In the center of the city, surrounded on all sides by temples and palaces and tombs, is a great amphitheater, cut out of the base of the same mountain that leads to the great high place of sacrifice. Tiers and tiers of seats face the mountain avenues of tombs. The diameter of the stage is 120 feet, and the theater is the one symbol of life and mirth in all this mysterious deserted city. The laughter and cheers of thousands once rang here across this hollow cemetery of ancient hopes and ambitions. Here thousands of years ago the Irvings and Carusos of that bygone age performed and received the plaudits of their admiring thousands. Where now are all the gay throngs who occupied these tiers on feast-days and watched the games? The lizards are crawling over the exquisitely colored seats to-night, and the only sounds that have been heard in the theater for centuries have been the desolate howls of jackals. Little did the ancient Edomites or Nabatæans imagine that a people called Americans from an unknown continent would one day wander among the ruins of their proud city.
It seems no work of man’s creative hand
By labour wrought as wavering fancy planned;
But from the rock as if by magic grown;
Eternal, silent, beautiful, alone.
All rosy-red, as if the blush of dawn
That first beheld it were not yet withdrawn.
The hues of youth upon a brow of woe
Which man deemed old two thousand years ago.
Match me such marvel, save in Oriental clime;