I find since that Dr Wilson states these rocks to be highly saliferous, and says the Arabs scrape them with knives to obtain saltpetre for making their rude gunpowder. He is of opinion that in some geological era the whole place has been formed in a salt-water lake. Few people have had so much leisure for making researches there as he had.
The temperature was high in the valley, because closely confined between lines of hills; notwithstanding that the elevation is supposed to exceed 2000 feet above the Mediterranean. What it may be in a more advanced season than April I cannot tell; but I perceived neither scorpions nor serpents there, (as some represent the place to abound in,) no creeping things worse than earwigs.
When on the march, we learned that the robbery of the night by ’Ali Rasheed’s people, amounted to one camel, one gun, and old Selâmeh’s sandals. Also, that those three men whom we saw on the 2d April at Abu Dahook’s camp were of the same faction, probably also my visitors of the Khazneh yesterday. Selâmeh thought that for a couple of gazis (about three shillings and sixpence) he might succeed in a redemption of his goods. These I gave him, and he trudged back over the hills with one of his people, while we kept on our way. He was to meet us at our night’s station.
The last glance given to Petra showed us the palace of Pharaoh, and the peak of Hor with Aaron’s tomb.
Our way led us over a tolerable plain, made agreeable by the fragrance of the ret’m, as wafted along by the breeze; this plant sometimes almost covering the small branch valleys.
Soon after noon we were in the Wadi Nemela, through which we travelled for nearly two hours,—a scene of broken rocks on each side, and the intermediate space with a profusion of oleander, ret’m and ’arâr, all in flower, some of the latter having trunks of ten feet in circumference.
Thence we issued upon a heath covered with low fragrant herbs; our Arabs singing, and the camels striding on famously, followed by a poor little lamb that we had bought at Petra. This, of course, we did not intend to convey all the way to Jerusalem;
but his presence constantly reminded me of the text, (Isa. xvi. 1,) “Send ye the lamb (to) the ruler of the land from Sela [i.e. Petra] to the wilderness, unto the mount of the daughter of Zion.” This is no longer the time when the king of Moab paid tribute “to the king of Israel, 100,000 lambs and 100,000 rams, with the wool,” (2 Kings iii. 4.)
Soon after two p.m. we were passing over ledges of porphyry mountain-cliffs, dark and gloomy, but enlivened by large yellow salvia in bloom, and plenty of flowers visible in the hollow below; the whole scene most romantic and fantastic in formation. Such huge piles of porphyry I had not seen since those of the coast of Peterhead and Buchan, lashed by the great billows coming from the Baltic Sea. Occasionally we came to standing pools of water, which, lying on this hard kind of stone, could not filter away or be absorbed, as in our Palestine limestone would be the case. From these settlements our water vessels were supplied. Thermometer in shade of a rocky cliff, 75¾° Fahrenheit.
We were soon again upon sandstone cliffs, but wildly broken, and descending into lower ground with its juniper and oleander. Then ascended again, and attained our greatest elevation by half-past three, at least equal to Robinson’s calculation of 1500 feet above the ’Arabah. For two hours more we had to traverse cliffs, gullies, crags, and precipices of red porphyry or green syenite alternately, in enormous masses, split by convulsions of