entering which we changed our guides and camels.

We crossed the great Derb-el-Haj, or Pilgrim's Road, that leads from Cairo to Mecca, and which is bleached with the bones of men and camels, and marched in as direct a line as possible to the land of Esau, the mountains of Seir, among which the city of Petra, the city of the rock, is excavated.

My adventures there, however, and my reflections thereupon, I must reserve for another letter. Another fit of inspiration came upon me, and caused me to cogitate deeply on the name of Peter-suggested by Petra. I should not wonder if I give you a treatise on Peter. Depend upon it Peter is a wonderful name, but I am quite sure that no one as yet has made so much as can be made of it. But without your valuable instructions, which now seem to me more precious than ever, it never would have occurred to me to treat it as I have done.

Remember me kindly to Aunt Rachel and Eva, and don't forget Betty.-Yours truly, EDWARD.

"What a pity that I don't know him, or he might have remembered me too!" said Minerva.

tion, with small dykes of red granite and porphyry here and there. This fact is of importance, for we are now travelling over the highway of civilisation. We have left the primitive granite of Sinai, but we are still on the Rock of Arabia Petræa, the basis of Christian civilisation, where the Asian mystery begins to develop itself.

Markland and I kept much together in travelling through the ruins of this place, and I preferred his society to that of any of my other companions; for, though he was a bit of an infidel, he was entirely free from prejudice, and at times exceedingly pleasant and open to conviction. Bingham had preconceived ideas of a sectarian character, and he could never converse for five minutes without emitting a sigh or a groan about the heathenism of the land, as if Providence did not know it and will it to be. Besides he was a sort of guardian to Ringford and Walworth, who travelled along with him. Campbell was particularly curious in entomology and botany, which I cared little about.

Imagine an immense hole, about a mile and a half in width, in the midst of a huge mis-shapen rock, a little river running through the enclosure, and the rocks all round cut into the shapes of houses and temples, and here and there on the plain below, if plain it can be called, the ruin of some temple, theatre, or mansion, or bridge over the river, and you have an idea of the ruins of Petra. But I dare say you know all about it already.

Amid these ruins, Markland and I walked and talked of their destiny.

"Ah!" said Markland, "this is the capital of Esau, Jacob's brother. Poor Esau! Jacob cheated him out of

representative capacities. Well, here he is-here is his capital, the sister of Jerusalem. A wild place!”

"He was a wild man; he was a hairy man, and therefore he got Mount Hairy, that is Mount Seir, for a possession."

"What! does Seir mean hairy ?” said Markland.

"It does," said I, "or wild."

"How droll!" said he; "why the wild, hairy man got the wild, hairy mountain for a possession-ha, ha! and what did the smooth man get?”

"He got the land of Canaan, which means commerce, which requires smoothness of character, and leads to social intercourse and unity at last."

"Oh, I see," said Markland, "how droll! Jacob had the merchant's nature in him from the first. How he came over Esau and diddled him, didn't he?—-just as a modern Jew would do it still. However, commerce is a better principle than war, I allow, though it requires great integrity and refinement of character to make it what it should be. Still it is the parent of peaceful civilisation. It is right, Stuart; Jacob I love; and many worse men in modern times are even almost worshipped. There is Coleridge, for instance, next thing to a rogue in some aspects of his character—and no man is a rogue in all— yet because he was a man of sublime talent all his sins are forgiven. Let us be equally indulgent with Jacob; he was commerce in its infancy. Well, what becomes of this Petra, you that study prophecy? for my part, I don't know anything about it—it used to be all Greek to me."

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Why, the most magnificent curse in Scripture is pronounced upon it.”