nd,
separately, two large eagles, to which our attention had been drawn by
their shadows moving on the ground before us; then, on looking upwards,
the royal birds were seen sailing along, silently and slowly, against the
blue vault of ether.

This had been the hottest day of our whole journey; and the atmosphere
became thick as the evening stole over the hills.

_April_ 6_th_.--Sunrise, Fahrenheit 77 degrees. In the morning we
advanced upwards towards Aaron's tomb. Walking in front of the luggage,
we met the clergyman of whom we had heard the day before. He had been
allowed to leave Petra on suffering the people to take money out of his
pockets,--reserving to himself the intention of complaining against them
officially to the consul in Jerusalem.

He had been to the summit of Hor, and pronounced the view from it to be
more grand and striking than that from Sinai. On bidding him farewell,
we took Selameh and one kawwas, for clambering on our hands and knees to
the summit, leaving the luggage to proceed and wait for us farther on;
but had to rest occasionally in the shade of large trees of 'Arar, which
Robinson considered to be the true juniper, and not the ret'm. The
latter (the _rothem_ of the Hebrew Bible, under which the Prophet Elijah
reposed) was very abundant, and covered with white blossom, shedding the
richest perfume. Is it possible that all this fragrance, and the
warbling of the birds, is but "wasted in the desert air?"

The mountain is all of dark-red colour; and the higher we ascended, the
more difficult we found the progress to be. At length all farther
advance seemed impossible, till, on looking round, we observed an
excavation for a well, with masonry around it; and beyond this were steps
cut into the rock, which rock was sloped at an angle of between fifty and
sixty degrees. This encouraged us to persevere.

Still higher, I picked up some tesserae of mosaic, and morsels of marble
and alabaster,--a piece of the latter now lies on the table before me.

At length we attained the highest peak, where there was scarcely more
space than sufficient to contain the small weli-building, which was at
the time untenanted, though we had expected to find a Moslem devotee in
permanent residence there.

[Picture: Small weli-building]

I utterly despair of being able to describe the prospect around us; and
can only say that extensive mountain-peaks lay in lines below, and might
be co