The Jordan valley and Petra . select, I could not numberin one view more than fifty and generally , like so many other travellers, Stanley campedsomewhere south of Petra, entered in the forenoon,passed through the amphitheatre, and out again thesame day. But even in that case he must havepassed the eastern wall, where for a thousand feetor more the face of the cliff to a height of threehundred feet was once completely honeycombedwith these tombs. Exposed to the storms from thesouth and west, the decay has been very great, buteven now it contains a marvellous amount of exca-vation (see
The Jordan valley and Petra . select, I could not numberin one view more than fifty and generally , like so many other travellers, Stanley campedsomewhere south of Petra, entered in the forenoon,passed through the amphitheatre, and out again thesame day. But even in that case he must havepassed the eastern wall, where for a thousand feetor more the face of the cliff to a height of threehundred feet was once completely honeycombedwith these tombs. Exposed to the storms from thesouth and west, the decay has been very great, buteven now it contains a marvellous amount of exca-vation (see p. 123 Temple in east wall). And theview at the end of the Sik and of tombs near theinner entrance (p. 115) will show clearly that DeanStanley was napping when he wrote that to this the fact that a camera at most takes inan angle of thirty to sixty degrees and we see thatan observer at any of the three points mentionedabove could count hundreds of excavations. Fur-thermore, a glance at Labordes plan and the red. Petra 139 dotting in the various fissures and ravines will recallthe fact already referred to, that these ramificationsare almost numberless, and that here abound exca-vations interminable. These excavations are notalways caves, but roads and stairways, platforms,tombs, dwellings, and temples, many of which nomodern traveller has yet seen, and which no man hasever counted. Thousands are now inaccessible,because the approaches have been weathered orwashed away. Thousands more are filled or coveredwith debris. After five days inside the city—and thefollowing pages will show how much climbing wedid—we are prepared to say that a man might spenda month in attempting, and then fail, to visit andexamine all the rock-cuttings in the valley. Theirnumber and extent can no more be determined bya glance from the floor of the valley, than thestreets and houses of a great city can be enumer-ated by one taking a hasty view from the publicsquare. And here we may give
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