CHAPTER VIII.

DAMASCUS, BAALBEK, AND HERMON.

The order of the narrative now takes us away from Palestine itself, to the more northern parts of Syria, where the Survey party spent the months of July, August, and September, recruiting their health, and arranging the field-work.

On the morning of June the 16th, 1873, we arrived in the Bay of Beyrout, and landed just as Midhat Pacha left the harbour, having been superseded, in the post of Governor of Syria, in favour of Hallet Pacha. The praises of Midhat as an able, upright, and liberal statesman were in the mouths of all European residents, and his dismissal was sincerely regretted.

On Tuesday, the 24th of June, I set out, at the head of my party, on a march to Damascus, along the French road. We wound slowly up the sides of Lebanon, here covered with pines, and veiled above with fleecy clouds, which, when the wind blows from the sea, gather daily on the summits, and swell the grapes by a soft damp mist, giving great potency to the Lebanon wine. Arriving at a height of over three thousand feet, we lost sight of the plain and the white city, and marched on in the mist until two p.m., only resting at a little mud cottage, where was a stream of icy water. We then began to descend, and beneath us was spread out one of the finest views in Syria. The broad flat plain of the Litany River separates the two ranges of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, and runs north and south, with the river in the middle. The outline of Anti-Lebanon was beautifully varied, with a long succession of blunt peaks, rolling ridges, knife-edged spurs, divided by deep narrow ravines, the whole bathed in the soft bright afternoon sunlight; some hills were thin and blue in the distance, some rocky and rugged in front, while the shadows were already creeping slowly up the feet of the mountains and across the plain. The Bukei’a, as the plain itself is called, was all yellow with corn, the white road, skirted by tall poplars, running across it; and, on the south, the background was formed by the dark ridge of Hermon, on which a solitary streak of snow still remained.

In a couple of hours we reached the plain, the horses being much fatigued, and one unfit for riding. We remained for the night at a miserable wooden house at Stûra.

On the first day we had ridden twenty-nine miles in seven hours. We were now once more in the saddle by 7.30 a.m., and accomplished forty-one miles in eight hours (including stoppages), the baggage animals also arriving at Damascus the same day.

Our way lay at first across the plain, which is well watered, and covered with corn-fields. Herds and flocks and black Arab tents were visible everywhere; the storks were still abundant, their long necks stretched out above the barley, and their shadows sailing along, as they wheeled above in great circles, before leaving for the north; the swallows, also, sat in long rows on the telegraph wires. Soon, however, after crossing the river, we began to enter the pass of Wâdy el Kurn, and the bare grey hills, steep crags, and wilderness of Jentisk, succeeded the more fertile scenery of the Bukei’a. Here were no signs of animal life, beyond an occasional eagle or vulture. The old yellow diligence, with three mules at the pole and three horses in front, rumbled past us down the hill. Soon a rocky range, with castellated crags, appeared in front, and we ascended hills of glaring white chalk, with here and there a black basaltic seam; at length the top of a poplar appeared in front, and we rested, for nearly an hour, by a mud stable, near a beautiful spring in the yellow rocks, round which the ruddy-coloured little oxen lay, chewing the cud, in blazing sunlight.

The country grew yet more barren as we advanced--a succession of rolling hills of an ochre colour, with here and there a steep grey crag. About two p.m. we arrived at a barren plateau, across which the road led--a streak of blinding white. In front was a range of steep hills like those left behind; great black shadows came sliding down the slopes, and so along the plain and up the eastern ridges; behind were banks of fleecy cloud, but above us a broiling sun and cloudless heaven, while before us not a trace of Damascus was to be seen. It was, indeed, wearisome work, toiling over this plateau, uncheered by any distant view of the goal, and with the apparent necessity of climbing another mountain range; great, therefore, was my relief when the road dived suddenly down into a narrow winding valley.

The scenery now became very remarkable, resembling most that of a Sinaitic oasis. The crags on either side were glaring in the sun, reddish-yellow in colour, without even a bush or shrub on the slopes, and with an intensely blue sky above; but below them, in the valley, the road led beside a swirling stream, which ran rapidly over boulders and pebbles, under the cool shadow of tall poplar groves, and gardens of cool, green foliage. The grass grew rank beside the path, trailing vines, peaches, plums, and other fruit-trees flourished on either bank. A paradise was, in short, set in a frame of most barren desert, an oasis between bare crags of sun-scorched limestone. The white road wound down the valley, which became constantly more luxuriant, whilst the hills grew higher and glared more desolate. On every side tributary streams gushed down, and we began to pass by white villas, with primitive frescoes on the walls, by groups of veiled ladies on white donkeys, and by rich merchants on fine mares. At last the valley opened, and our cavalcade, of seven horsemen, came cantering down an avenue of poplars, until, turning a sharp corner, we came suddenly in sight of the entrance to Damascus.

This approach to the city is not favourable to a just appreciation of its peculiar beauties. In front of the houses there is a sort of green, covered with short grass, and divided by the river. A large white mosque, with two tall minarets, was in front, and the castle to the right; but no great wall, as at Jerusalem, bounds the city, which has, in spite of domes and minarets, rather the appearance of a straggling village of mud houses, with windows of wood lattice, flat mud roofs, and overhanging upper stories.

We stopped at the hotel, and at once became acquainted with the real glory of Damascus--namely, its interiors. The house was built round an ample paved court, its inner walls of stucco, painted in horizontal bands of white, red, and blue. In the centre was a large square basin, surrounded by little jets, whence the water trickled slowly. It was shaded by tall lemon and orange-trees, peaches, and plums. On one side of the court opened the diwân, a cool, lofty apartment, with raised floors surrounded by low sofas, and with an octagonal fountain in the narrow central passage. The roof of this central part was more lofty, and clerestory windows let in a subdued light. The diwân walls were marble, and the roofs of inlaid woodwork, gorgeously painted on a dark-brown ground.

Damascus is an oval town divided into two unequal portions, the largest to the south, by the river Barada (the ancient Abana). The houses appear to be principally of mud, or sun-dried brick, with wooden frames; but the public buildings and better private dwellings are of stone. The bazaars form the heart of the town, and ramify in various directions. To Europeans there is something very curious in the collection of fifty or sixty small shops, in one street, all selling the same article. Thus, from the meat-market one strolls into a long, covered lane, where red and yellow slippers are sold; thence into the fragrant scent bazaar, or to the grimy silversmiths’ smithies, or to the long rows of shops where silks and embroidered stuffs are sold. Each salesman sits calmly, on the raised floor of the little pigeon-hole, surrounded by shelves on which his goods are packed, smoking his V-shaped water-pipe, or engaged in prayer, and apparently quite indifferent as to custom.

The bazaars are delightfully cool and shady, and the absence of wheeled vehicles makes them very quiet. They are very narrow, and consequently much crowded. Huge camels, loaded with firewood, come rolling by, and oblige you to crouch against the wall to avoid the sweep of the load. Ladies in long veils, white, or checked with blue with embroidered edges, walk by in yellow knee-boots, or slippers with a sort of thick-soled leather golosh drawn over them. Some are mounted on the white donkeys, which have a thick protuberance to the two sides of their necks--a sort of fold running sometimes all along the back. The saddles on which they are perched aloft, with their feet in front over the animal’s neck, are of red morocco and velvet.

The peasants wear blue, baggy trousers, gathered in at the knee. The Maronite women, with rich apple-red cheeks, have a black band bound over the forehead. Among these the fierce Bedawin are mingled, dark and dusky in complexion, gaunt and stealthy in mien. The broad-shouldered and moustachioed Kurds are again quite distinct, and contrast with the ghastly faces and weakly figures of the townsmen born--the fanatical Softas and Ulema, in their long pale gabardines and scanty white turbans, incarnations of narrow bigotry and ignorant hate. The bazaar is roofed in, with openings at intervals, and the ever-changing crowd is dimly visible in the shadow, or lit up by a beam of sunlight from the roof.

The great charm of the scene consists in its unmixed Oriental character. No French fashion or Gothic building destroys the general effect. You walk in the Damascus of the “Thousand Nights and a Night,” and the grim story of the wooden roof-prop at the corner, from which you may chance any day to see a criminal hanging, reminds you of the justice of Haroun-er-Rashid. Here, through a grating, you look in on the tomb of Saladin’s brother, under its green pall; there, into the cool court of a khan, or the outer chamber of a bath. Dark-eyed beauties, who are not ashamed to show their tattooed faces and nose-rings, meet you at every corner; and, if you know the city well, you may penetrate into the recesses of the wicked bath-houses, or visit the slave-market. Damascus is still the scene of intrigue and passion, as of old; the yearly poisonings are incredibly numerous, and the place is one of the chief strongholds of that obstinate fanaticism which refuses to see anything good in the manners and civilisation of the “heathen.”

The great mosque epitomises the history of Damascus. Once a heathen temple, then a Christian church, it is now a Moslem sanctuary. By a covered street with a great fountain beside it, we arrived at the bronze gates, on which the Sacramental cup is twice repeated, with Arabic inscriptions nailed on above. The enclosure is not as large as that of the Jerusalem Sanctuary; the mosque stretches for 800 feet along the south side, and is about 300 wide. The court is paved, with a central fountain beneath a dome, where Moslems wash before prayer. Broad cloisters run round the court, supported on classic columns.

The building itself is divided by columns into a nave and aisles, and the floor covered with carpets. Four _mihrabs_, or apses, for prayer, are made in the south wall, belonging to various sects, and each is flanked by tall wax torches from Mecca. A long row of worshippers stood before the central _mihrab_--soldiers and civilians, old and young, facing the wall and praying together, led by a Sheikh with a melodious voice.

An old water-carrier brought us sweet water from the holy well of the Prophet Yahyah (John the Baptist), to the east of the mosque. The whole sanctuary is whitewashed; but patches of the old glass mosaic, which once covered all the walls, are still visible, and the effect must formerly have been very magnificent.

The mosque has three minarets--that of the Bride to the north, a square, blue tower, from the upper gallery of which four stout Muedhens were chanting, in beautiful time and shrill falsetto notes, the call to prayer, a cry which can be heard like a bell over the entire city. The second minaret is that of “Our Lord Jesus”--a slender grey needle, upon the summit of which the Moslems believe that Christ will descend in the last day. We ascended the third minaret, in the south-west corner, by a winding stair of one hundred and ninety steps, leading to a wooden gallery, whilst forty more lead up to a narrow ledge beneath the little dome.

From this point a really characteristic view presented itself. On every side was a flat expanse of mud roofs, only broken here and there by a little whitewashed dome, and set in a dense rich belt of deep green, extending for a mile from the houses on every side. Beyond the gardens were ranges of hills, barren and desolate, brown and white in colour, and terminated by the steep Hermon ridge.

The charm of the view, however, was due to the interiors. Each house was built round an open court, with a cool central fountain, and with green trees, some of great size, overtopping the roof. The courts were paved with marble, and galleries of carved woodwork ran around them; the walls were banded in courses of black and white marble, or coloured blue and red. Above the roofs rose the countless minarets, in endless variety; some blue or green, square and squat; others of beautiful grey stone, with richly ornamented stone pendants, wood lattices, and Arab or Cufic inscriptions; some whitewashed and crowned with a sort of snuffer-shaped roof, others domed. Bristling against the green bed in which the mud city lies, they gave a rich variety of effect, which is lost in the narrow lanes or roofed bazaars.

Damascus is a centre of the faith, second only to Mecca. The Greek cathedral is hustled into a corner, and guarded by a great white minaret. A second great mosque is built on the west, outside the town, its architect having lost his head for so placing it, to be given back to him--so says the grim Arabic inscription--when the sanctuary stands in the middle of Damascus. On the west of the town is a brown fortress, outwardly formidable, inwardly a ruin--fit emblem of Turkish rule.

From the silversmiths’ bazaar we visited the exterior of the southern wall of the mosque, jumping over a narrow street, and running along the house-roofs. Here we found a fine Byzantine doorway, with a well-carved cornice, and along its frieze the famous Greek inscription: “Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.”

On the 4th of July we left this fascinating city for the cooler retreat in the mountains, where the English Vice-Consul was staying. Passing once more up the narrow valley, with its green groves amid desolate crags, we crossed the Saharah, or desert plateau, and, diverging towards the right, we made for a fine gorge, with high precipices. The Barada, a clear, broad, green stream, here comes slipping rapidly down over ledges of rock and through deep pools, and by its channel is the mud village called Sûk Wâdy Barada. The river makes a sudden bend at the gorge, and passes between high rocks, burrowed with tombs, which are in many cases inscribed with barbarous Greek texts. The stream falls over a low precipice, and forms a broad pool--a delightful bathing-place, reminding me on each visit of Naaman’s boast about this very river, “better than all the waters of Israel.” A more picturesque spot than this gorge, with its Roman road cut in the cliff, its cemetery, its tall poplars and rushing stream, its crags, above which is the traditional tomb of Abel, we did not again meet. This place is the ancient Abila, and its name is still recognisable in the tradition of Abel’s tomb, where, after carrying the corpse for a hundred years, Cain was allowed to lay it down. On the 24th of July we revisited the gorge, and inspected the antiquities. A tablet, cut in the side of the precipice above the ancient road, identifies the town as Abila, and is repeated again a little farther on; below it is an aqueduct tunnel, and lower down the valley, on the left bank opposite the village, are remains of a small temple. On this visit we discovered no less than six inscriptions previously unknown, all on tombstones.

Crossing the stream, just above the waterfall, by a single arch, we continued along the left bank. The Barada has worn a deep bed, and on either side the remains of petrified leaves and stems are visible in the rude conglomerate of the banks. The stream pours over boulders and broken blocks, and is half-covered with luxuriant bushes. Gradually ascending, the road leads into the long plain of Zebdâny--a sort of repetition of the Stûra plain on a smaller scale, flanked on the west by the ragged and castellated ridges of the Anti-Lebanon, and on the east by a range of equal height. The plateau is bare and treeless, except towards the north, where are groves of poplar. Through the centre runs the river, its course marked by green bushes. In the middle of the plain it springs up suddenly from a great blue pool, or small lake, of unfathomable depth, resembling the springs of Antipatris mentioned in the last chapter. The stream is here actually broader than at the gorge, and emerges in full volume from the earth. The basin is of hard yellow rock. At first the stream is sluggish, the banks clayey and grassy, fringed with tall canes; and the water of the pool is full of fish and frequented by water-fowl; lower down, however, the fall is very rapid, and, from the gorge to Damascus, the current is extremely quick.

The western mountains were already dark in the blue afternoon shadow, as we began to climb the white slopes to the east of the plain. Here, at a height 5000 feet above the sea, our summer camp was to be fixed, at the village of Bludân, below the Consul’s house.

On the 11th of August the Consul rode down to Damascus, accompanied by Mr. Wright and myself. On this occasion I was able to see something of Damascus by night, guided by the missionary; and in the afternoon we penetrated into one of the slave-markets, ascending a rickety staircase to a miserable wooden verandah, on to which the little rooms opened. In one chamber was a negress, gaily dressed, seated on a straw mat, and dandling a small black baby. She seemed in very good spirits; but her next-door neighbour was nursing a sick child, and looked unhappy enough. In the third room were three negresses, and a white girl, pale and thin, who, instead of greeting us in the jovial manner of the black women, drew her veil round her and fled into an inner chamber. Theoretically, the purchase of fresh slaves is forbidden in the Turkish dominions; but there are two of these slave establishments in Damascus--one just behind or in a mosque--and newly-imported slaves from Africa arrive here every year.

On the following day I was honoured by Hallet Pacha, Governor-General of Syria, with an invitation to accompany the Consul to breakfast. About ten a.m. we were driven through the bazaar, and arrived at the Pacha’s house, on a terrace above the green meadow, west of the town. A tent was spread in the garden, and the Governor, a man of immense corpulence, sat on a velvet sofa within. His staff sat round, wearing red fezzes and black frock-coats.

The Pacha belonged to the Old Turkish party, and cordially hated all “pagans.” The breakfast was studiously Oriental in character, no French dishes being allowed, and no wine offered. A great brass tray, on a plain wooden stand, formed a table for eight people. Among the guests were Mohammed S’aid Pacha--the fierce Kurd who broke in the mountaineers of Nâblus for the Turks--Holo Pacha, and other dignitaries. The first course consisted of tomato soup and macaroni, with lemons; rissoles of rice, and mutton cutlets in bread-crumbs followed, with little dishes of caviar, and bowls of leben, or sour milk, with cucumbers; next came a kind of sweet muffins; then six dishes of various vegetables stuffed with rice, and a broiled chicken; last of all, a huge pilau, and dessert of figs and melons.

Though hungry at first, I was quite unable to eat a quarter of the amount consumed by the Pacha, and ceased to wonder at the almost universal obesity of the Turkish dignitaries. The guests all ate from their hands; and the conversation was such as would not be countenanced in an ordinary barrack-room, though apparently much enjoyed by the Pacha and his staff.

To suppose this picture to be universally characteristic of Turkish high life would no doubt be an error; able and honest men are not altogether wanting among the Government officials of high standing, and Midhat Pacha, the immediate predecessor of my host, has since become famous as a patriot and statesman; but it is the misfortune of Turkey, that the majority of the governing class are men ignorant and fanatical, sensual and inert, notoriously corrupt and tyrannical, who have succeeded only in ruining and impoverishing the countries they were sent to govern.

On the 19th of August, the whole party proceeded, from Bludân, on a visit to Baalbek, where I was ordered to report on the condition of the ruins.

Descending from our mountain camp, we rode north-west, over the well-watered plain, with its long rows of poplars, narrow strips of green turf beside the streams, and long vineyards, with vines trained into little bushes, as in Burgundy. Thence we ascended a rugged path over the grey rocky slopes of Anti-Lebanon, and our view extended over the broad brown Bukei’a, and as far as the long gleaming ridge of Lebanon, “the milk-white mountain,” the outline of which is broken by cones and rounded tops, whilst below a dusky fringe of brushwood creeps up the slopes. After five hours’ riding, we began to descend, over downs of blinding white chalk, to the great plain, and at length came in sight of a village, lying low in an oasis of green trees, with a fine spring to the east, from which ran a stream fringed with willows and poplars.

The village, or town, of Baalbek is extensive and flourishing. At the gate of the governor’s house a fine statue, of colossal size, headless, and seated between sculptured lions, has been placed in a corner of the road. Passing through the main street, we rode on, between dry-stone walls, in a narrow lane, which had a perfect screen of poplars above; and, behind this, rose a huge tawny fortress-wall, like that of the Temple at Jerusalem; while, to the right, stood a little temple, staggering, as it were, after the last earthquake, the joints of the magnificent masonry yawning, and the columns and cornices bending over. The great wall is crowned by a Saracenic battlement, with loopholes, and its masonry is a perfect patchwork; but below, the ancient drafted ashlar, with Greek masons’ marks on the stones, remains intact.

We now found ourselves riding, three abreast, through a dark tunnel of enormous masonry, and looked back on the green paradise of foliage; while in front a glaring dust-heap indicated the ascent into the great enclosure; hence we emerged into the centre of the ruins, with the famous Six Columns and the Temple of Jupiter in front.

So gracefully are these great buildings proportioned, that the mind fails at first to appreciate their enormous size. It is only when standing beneath the pillars, the bases of which, alone, are higher than a man’s stature, that one can believe the columns to be seventy-five feet high. Even the rich tracery of the roofs and cornices, is scarcely more striking than the orange rusty colour which the stone has assumed in weathering. As at Jerusalem, this colour is most remarkable on the side from which the winter storms beat on the ruins.

The position of the Kŭl’ah, or “Castle,” as the enclosure is called, is very low; but the plateau is supported on vaults some thirty feet high, the space enclosed being, roughly, 1000 feet east and west, by 400 north and south. On the east is a hexagonal structure, with a vestibule, to which a flight of magnificent steps originally led up, but was destroyed by the Saracens in converting the temple into a fortress.

The hexagon and the great court beyond, are surrounded with alcoves, most richly decorated, and once including statues, some of which now, no doubt, lie hidden beneath the rubbish. The domed roofs of the alcoves are all richly carved; in one, a head surrounded with a web of scaly wings; in another, a winged dragon straggling over the whole roof. The shattered shafts of granite columns lie before the recesses, and mounds of rubbish cover the floor.

A Christian basilica once stood close to the Sun Temple; but its dimensions are dwarfed by the huge columns, which seem to bear witness to the grandeur of the genius of their Roman founder, dwarfing the puny attempts of Byzantine art and intellect. The church is all gone, except the foundations. The great pillars of the Sun Temple have fallen one by one; but six weather-beaten survivors still resist the fury of the winter and the constant eating away of the frost, though their bases have all been sapped by the natives, in seeking for the metal cores run into the joints. The pillars are seventy-five feet high, and seven and a half feet in diameter; the cornice has a weight of nearly four tons to the square foot. As the capitals of some pillars are worn away, and the bases of all six are undermined, they cannot be expected long to remain standing, and any winter may bring the destruction of the most eastern column, and perhaps of the next two.

The method of erection of these gigantic masses of masonry remains a mystery. The Egyptian obelisks were monolithic, and could be swung into a vertical position; but the building up of the three great stones in a shaft, the placing of its capital, and the crowning labour of raising the cornice blocks into position, seem to require superhuman power, and the simple explanation of the Arabs, that the sons of the Jann were employed to pile the great masses, seems almost a tempting theory.

The most beautiful and perfect building is the smaller Temple of Jupiter, to the south. It is 118 feet long east and west, by sixty-five feet broad in the interior, with a porch twenty-six feet wide in front. The doorway, twenty-one feet broad, was spanned by a lintel in three pieces. The central block, or key-stone, weighing sixty tons, has slipped down, and is supported on a wall built by the Turks. Five attached columns, with fluted shafts, are built against each wall inside, and a rich cornice runs above them, whilst two rows of brackets, with canopies over them, once held statues between the pillars. The carving of the canopies is marvellously bold and intricate; every detail is sharply cut; the rosettes and graceful arabesques stand out almost separated from the stone. The wall across the temple, dividing off the altar part, is covered with graceful undulating figures, unfortunately headless; beneath are great vaults, covered with hard cement.

The door, forty-two feet high in the clear, has huge jambs in three courses, inside each of which a little staircase is hollowed out, ascending to the roof. The cornice above the door is perhaps the richest design of all; and, on the soffit, or under side, a great spread eagle is flanked by winged genii and wreaths. A correct drawing of one niche in Baalbek would take almost a day to do, and there are at least two hundred such niches.

The Temple of Jupiter is surrounded by a cloister, comparatively narrow--eight feet ten inches in the clear--its columns fifty-eight feet high. The low-arched roof above is covered with colossal busts in high relief, set in frames of rich design. The effect of height, obtained by the very great disproportion in width, is more striking than even that of the loftier Six Columns.

Nine pillars remain on the north side of the cloister, and the roof, with its sculptured kings, queens, and warriors holding palm branches, is intact; but the rich cornice is dropping piecemeal from above. On the south only three pillars remain standing, and one great shaft leans against the walls, its three stones still adhering firmly together.

The greatest marvel of Baalbek has, however, still to be noticed. The western fortress-wall is intact, and consists of drafted stones fifteen to twenty feet long; the third course from the ground is composed, however, of three huge blocks, each more than sixty-three feet long. In the quarry lies a fourth, sixty-eight feet long, thirteen feet eight inches broad, fourteen feet high, along which three horsemen might ride abreast; it is called the “pregnant stone,” from a legend which is also found connected with the great column of the Huldah gate in the Temple.

Such are the main features of this mightiest temple ever built by Roman genius. In size Baalbek dwarfs Palmyra, and equals it in richness of workmanship. No doubt the superabundance of ornamentation is a mark of decadence in art; but the magnificence of the proportions seems to allow of any amount of tracery, without injury to the effect as a whole.

The sun was getting low as I sat sketching the Six Columns, which stood out dark and desolate against the glowing sky. A stork stood on one leg on the cornice; his mate was in a nest below. As I turned eastward, the scene was yet grander. The Temple of Jupiter was in dark shadow, with a foreground of tumbled columns, like fallen giants, sprawling over crushed blocks and ruined cornices. The wall on which I sat was battered in by the thud of one huge shaft tossed against it. Beyond the temple, the rich tracery of the Moslem _mihrab_ on the south wall was visible; and, behind this again, was the dark foliage of mulberries, poplars, and willows, and the bare grey hills tipped with crimson from the setting sun.

It was indeed an impressive scene; the majesty of the Pagan, the pride of the Moslem, superhuman power and inexhaustible fancy--all alike things of the past; and beyond the puny works of man, the “everlasting hills,” with the rose of evening on their summits, unchanged as they stood long before the golden plates of the great temple had first caught the dying beams, and as they may still glow evening after evening, long after the huge columns have crumbled to dust. The stork stood on one leg, and no doubt considered the matter; the stars came out one by one, and unbroken stillness prevailed throughout the ruins.

On the 21st we rode back to Bludân, and on Monday, the 8th of September, we again set out, this time in company with Mr. Kirby Green, on an expedition to the summit of Hermon.

The first day’s ride was a long one. Pushing rapidly over the Zebdâny plain, we reached, in three hours, the French road, and, crossing it, ascended a long valley, bare and grey with cliffs and a few oak bushes. We passed the famous temple called Deir-el-Ashaiyir, described by Captain Warren, and then lost our way; but were at length directed by a charcoal-burner--one of the very few natives whom we met--to the little village of Rukhleh, on the steep barren slopes of Hermon. Here we were joined by Mr. Wright and Sergeant Armstrong, from Damascus. We visited the ruins and copied several inscriptions.

There are at Rukhleh two temples, one called “the King’s Castle;” there is also a tower on a rocky knoll, and a Christian church built of the fragments of the temples. In the church-wall is part of a lintel representing an eagle, and a fine block with a head in bold relief, surrounded by a circle ornamented with honeysuckle pattern; the head is nearly five feet high.

In the afternoon we continued our ride along a rugged mountain path, passing by Kefr Kûk, where are beautiful vineyards, and a plain, which in winter becomes a lake, the water rushing out suddenly, with a roaring noise, from a cavern, and flooding the whole area.

Passing by Aiha, where are remains of another temple, we hurried on to the large town of Rashaiyeh, built about half-way up the side of Hermon, and presenting a striking appearance, in the moonlight, with long slopes of vineyard, terrace above terrace--a cataract of green trailing foliage. Our entry was triumphal. The Lieutenant-Governor, on a grey steed, pranced forth to receive the English Consul’s party, at the head of an army of ten men, who formed line and presented arms. The cavalry--six irregulars in all--galloped somewhat wildly about, and one rider was kicked over his horse’s head; we then got jammed in a narrow street, the horses fought, and the Kaimakam (or Governor) was nearly kicked, and retired hastily.

The summit of Hermon was only about three hours distant from Rashaiyeh; so we did not start till late next day. A reception was first held in the little whitewashed room in which we slept. The Governor, the Kadi, the Druse Sheikh, the Greek Pope, the Protestant schoolmaster, and their friends, all came together to do honour to the Consul. At the farther end of the room sat three old Druses, seemingly dyers--as their hands were blue with indigo--who expressed extreme approval of every remark that was made, and laughed loudly at the slightest symptom of a joke.

According to etiquette, the Governor’s visit was returned in half an hour’s time. The military again turned out, and lemonade was brought by a soldier, who held an embroidered cloth under our chins as we drank. The Governor was old and fat, with a cough; he was informed that I came to look at the stars from the top of Hermon, and supposed it was because they could be seen better at so great a height, being so much nearer.

We commenced the ascent of some 5000 feet about 10.30 a.m., passing first through the fine vineyards, into which the bears often come down, from the summit, to eat grapes; thence along lanes with stone walls, passing bushes of wild rose, of oak, and of hawthorn, and honeysuckle in flower. We thus reached the bottom of the main peak, consisting entirely of grey rocks, worn by snow and rain into jagged teeth and ridges, covered with a loose shingle or gravel. It seemed impossible for horses, and still more for laden mules, to toil up; but the breeze grew fresher, and the bracing mountain air seemed to give vigour to man and beast. Resting at intervals, we gradually clambered up, passing by the little cave where the initiated Druses retire, for three or four months, and perform unknown rites. Ridge above ridge, of rock and grey gravel, appeared, each seemingly the last, each only hiding one above. Not an animal was to be seen, except an occasional vulture, and not a tree or shrub, for the snow covers all this part of the mountain till late in summer. By two o’clock we reached the summit.

A glorious panorama repaid us for our labour. South of us lay Palestine, visible as far as Carmel and Tabor, some eighty miles away; eastwards a broad plain, with detached hills on the dim horizon beyond; westwards the Lebanon and the golden sea; northwards, mountains as high as Hermon, Lebanon, and Anti-Lebanon.

As the sun sank lower, Palestine became more distinct, and appeared wonderfully narrow. The calm, green Sea of Galilee lay, dreamlike, in its circle of dark-grey hills. Tabor was just visible to the south, and from it the plateau ran out east to the Horns of Hattin. The broken chain of the Upper Galilean Hills, 4000 feet high, lay beneath the eye, and terminated in the Ladder of Tyre. The mole of Tyre stood out black against the gleaming water; and the deep gorge of the Litany could be seen winding past the beautiful fortress of Belfort. Dim and misty beyond, lay the ridge of Carmel, from the promontory to the peak of Sacrifice. The white domes in Tiberias were shining in the sun, and many of the Galilean towns, including Safed, could be distinguished.

The scene presented a great contrast on the east and west. In the brown, desolate, and boundless plain to the east, stood the distant green oasis of Damascus, and the white city, with its tall minarets. The flat horizon was broken only by the peaks of Jebel Kuleib, the “Hill of Bashan,” some seventy miles away. South-east of Damascus was the terrible Lejja district, a basin of basalt seamed with deep gorges, like rough furrows, and with isolated cones, into which one appeared to look down, so distinctly were the shadows marked inside the hollow broken craters. No trees or water relieved the dusky colour; but the great dust whirlwinds were swirling slowly along over the plains, the bodies, as the Arabs tell us, of huge malignant spirits, carrying destruction in their path. At the foot of the mountain little villages were perched on the rocks, and a stream glittered in a green valley. In most of these hamlets there is a temple facing the rising sun, which appears first from behind the great plain on the east.

On the west, high mountain walls, ridge behind ridge, reached out towards Beyrout, and, on the north, cedar clumps and ragged peaks, grey and dark with long sweeping shadows, were thrown in strong contrast against the shining sea.

The sun began to set, a deep ruby flush came over all the scene, and warm purple shadows crept slowly on. The Sea of Galilee was lit up with a delicate greenish-yellow hue, between its dim walls of hill. The flush died out in a few minutes, and a pale, steel-coloured shade succeeded, although to us, at a height of 9150 feet, the sun was still visible, and the rocks around us still ruddy.

A long pyramidal shadow slid down to the eastern foot of Hermon, and crept across the great plain; Damascus was swallowed up by it, and finally the pointed end of the shadow stood out distinctly against the sky--a dusky cone of dull colour against the flush of the afterglow. It was the shadow of the mountain itself, stretching away for seventy miles across the plain--the most marvellous shadow perhaps to be seen anywhere.

The sun underwent strange changes of shape in the thick vapours--now almost square, now like a domed temple--until at length it slid into the sea, and went out like a blue spark.

Our tent was pitched in the hollow, and six beds crowded into it. Until one in the morning we continued to observe the stars, but the cold was very considerable, though no snow was left, and the only water we had was fetched from a spring about a third of the way down, and tasted horribly of the goat-skin. In the morning I ran to the peak, and saw the sun emerge behind the distant plain, and the great conical shadow, stretching over the sea and against the western sky, becoming gradually more blunt, until it shrivelled up and was lost upon the hills beneath.

The top of Hermon consists of three rocky peaks; two, north and south, of equal height--the third, to the west, considerably lower. On the southern peak are the ruins called Kŭsr esh Shabîb--a rock-hewn hollow or trench, and a circular dwarf-wall, with a temple just below the peak on the south. On the plateau is a rudely-excavated cave, with a rock-cut pillar supporting the roof, and a flat space levelled above, probably once the floor of a building over the cave. Of all these objects of interest we made careful plans, as well as of the shape of the summit.

There is one remarkable natural peculiarity of Hermon still to be noticed--namely, the extreme rapidity of the formation of cloud on the summit. In a few minutes a thick cap forms over the top of the mountain, and as quickly disperses and entirely disappears.

In the accounts of our Lord’s Transfiguration, we read that whilst staying at Cæsarea Philippi, He retired with His disciples to a “high mountain apart;” and there can be but little doubt that some part of Hermon, and very probably the summit, is intended. From the earliest period the mountain has been a sacred place; in later times it was covered with temples; to the present day it is a place of retreat for the Druses. This lofty solitary peak seems wonderfully appropriate for the scene of so important an event; and in this connection the cloud formation is most interesting, if we remember the cloud which suddenly overshadowed the Apostles and as suddenly cleared away, when they found “no man any more, save Jesus only, with themselves.” (Mark ix. 8.)