. Palestine and its transformation . ch has carved a valleywith great rapidity on account of the uplift ofthe plateau. It is hard to realize how greatly Petra haschanged. To-day its ruins lie in a desolate valleywhose only inhabitants are Beduin who camp withtheir sheep among the fallen temples for a fewweeks each year. At the time of our visit in April,in spite of the rains of the last three days, watercould be obtained only by going half a mile ormore either above or below the ruins. Even thesmall village of Elchi, higher up the valley, wassuffering for lack of water to irrigate part of thef
. Palestine and its transformation . ch has carved a valleywith great rapidity on account of the uplift ofthe plateau. It is hard to realize how greatly Petra haschanged. To-day its ruins lie in a desolate valleywhose only inhabitants are Beduin who camp withtheir sheep among the fallen temples for a fewweeks each year. At the time of our visit in April,in spite of the rains of the last three days, watercould be obtained only by going half a mile ormore either above or below the ruins. Even thesmall village of Elchi, higher up the valley, wassuffering for lack of water to irrigate part of thefields upon which the villagers depend for in the past there was water enough not onlyfor Elchi and its dry fields, and for other fields ororchards whose walls appear on every side of Petra,but for the city itself, which must have had atleast twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants, andpossibly more. It is almost past believing thatsuch a city could exist in so dry a situation. Theinhabitants were not poor like those of modern. BEYOND THE DEAD SEA 223 Kerak and Elchi. They were among the reallyopulent people of their day. Nor were they crudeand uncivilized. Their city was filled with thefinest products of the artists of the time. As one wanders among the ruins and looks atthe theatre of red sandstone, the columns of ruinedtemples, and the hundreds of tombs, some of whichhave grand fagades like temples fifty and sixtyfeet high, the wonder of Petra grows. Not beautyof architecture or delicacy of design appeals to onehere, as in the Taj Mahal or other famous edifices;not simple grandeur as in the Pyramids and theSphinx; not pure beauty of scenery as in the Alps:in any single respect other places go far ahead ofPetra, and even in its own special type of wilddesert scenery southern Utah much excels it. Noplace, however, affords a more striking combina-tion of architectural skill, vastness of design, andgrandeur of scenery, and with it all full measureof the fascinating element
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