Early visitors to Petra
Léon de Laborde and
Louis Linant de Bellefonds
in 1828

The Mecca caravan setting out from Aqaba

The story of the "discovery" of Petra in 1812 by  Johann Burckhardt* is recounted in most of the guide books to Jordan. Although his official report on it was not published in London until 1822, after his death, the news quickly circulated  in informed circles. This "mysterious" site and his identification of it with the ancient Petra aroused a great deal of interest among antiquarians and before long other adventurous travellers began to seek it out. The ones we know of are the party led by William John Bankes, which included the two British naval officers C.L. Irby and J. Mangles (who published their story in 1823) and Thomas Legh, in 1818 and a visit by Strangways and Anson in 1826 which was cut short by the hostility of the local people - as was the visit of Bankes and Legh.

(* It is not generally realised that Burckhardt also discovered the temple at Abu Simbel in 1813 - what a   record !)

The next visit by Europeans was by two exceptional young men who met in Cairo in 1828.

Léon de Laborde

Léon de Laborde was born on 13.6.1807 into a family traditionally devoted to politics and to public service. His grandfather, Jean Joseph de Laborde was a Privy Councillor and banker to Louis XV and had the dubious distinction of being guillotined in 1794. His death does not seem to have affected his family's fortunes : Alexandre de Laborde, his son and Leon's father, was also a Privy Councillor and deputy for the Seine and Oise district. He was deeply interested in art and history, and when, because of his "liberal views", he lost his seat in 1824 he took advantage of this to make an extended trip to the Middle East and took Léon with him.

Two views from Laborde's travels in Asia Minor and Palmyra

Starting in Italy, they proceeded to Smyrna, avoiding Greece where the war for independence was raging, and from Smyrna to Constantinople where they obtained the necessary papers to continue. Laborde describes their trip : an official government representative preceded the large litter in which Laborde senior reclined; then came our Laborde and some friends travelling with them, the dragomen (one Turkish, the other Arab), eight servants on horseback and five Arabs on foot with the necessary pack mules for provisions and for carrying the litter. No doubt this was augmented by local guides employed for short periods and by the number of "hangers on" that such an expedition inevitably picks up along the way. Laborde describes it as an impressive assembly, "inspiring respect rather than curiosity". He also mentions that it was very very expensive and attracted a number of people hoping to make money out of them! 

They made their way across Asia Minor, to Damascus, Palmyra and Baalbek passing by Bosra and Jerash to Jerusalem. They had intended to visit Petra, but "circumstances prevented" them and they eventually arrived in Cairo. There his father decided to return to France, but Léon chose to remain in Cairo and try again to reach Petra. It was in Cairo that he met Linant de Bellefonds with whom he immediately struck up a friendship.

Linant de Bellefonds

Louis Linant de Bellefonds was an even more remarkable character than Léon de Laborde (although the latter's subsequent career was also brilliant - see the notes on the two men at the bottom of the page). He was born on the 23.11.1799, entered the French Navy and came to Egypt as a midshipman in 1818. He seems to have found his "soul country" there, and resigned his commission to stay in Egypt. I have found an cryptic reference to this being for "political reasons" - presumably Linant and his family were Bonaparte supporters?  Employed at first by various travellers to organise their expeditions in the desert, for the next ten years he journeyed between the Delta and the Cataracts, and visited both Siwa and Sinai. He was sponsored by the Compagnie Péninsulaire et Orientale for an expedition to find the source of the Nile in 1827. It was on returning from this expedition that he encountered Laborde in Cairo.

Both men were anxious to visit Petra. Laborde had been disappointed in being unable to do so with his father's caravan, Linant had previously tried in 1820 but had been unable to obtain the necessary permits. Together they succeeded in this, and quickly agreed on the conditions of their expedition. They would take enough men to ensure their safety, but would take a minimum of equipment and provisions in order to travel as quickly as they could.

As Laborde explains, they wished not just to visit Petra for a few hours as had done all the previous visitors, but were determined to stay long enough to sketch the many monuments (both men were accomplished and experienced at this) and "bring Petra back with them in their luggage".

Having experience of a large expedition with his father, Laborde was determined to travel as lightly as he considered compatible with their personal safety. They each took two personal servants, a couple of guides for the expedition and employed local guides as they went along. They nevertheless managed to start out from Cairo on the 23.2.1828 with 15 camels and 18 people!

Laborde gives a fascinating description of their preparations, their travelling costumes, their equipment and the presents they took with them to offer on appropriate occasions.

They decided to wear native dress, not trying to pass for Egyptians, but in order not to attract undue attention, and to try to avoid what today we would call "hassling".

"We were dressed as Bedouin, I wore the same costume I wore at Palmyra and at Jerash. It consisted of a striped brown woollen coat (mashlak), a canvas shirt secured by a leather or woollen belt, and a kefiya, with yellow and red stripes, kept on by a black cord of camel's hair."

"Two shirts besides the one I was wearing, we managed to wash them every couple of weeks, I only wore one for the whole trip, two pairs of underpants, but it was simpler not to wear any, no stockings, two pairs of shoes for each month, but the fishskin sandals that can be bought at Djebel (Sinai?) or sometimes at Suez are better".

Equipment : "no tents, which were only useful in the rainy season; for mattress I used the sheepskin that covered the camel's saddle during the day, the foodbags served as pillows and a mashlak as blanket".

Laborde obviously intended his report to be used by future travellers in the area, and indeed it served this purpose admirably. Very notably it encouraged the companions of the Scottish artist, David Roberts to urge that Petra be included in their itinerary during his visit to the Holy Land in 1838-39. Many of Roberts' drawings of Petra could be direct copies of these predecessors'. It is true that a good viewpoint is a good viewpoint! You might like to look at the page "Early views of Petra" for some more of the drawings of the three men.

The "Corinthian tomb" at Petra painted by Laborde

Linant, being the older and more experienced of the two (Laborde was not yet twenty one years old), fell naturally into the role of leader of the expedition, and it was he who did most of the negotiations and the talking with the people they met on the road.  He knew the local customs, was acquainted with many of the local people, and spoke Arabic well.

Arriving in Aqaba about the 11th March, they sent to the chief of the Alawin tribe to ask safe conduct for the rest of the trip. They had to wait nearly two weeks for his assent, and used some of this time to visit around, including the isle of Graie (now known as "Pharaoh's Island") south of Taba where notably they improvised a raft to cross the strait. They also feasted on a bed of oysters, which has disappeared - a pity!

Aqaba

Laborde gives us some fascinating descriptions of his stay in Aqaba. He was there while the caravan for Mecca was assembling, and seems to have spent some time wandering among the pilgrims who camped under the palm trees. He made several paintings, and laments that "descriptions and paintings cannot do justice to the sunset, the azure sea, the rose tinged mountains, the quiet beach, the elegant palmtrees...."

He describes a most interesting incident he observed in the palm groves :

"... I was surprised to see the Arabs digging with their hands in the sand that the high tide had covered with sea water a few instants before, until they had a sort of ditch a foot deep. This was rapidly filled with water that was quite fresh. The camels drank their fill.

Drinking water can be obtained in this manner all along the coast in front of the palmtrees, and although it is only separated from the sea by the sand which is dug out to make the hole, it is sweet and fresh provided one throws away the first flow which picks up the salt from the sand. The holes fill up in less than a minute, all along the beach there are holes like this from which the fort and the pilgrims get their water supply. This original kind of spring is astonishing, but is explained by the geography of the coast. A thin crust of sand covers the rocks running down to the sea, where they can be seen as reefs at low tide. The water from the springs in the various valleys to the east, and also rainwater, all run down between the sand and the solid rocks, and so water runs everywhere under the palm groves. This is why they are so lush. The water can be found at the same depth anywhere one digs, even within the walls of the fort, in the middle of the groves or by the edge of the sea. It is here that it is the easiest to dig, which is why the camel drivers water the animals here.

Eventually the safe conduct and the guides for the next part of the journey arrived, and the two men set out immediately and taking the road through Wadi Araba arrived in Petra on the 17th or 18th March. After establishing their camp, and knowing that their time might be limited, they immediately started their drawing and painting of the scenes. They managed to remain for six days, before their guides discovered that the plague was raging in Wadi Mousa and insisted on their leaving at once.

You can read a description of their stay in Wadi Mousa in the web page "Early views of Petra".

They were consoled by a pause for more sketches in Wadi Sabra, a visit to "Mount Hor" (today known as "Jebel Haroun"), the traditional site of the tomb of Aaron, Moses' brother, and by a detour to "Ameimé" (the modern Humeima) where both men were most interested in the remains of Nabatean cisterns and the existence of a caravanserai on the route from Aqaba to Damascus.

Taking their time, they returned to Aqaba by the mountain road and through Wadi Jetum and Wadi Itms and arrived there the 10th or 11th April. Via Nova Traiana. From there Linant returned directly to Cairo where business waited for him, while Laborde travelled around Sinai, visiting Mount Sinai, Ras Mohammed and "Cherm", and St Catherine's Monastery before heading back to Cairo where he arrived at the beginning of May. They had travelled quickly, making long stages and had covered the ground more rapidly than most travellers could do at the time.

The American Traveller

In fact these two men seem on the whole to have had a remarkably easy trip. This might well be explained by the report of a later traveller, John Lloyd Stephens ("The American Traveller") in his "Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia, Petra, and the Holy Land". Travelling in 1835, Stephens says indignantly that Messrs Linant and Laborde scattered gold and largesse "with a most liberal hand" wherever they passed, giving the locals an highly inflated idea of the "going rate."  Stephens recounts that "I was startled at perceiving the dissatisfied air with which they received a bucksheesh that would have overwhelmed any other Arabs with joy and gratitude".

Stephens becomes downright bitter when commenting on the rapacious demands of the Arabs of Petra and refers to this on numerous occasions, calling on others' writings to witness : "The Arabs about Akaba," says Pococke, "are a very bad people and notorious robbers, and are at war with all others." Mr. Joliffe alludes to it as one of the wildest and most dangerous divisions of Arabia; and Burckhardt says, "that for the first time he had ever felt fear during his travels in the desert, and his route was the most dangerous he had ever travelled," that he had "nothing with him that could attract the notice or excite the cupidity of the Bedouins," and was "even stripped of some rags that covered his wounded ankles." Messrs. Legh and Banks, and Captains Irby and Mangles, were told that the Arabs of Wady Moussa, the tribe that formed my escort, "were a most savage and treacherous race, and that they would use their Frank's blood for a medicine;" and they learned on the spot that "upward of thirty pilgrims from Barbary had been murdered at Petra the preceding year by the men of Wady Moussa ;"

I shall refrain from any personal comment here!

The theatre in Wadi Sabra drawn by Laborde

Stephens' work is interesting, his book is far more detailed than that of Laborde, and his descriptions show us the ancient site in a different light - Laborde being more concerned with detailed factual observations and exact dimensions .

Stephens says notably of Petra :  "In a few words, this ancient and extraordinary city is situated within a natural amphitheatre of two or three miles in circumference, encompassed on all sides by rugged mountains five or six hundred feet in height. The whole of this area is now a waste of ruins, dwelling-houses, palaces, temples, and triumphal arches, all prostrate together in undistinguishable confusion. The sides of the mountains are cut smooth, in a perpendicular direction, and filled with long and continued ranges of dwelling-houses, temples, and tombs, excavated with vast labour out of the solid rock; and while their summits present Nature in her wildest and most savage form, their bases are adorned with all the beauty of architecture and art, with columns, and porticoes, and pediments, and ranges of corridors, enduring as the mountains out of which they are hewn, and fresh as if the work of a generation scarcely yet gone by."

Rather disappointingly the line drawings illustrating Stephens' book are clearly copies of Laborde's paintings - with no attribution...

The Qasr el Bint near which the men set up camp "in a most commodious tomb"

Publication

When they set out, it was agreed between the two men that each would publish an account of their trip, Laborde in France, and Linant in England, where his trip to find the source of the Nile had been sponsored by the CPO. However, Linant never published his version, and we have only Laborde's "Voyage en Arabie Petrée" published in Paris in 1830. This does include 14 drawings by Linant among the 60 or so plates,  but most of what he drew in Petra is apparently still stored in boxes... 

"L'Arabie Petrée" starts with a description of the Middle East, its history, geography and the people there, with a quick look at the trading patterns and the commerce in the Red Sea since ancient times, and a detailed look at the population of the area.

This very well read young man seems to have devoured every word ever written on the Middle East, from the Old Testament onwards, passing through Herodotus and Strabon, not forgetting Islamic writers and including the reports of the journeys of his predecessors to Petra. He passes most of this on to us - who would perhaps have preferred a bit more detail about his stay in Petra!

He also adds a lengthy chapter on the "Arabs of the Desert" describing the difference between the "Arabs of Petran Arabia" and the "Bedouin of the Arabian Desert". The former were chiefly armed with "numerous rifles and pistols" and chiefly ride on camels. Their skill with guns inspired respect from the Bedouin, apparently.

The Bedouin, usually riding horses carry a long lance and a sabre, when on foot they sometimes have rifles, their chiefs often carried pistols. Laborde also adds a most interesting drawing of the equipment carried by the Arabs of the Desert, which unfortunately I do not have here.

Their illustrations "revealed Petra to the world". The publicity drew increasing numbers of  intrepid travellers to Petra in spite of the difficulties in reaching it. In 1840, J. W. Burgon (who had never seen the ruins) wrote the poem that is quoted everywhere Petra is mentioned : "...that rose-red city half as old as time..."

Until the visit of David Roberts the drawings of Laborde were the only illustrations known of Petra (although they were occasionally "borrowed" by others). Roberts' lithographs, published in six volumes from 1842-49 are well known in Jordan today, Laborde's are forgotten except by a handful of specialists. (You can see some of Roberts' drawings and paintings of Petra on the web page "Early Views of Petra".)

WHAT DID THEY DO NEXT ?

Léon de Laborde

On his return to Europe after this expedition, Laborde resumed the diplomatic career he had been educated for, and notably held the post of private secretary to Talleyrand at the London Embassy. His interests later turned more to historical research, the arts and writing, he is the author of a number of books. He was named Conservateur des Antiques at the Louvre, and later held the same post in the Department of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. He founded the Archive Museum and was elected to the Academy Française in . He is known today as essentially an art historian.

He also continued his father's political career, more or less inheriting his father's Parliamentary seat and was elected to the Senate in 1868. He died at the Château de Beauregard in the Loir et Cher on the 26.3.1869.

Louis Linant de Bellefonds

Two of Linant's watercolours can be seen in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London

Linant's career was much more active and always in Egypt. After the visit to Petra in Laborde's company, he spent a year studying hydrography and was named Chief Engineer for Upper Egypt in 1831. In that capacity he participated in or headed most of the great hydrological realisations in Egypt, notably the many irrigation projects. He was later appointed Director at the Ministry of Public Works.

Most notably Linant was fascinated by the idea of a new Suez Canal following the trace of the canal built by Trajan. He studied the route, surveyed the levels and drew up tentative plans. He succeeded in infecting the French Consul in Alexandria with his enthusiasm. The Consul was subsequently well placed to interest the highest names in France in this project, being the first cousin of the Empress Eugénie. His name was Ferdinand de Lesseps.

Lesseps managed to raise the necessary funds for the construction of the present day Suez Canal and when the preliminary work began in 1854 Linant was appointed Chief Engineer. At the same time he continued to work on projects elsewhere.

The "forgotten father of the Suez Canal" was named "Bey" in 1837 and "Pasha" in 1873. These were unprecedented honours for a European at the time. Covered with honours and with decorations from virtually every major country in Europe, Linant died 9.7.1883

He had been given name "Abd-el Haqq" ("Servant of Justice") by the Bedouin during his first travels in Egypt, a name he probably valued as much as the other titles.  He knew the Egyptians and the Bedouin in particular natives well, and spent much time sitting at their campfires and talking with them. He was used to say that he learned as much from them as from any book.

A drawing by Linant of a later expedition of his in southern Egypt

LINKS AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I have drawn very largely on a recent edition of "Voyage de l'Arabie Pétrée" by Christian Augé and by Pascale Linant de Bellefonds of the French CNRS which is entitled "Pétra retrouvée" published in Paris by Pygmalion in 1994. This page would not have been possible without the notes in this book and I owe the editors a big thank you. I should like to thank the Bibliothèque Nationale de France for their help with the illustrations, and they also made available a microfilm edition of the original text, which added a little bit to the text in the Pygmalion edition. Augé and Linant de Bellefonds have also published an article in  Archeologia, 262, 1990, p. 48-59 called "Deux Français à Pétra."

There is little on the Internet about Léon de Laborde, but I did find a site concerning Linant de Bellefonds at http://linant.free.fr/ which gives considerable detail about the construction of the Suez Canal.

John Lloyd Stephens' book, "Incidents of travel in Egypt, Arabia, Petra and the Holy Land" has been re-issued in 1996 and is available through Amazon. Stephens (1805-1852) is chiefly known for his exploration of Mayan sites and the Yucatan, but also travelled extensively not only in the Middle East, but also through Turkey, Russia and Poland. His books on his voyages gained him the title "The American Traveller". He was considerably involved with the Panama Railroad and probably contracted malaria while in the Isthmus. You might like to look at http://www.trainweb.org/panama/stephens.html

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List of Narratives of journeys to Petra between 1812 and 1914 by Norman N. Lewis
 

August 2004

©Ruth Caswell 2004