribed to some classical, i.e., ante-Islamitic epoch. The designing and colouring of them are excellent, and the work remains in good preservation; they are most likely of Roman art, for their style much resembles the wall pictures of Pompeii.
I have met with no mention of these decorated sepulchres, but in Ritter’s quotation from Mariti, (Saida’s Umgebungen in vol. iv. I, page 410,) and that only lately.
The sepulchre which I entered consisted of one principal chamber, at each side of which were three smaller recesses, besides two such opposite the entrance. These latter have others proceeding further within them. There are no low shelves as in the Judæan sepulchres, but the dead were laid in shallow trenches sunk in the rocky floor. The stucco has only been employed to the right and left of the principal chamber.
I pass over, as not belonging to this subject, the more recent discovery by others near the town in 1855 of the two sarcophagi, one of them bearing a Phœnician inscription.
XI. JERUSALEM TO PETRA, AND RETURN BY THE DEAD SEA.
During the last twenty years there have been many English and other visitors to Petra; but they have usually taken it in the way from Egypt towards Jerusalem, which is probably convenient with respect to the season of the year, inasmuch as they thereby get a warm winter before the “sights” of Jerusalem (as some irreverently speak) begin. It would not be so well to take Egypt after Easter.
But, on hearing that several travellers had been unable to reach Petra even after ’Akabah, on account of hostilities arising between the Alaween and the Tiyâhah Arabs, or on account of the exorbitant demands of money made by the former of these, I thought the time had arrived for me to show the practicability of getting at the wonders of Petra from Jerusalem, under escort of the Jehâleen Arabs near Hebron.
I went accordingly, and treated with the Fellahheen of Wadi Moosa in the place itself; and numerous travellers have since availed themselves of this