town of the Syrian pashalik and the territory of the Howeytat Arabs, who occupy the Djebel Shera (Mount Sheir or Seir) south of Kerek to the Akaba el Masri or Egyptian Akaba (Aila), and represent the ancient Midianites.

The natural boundaries of this territory are strongly marked. An elevated plain, according to Burckhardt, extends eastward of the rocky range now known under the names of the Djebel Haouran, Djebel Heish, Djebel Belka, and Djebel Shera, beginning near Damascus on the north, and terminating by a deep rocky descent into the flinty desert of Nedjed, called the Akaba Esshami or Syrian Akaba. It is this upper plain, together with the mountains by which it is bordered, to which, Burckhardt thinks, the name of Arabia Petræa was applied. The limits of Syria and Arabia have ever been, however, involved in uncertainty; and border territories, alternately belonging to different kingdoms, are always liable to be described or included under different appellations. Damascus itself was at one time in possession of Aretas, king of Arabia, and the ally of Antipater; and this appears to have been the case when St. Paul was at Damascus. Bostra and Petra, the two chief cities of the divisions north and south of the Wady Zerka, (the modern limit of the pashalik of Damascus, where the country called the Belka begins,) must have flourished contemporaneously, although Petra appears to have longest retained the honours of a capital. It was a place of great strength in Roman times, and is stated to have resisted the forces of both Pompey and Trajan. The position of this emporium, as well as its strength, enabled its citizens to remain peaceable spectators of the continual wars by which Syria was disturbed; and it must still have been a place of importance in the time of the Greek emperors, if the true Petra then enjoyed the honours of a metropolitan see, as the capital of what was called the Third Palestine. M. Laborde supposes its ruin to have been chiefly occasioned by the diversion of the caravan trade to the Palmyra route, and to that of Berenice and Cous on the western shore of the Red Sea.

It must greatly have declined towards the seventh century, for the Arabian authors scarcely mention it among the conquests which were made by the first disciple of Islamism. The discoveries of the Portuguese were a fresh blow to the little trade which it then retained: its inhabitants next abandoned it; and after that, the grand caravan from Mecca, once a year, alone served to revive in those vast solitudes the remembrance of that early activity, the parent of a commerce which had so long supplied two quarters of the globe.' p. 299.

One of the most remarkable excavations at Petra, Captain Mangles tells us, has evidently been used as a Christian church. Yet, by the transfer of the name of Petra, with its metropolitan honours, to Kerek, (supposed to be the Charar of Pliny,) its

very existence had been blotted out from geography. The date of its final desertion, it seems impossible to ascertain. Its archives have perished. Its wealth and luxury have bequeathed nothing to the treasury of knowledge, but perished in the using, leaving no other memorial than the fantastic and tenantless sepulchres carved in the living rock. If Petra produced its great or good men, they have found no chronicler. Judging from the style of these monuments, we should infer that they were executed chiefly during the Macedonian and Roman periods; and it seems not unlikely, that the excavated tombs of Cyrene, the Catacombs at Alexandria, and the cryptæ of Jerusalem, belong to nearly the same era in the history of commerce and of art.

On leaving Petra, to return by a new route to Akaba, M. Laborde proceeded down the rapid declivity of Wady Sabra, where, at less than an hour's distance from Wady Moosa, the remains of an ancient theatre arrested his attention; and on further investigation, other vestiges of a small town, or suburb, were observed.

Several temples, a wall of inclosure, a bridge, the fortification on the summit of the mountain, might, perhaps, have led a stranger to believe that the town had been one of some consideration, if the details of each of these buildings had not denoted its mediocrity. As an example of its inferiority in this respect, I need only mention that we observed several columns of stone covered with a coating of plaster and lime, on which we found remains of the deep red colour with which they had been painted to imitate inlaid work *. One of the ruins of this ancient town, which may be said, however, to be of a higher order, and to display a greater degree of skill in its arrangement, is the theatre, or as I have called it, the Naumachia. It was not without surprise that we discovered in Arabia Petræa, in the midst of the desert, à naumachia for naval games. The inhabitants, annoyed every year by the torrents in the rainy season, which ravaged their plantations, bethought themselves of erecting barriers against them to restrain their violence. Considerable traces of these works may still be seen extending across the valley. Observing that a part of the waters discharged themselves through an adjoining ravine, they took advantage of it in order to prevent them from passing away. The same efforts of labour, the same contempt for difficulties, which we had remarked in the valley of Petra, were here conspicuous. A reservoir was hollowed out from the rock, and benches were left in relief, cut with great regularity. I sometimes thought that the the

* The excavated tombs of Cyrene have been originally adorned with painting in body colour. We ascertained very clearly,' says Mr. Beechy, that the different members of the architecture have also, in many instances, been coloured; and these examples may be adduced in further confirmation of what has been inferred from the recent discoveries at Athens, that the Greeks, like the Egyptians, were in the habit of painting their buildings.' M. Laborde's example of inferiority,' so far from being decisive, proves nothing.

atre might have been intended for two kinds of exhibitions. The overflow of the reservoir was conducted by a pipe into the arena of the theatre, which was hewn perpendicularly to a depth of eight feet. Being coated with mastic, which is still well preserved, it could contain the water for the naval games; a singular entertainment in the midst of the general aridity of the desert. The quantity of water thus collected was doubtless insufficient to resist for any length of time the heat of the sun, and the reservoir was too small to resist the entire evaporation of its contents. Thus, the scene in front might probably have served to contain the waters during one part of the year, and may have been used, during the other, as an arena for actors. The small dimensions of this enclosure, the narrowness of the space within which the boats could have have manœuvred, induced me to doubt for an instant the possibility of such games having taken place here, and to look upon the reservoir as an ingenious means for cooling the theatre during the heat of the sun, so oppressive in this climate. But other peculiarities determined me to return to my first opinion.' pp. 195-7.

Some of our Author's readers will probably still retain a portion of scepticism upon this point. In prosecuting his return route to Akaba, M. Laborde, instead of descending into the Wady Araba, followed a track leading over the ridges of the mountains which form its eastern boundary, and which still exhibits very distinct traces of an ancient road leading from Petra to Akaba. The ruins of villages, forts, and cisterns, confirmed him in the opinion that this was the ancient line of commercial intercourse. On the western side, the declivities sink rapidly, and are broken by deep and rough ravines opening into the El Araba. On the eastern side, the mountains spread into plains of nearly the same elevation as their summits. An aqueduct, extending upwards of three leagues, conveys the water of the wells of Gana and Guman to the town of Ameimé;-which he describes as, in fact, a city of cisterns."

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Every house appears to have had one of its own; and besides these, there were public reservoirs for watering animals. One could hardly conceive, without having seen it, but especially without having felt the necessity of the thing from the general appearance of the country, the great care bestowed on the arrangements of this town, with a view to the principal purpose for which it was intended to provide, and the ingenuity with which the waters of the aqueduct, during summer, and those of the neighbouring ravines, during the rainy season, were conveyed to their destination. At the present day, as every thing is in a state of ruin, the traveller feels still more forcibly, from the absence of the element of which he stands so much in need, the great skill and perseverance of the people who established this halting-place.'

M. Laborde subsequently descended into the valley of Jetoum, and noticed several remains of fortified buildings which defended the pass; and in one place, a large wall, which he sup

poses to have been that of Hadeid, already referred to, leaves only a narrow passage. From Akaba, our Traveller pursued his route, by Wady Saffran to the convent of Mount Sinai; but this part of his route presents nothing very novel or interesting; and we shall here take leave, therefore, of a volume which, though somewhat deficient in the qualities of compression and precision, is replete with picturesque and historical interest, and sheds some valuable light upon an obscure portion of Biblical topography.

Art. II. Lectures on the chief Points in Controversy between Protestants and Roman Catholics. By the Rev. John Young, M.A., of Albion Chapel, Moorfields. 8vo., pp. viii. 420. London, 1836.

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WHERE people are Catholics only in form, as in France and parts of Germany; where they derive great gains 'from Protestants, as in Italy; where there are few Protestants, as in Spain and Portugal; or few Catholics, as in England and Scotland; the spirit of the Roman Catholic religion remains quiescent. But give it the power, and let it either hope to gain, or fear to lose the ascendancy, and it has never yet failed to exhibit itself in its genuine colours. It was never more intolerant than it is in Ireland at the present moment.'

We have transcribed this very remarkable passage from an article on the state of Ireland in the Quarterly Review for April last, (No. cxi. p. 267,) because it shews too plainly to be mistaken, that Church of England Protestants, or that large and influential party who arrogate to themselves the character of Church of England men par excellence, have only a territorial quarrel with the Roman Catholic religion, being well content that it should remain undisturbed within certain geographical limits. In France and Germany, Italy, Spain, and Portugal, England and Scotland, Popery is harmless, quiescent, tolerant, and, as it would seem, for opposite reasons; either because it has the undisputed ascendancy, or because it has no ascendancy at all. So that it comes to this; that the only part of Christendom in which Popery is not quiescent, is, where it is politically depressed, where its votaries are some millions of half-starved paupers; that the only country where it acts out its intolerant character, is, where the government, the political ascendancy, the territorial wealth, the church revenues, are all on the side of Protestantism. This is marvellous indeed. Ireland is the only country in Europe in which Popery, though politically powerless, is to be dreaded for its intolerance; and this because it is not dominant--because it is not the religion of the State, as in Germany and Italy, but the religion of the people. Who does

not see that, according to the shewing of this Quarterly Reviewer, the establishment of the Protestant Church in Ireland is the exciting cause of the intolerance of Irish Popery?

That this is pretty near the truth, we sincerely believe; but we differ in toto from the Reviewer as to both his facts and his conclusions. For a display of the true spirit of the Roman Catholic religion, in all its genuine colours, we should look to those countries in which it enjoys, as in Austria, Italy, and Spain, the political supremacy. We have yet to learn that Intolerance was ever disarmed by the enjoyment of power. We have heard of a church, whose prelates could contend for the liberty of pro"phesying' during her temporary depression, but which, on recovering the political ascendancy, immediately set herself to crush that liberty, and to bind and manacle the ministers of Christ. That Popery is essentially and unchangeably intolerant upon principle,—intolerant of the claims of other churches,-intolerant in its judgement of all persons without the Romish pale, -and intolerant in its pretensions to absolute submission on pain of both civil and spiritual penalties, we need not the testimony of Father Dens to inform us. But the penal laws of Irelandwhich rival in atrocity those of any Romish code were not the work of Papists, nor were they directed against Protestants. And, not to cite other examples from history,-not to refer to the Protestant Inquisition of the Star Chamber,-this fact is sufficiently evident to all who can read the lessons of the past, that it is not religions, but establishments, which persecute.

Had we no other knowledge or experience of the character and tendencies of the Romish faith, than the state and history of Ireland furnish, Popery might be, for any thing which could be proved to the contrary by its operation there, a very tolerant, peaceable, and politically harmless creed. The cruel injustice and oppression with which the Irish people have been treated by their rulers and their landlords; their squalid poverty, the prevailing popular ignorance, unchecked by any attempt to introduce, till very lately, a scheme of national education,-the exasperating effects of the tithe system, and the narrow and exclusive policy adopted towards the bulk of the Irish nation-would sufficiently explain all that is to be lamented and deprecated in the present state of Ireland, without taking its religion into consideration at all. We do not mean to say, that the mongrel superstition of the Irish vulgar has not exerted a demoralizing and a disturbing influence, in combination with other elements of social disorganization. But we do say, that it is impossible to judge fairly of the spirit of any creed or religion under such circumstances;-that Popery cannot be tested by its supposed effects in Ireland, those effects being identified with political causes which reflect no honour upon Protestantism. Nor can we feel assured, that six millions