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see the kindliness and courtesy wherewith, when the cavalcade arrives at the camping-ground, he advances to the father's palanquin, takes him in his arms, and lifts him to the ground, carrying him with the utmost gentleness, and apparently with no effort at all. Then, with stately grace, he will move toward whichever of the ladies is still on horseback, and, silently laying one hand on her rein, will point with the other to his own shoulder, meaning that she is to lean thereon as she dismounts.

The travellers now find themselves once more in a region of villages, which are interesting in their way, though most of our friends look back with regret to the time when they sometimes travelled all day without seeing a human being except their own people, and camped at night under an unbroken expanse of sky, surrounded on all sides by the vast tracts of the lonely desert. It is exceedingly amusing to arrive at a village where Europeans are an altogether unknown curiosity. Nearly the whole population come forth to witness the arrival, and follow the outlandish creatures to their tent doors, where they stand in mute astonishment watching with wide-open, serious eyes the progress of afternoon tea. By this line of conduct they give to the strangers the best possible opportunity of gazing at them, and the English folk are never weary of admiring their graceful attitudes, picturesque dresses, and (sometimes) very beautiful faces. Children almost always predominate, and very charming children they are, especially the little girls, some of whom are wonderfully handsome. If you leave your tent door open you are sure to have a whole ring of these little Arabesses gathered round it, and watching your movements with the profoundest admiration. Their mothers and grown-up sisters also take a very deep interest in the English ladies and their strange attire, and are never tired of stroking their silk kefiyehs, marvelling at the astonishingly fair hair of some of them, and pitying their sunburnt faces. They are always most anxious to know what relations they are to one another, and it becomes imperatively necessary to learn sufficient Arabic wherewith to explain, with the help of signs, that they are four sisters with their father, and a friend. When asked after their mother, they point to the ground, and are answered by sad faces of intelligent sympathy.

The journey from Palmyra to Baalbek has now been more or less described; but

the present paper having been submitted to the searching criticism of the practicalminded Philippa, she pronounces that "there is no backbone in it." By way of supplying this lamentable defect, we will now conclude with one of her own eminently vertebrate descriptions, extracted from the pages of the family journal :

"On Ascension day (May 15th), leaving Karyatên, we rode across the desert westwards, and in about two hours began to ascend the lower slopes of the mountains bounding it in that direction. A picturesque little couple on a donkey, a mother and her son (a boy of about thirteen), came with us from Karyatên as far as the first village we reached, in order that they might have the benefit of our protection on the road. Besides themselves, the unfortunate little donkey seemed to be carrying a stock of things for sale, and some household goods into the bargain. El Breij, where we camped that night, looked very picturesque as we approached it, lying as it does near the eastern slope of the Anti-Lebanon. The village seems miserable enough when one gets near, but the people who crowded to see us seemed healthy, and most of them very goodlooking. El Breij is on the way from Damascus to Homs, and a carriage road is actually in process of being made be tween the two cities.

"The next day we had a beautiful ride through mountainous country. Our route lay along a wady which traverses this part of Anti-Lebanon; further on it develops into a splendid gorge, whose rocky, mountainous sides are very grand. About seven hours' ride brought us to Ras Baalbek, a village on the western slopes of the Anti-Lebanon, from whence one looks across the valley to the snowy ridges of Lebanon.

"Next morning we started for Baalbek, and rode all day along the valley, which takes a south-westerly direction. The mountain ranges on either side are very beautiful; there is a good deal of snow even on the lower ridges of the Lebanon, and it has not yet disappeared from the Anti-Lebanon range. We had beautiful views of the Mount Sunin (over eightyfive hundred feet high), and far away in the distance we at last saw Mount Hermon again. A good part of our path lay by the side of a stream which comes from one of the sources of the Orontes, and flows in a northerly direction till, joined by other streams, it forms that river. In this stream we saw a snake of a tawny-brown color swimming at full speed, till, perceiv

ing us, he went to the bottom and lay there, refusing to stir for any amount of stones thrown at him. A handsome tortoise was picked up this morning, and Irene has decided to appropriate him; so we have another travelling companion, whose constitution, it is hoped, will prove tougher than that of the infant bustard. "At last, as we came round the shoulder of a hill, we had a beautiful view of our destination, the ruins of Baalbek." But they must be relegated to the next chapter.

XVII.

BAALBEK AND THE LEBANON.

NOT more than one clear day can be devoted to Baalbek. Our friends visit first the enormous hewn stone (shaped, but not entirely detached) left in the quarry by the ancient Phoenician builders, and intended, apparently, for the unfinished north wall of the platform on which stands the great Temple of Baal. It is 68 feet long, 14 feet 2 inches high, and 13 feet 11 inches broad, containing over thirteen thousand cubic feet.

As for the ruins of the great temples, although far less extensive than those of Palmyra, they are immeasurably grander, and are the most beautiful ruins ever be. held by our travellers, though not fascinatingly weird and strange, like the more ancient Egyptian temples. The visitors first explore the vaults in some of the massive substructures, which contain Phoenician masonry of unknown antiquity, dating from a period far more remote than that of the classic temples above, built in the days of Antoninus Pius. Emerging from these vaults, they turn to the Temple of the Sun, with its stately colonnade of Corinthian columns sixty-five feet high supporting a sculptured roof of wonderful richness. Then, passing through the beautiful entrance in the eastern face, they stand in bewildered admiration of the profusion of interior sculptures, fragments of which are beautifully preserved."

Next they make their way to the great Temple of Baal, and marvel most of all at the remaining six columns of its immense colonnade. Each column has a circumference of twenty-two feet, and their height (including base and Corinthian capital) is seventy-five feet. They are furthermore crowned by an entablature fourteen feet high, which, with its deep moulding and profusion of sculptured ornament, is said to be hardly surpassed in the world. The capitals and bases are each but a single

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block of stone, the mighty shafts are each composed of three blocks, and the entablature, reaching from column to column, of one block. There were originally fiftyfour such columns.

To any one standing at the lower level of the Temple of the Sun, it is indescribably impressive to look upward at the stately giants that remain, conspicuous against the clear blue sky, the rich tints of the stone made more resplendent by the golden Syrian sunshine.

After long wandering about the great Temple of Baal, ever discovering fresh fragments of deep mouldings and exquisite sculpture, the travellers walk round on the outside of the exterior walls of the platform on which the temple stands, till they reach the western side. Here the wall rises about fifty feet above the surface of the ground, and contains the three huge stones of world-wide renown. They are each from sixty-three to sixty-four feet long, and in height and thickness thirteen feet. They are raised to a height of twenty feet above the ground. Immediately beneath them is a course of masonry wherein each stone is about thirty feet long and thirteen feet high. The whole of this platform is of unknown antiquity, built probably by the ancient Phoenicians.

Thence they go to visit the beautiful little Temple of Venus, which stands at some distance from the others, but is of the same age and style. Very beautiful it looks, with its rich mouldings lit up by the evening sunshine, and contrasting with the vivid green of the surrounding trees.

Thus ends our travellers' one view of some of the most marvellous ruins in the world. To see them thoroughly in so short a time is a manifest impossibility, but even so superficial an examination leaves a profound impression not to be easily obliterated.

A very sad thing has to be done in the course of this day- viz., saying good-bye to Sheikh Nasr, who is departing for Beyrout. He comes into the sitting-tent, and silently taking the hand of each one of the travellers, kisses his or her right shoulder, and so departs. This leavetaking throws somewhat of a shadow over the day, which should have been an especially merry one, seeing that it is Cæsar's birthday. Returning from the ruins a little before sunset, the travellers find him entertaining quite a crowd of congratulating friends and cousins, who sit round in a ring in front of the sitting-tent, with Cæsar in the middle.

"This lady speaks Greek, Miss Se

baste," says he, and the ill-fated Sebaste | lying far below, appear like five tiny finds herself confronted without escape specks of white, and the travellers can by a very charming lady in an Oriental silk mantle, who looks at her expectantly. “ 'Eλλŋviorì Aéye?" falters Sebaste, sure that she is talking neither modern Greek nor ancient.

"Mahora," exclaims the lady, in a sprightly manner; whereupon Sebaste, greatly encouraged, plunges into an elab orate sentence of her best Attic, at the end of which it appears that the Greek lady has understood never a word, so that the humiliated Atticist is fain to beat a retreat to her tent, and stay there.

The travellers are very curious, it being Cæsar's birthday, to find out the age of that anomalous compound of boyish enterprise and mature experience; so the father casually remarks during supper, "I suppose, Cæsar, you are about fifty today?" Whereupon Cæsar laughs, and says he is twenty, sir; and to no more than twenty can he be brought to confess. The English are amused to discover the juvenility of their travelled dragoman, who has been everywhere, and knows everything, and whom they treat with so much deference. In the evening there is a grand illumination of the camp, and fireworks withal (of Damascus production), not unworthy of the festal occasion.

The next day our friends ride across the Buka'a valley, the beautiful plain which separates Anti-Lebanon from the Lebanon chain. Not far from Baalbek they make a little detour to inspect a monumental column standing alone in the plain. The inscription thereupon being no longer legible, its date and significance seem to have been forgotten.

At last they leave the plain and ascend the rocky slopes at the foot of Lebanon as far as the village of Ainêta, where they camp. From the tent doors they have one of the loveliest views on which their eyes have hitherto feasted themselves. Above them rise the gigantic slopes of Lebanon, culminating in sheets of dazzling snow, while far away across the plain the range of Anti-Lebanon draws up to the snowy peaks of Hermon, emerging from a flood of soft blue shadow.

The following day is devoted to an expedition to the cedars of Lebanon - some old trees still preserved as a specimen of the ancient glories of the cedar forest in the days of David and Solomon. To-day the Syrian steeds excel themselves in the mountaineering line, bravely mounting up the steep, zigzag path, climbing over opposing rocks, and so forth, till the tents,

look away over the broad green plains eastward to the towering heights of AntiLebanon (which, as our friends rise higher and higher, rear themselves upward to an astonishing altitude), and southward to the snow-fields of Hermon shining in the morning sunlight. Soon the air grows keener, and at length they come to the snow, of which they have to cross several broad patches, much to the astonishment of their steeds, who nibble at it to begin with, but finding it unsatisfactory, plod along in a resigned and disconsolate fashion; whereas the Arabs are wild with the delight of a snowball match, passing up handfuls of snow to the riders, that they, too, may play with the marvellous stuff.

Then they suddenly arrive at the topmost ridge of the pass of the Jebel-el-Arz,* seventy-seven hundred feet above the sealevel; and there before them, with the grand mountain-gorge of the Kadisha leading down towards it, lies the Mediterranean, stretching away westward in boundless plains of soft, bright blue, or rather, as it seems,† rising up in a mighty towering cliff; while far out to sea, halfway up the face of that radiant wall of blue, float whole trains and processions of fleecy white clouds shining in the dazzling sunlight.

They descend on the other side by a path steeper if possible than that which they mounted, and in due time they behold on the vast sweep of the mountain-side a single patch of green the cedars at last! While still at a distance you can hear the notes of the birds which make their nests there, and "sing among the branches;" and when you enter the broad-spreading shade (though not more than about four hundred cedars remain), you find yourself in a genuine fragment of ancient forest, the grand old trees as stately now, the cone-covered ground beneath them as deeply shaded, and the sweet air around as redolent of the fragrant cedar wood as when all the mountain-side was covered by their kith and kin.

In the midst of the cedars there is a little Maronite church, used for service only once a year (on the Feast of the Trans

That is, "The Cedar Mountain."

eye, the mind (unable to grasp the idea of so vast an The horizon being apparently on a level with the expanse) refuses to believe that it is in reality a flat

who have looked over the sea from a great height, but is none the less impressive when experienced for the first time.

surface. This curious delusion is no doubt familiar to

figuration), and left in a dreadful state of neglect. Not far from this our friends take luncheon, and then they wander about among the old superannuated giants of the forest"the cedars of Lebanon which Thou hast planted."

After a time the mountain mists gathering on the heights overhead give warning that they must start on their return So they once more mount their steeds, journey if they desire not to be beclouded. and, again ascending the pass, pick their steep way down the other side. In crossing one of the snowdrifts near the summit, Abu Hassan, who is on foot, creates great amusement by suddenly toppling over on the incline of hardened snow, making an extraordinary picture as, in his baggy Eastern costume, he rolls over and over down the steep descent. He quite appre ciates the joke himself, and rather enjoys it than otherwise,

their heart's content. Not far from the tents a party of men in their dignified Eastern robes are solemnly going through a kind of dance in a ring, which appears very comic to Western eyes.

The following day is spent in travelling along that same plain at the foot of those same mountains. Baalbek, opposite which they seemed to stay (so broad is the expanse of plain) during the greater part of yesterday's march, is now finally left be hind, and they are journeying onward towards the snowy peaks of Hermon, which rise up far to the southward, and recede and recede as though they would lure them on forever. A melancholy event takes place to-day, for they enter upon what is undeniably neither more nor less than a good, smooth, hard carriage-road.

"Good-bye to the mountains and the valleys!" said Cæsar, and all the travellers join in a chorus of lamentation, heaping all the opprobrious epithets they can think of on carriage-roads in general and this one in particular together with telegraph wires, stone houses, and all other marks of civilization whatsoever. Alas!

XVIII.

CONCLUSION.

FROM ZAHLEH TO BEYROUT.

The next day they once more set forth on their travels, and for some distance retrace the way by which they came from Baalbek the day before yesterday, descending the rocky slopes till they reach the broad plain of the Buka'a, across which the end of their pilgrimage is fast apmay be seen the dark green patch of veg-proaching now. etation where stand the ruins of Baalbek, embowered in clustering trees. They then diverge from the Baalbek track, turning to the right and skirting the foot of the Lebanon. During the morning they are much delighted by a lovely mirage to the southward, quite as beautiful as any they saw in the desert. A broad lake, dotted with numbers of rocky islets, filled up the end of the broad valley, its clear waters shining in the sunlight; but not long have they admired it when it slowly dries up before their eyes, and finally vanishes. About midday a further diversion is caused by the sight of a large number of storks wading about in the standing corn, which covers the rich soil of the plain, and is already more or less in ear.

Shortly before arriving at the campingground, they pass, near one of the innumerable villages with unpronounceable names, the Tomb of the Prophet Joseph, where, say the Moslems, the patriarch Joseph lies buried — a story quite as unfounded as all other Mohammedan traditions of the kind.

The tents are pitched at Neby Reshedi, a Moslem village, near which is another village entirely Christian. Ramadan being just over, to-day is a Mohammedan festival, wherefore all the folk of Neby Reshedi are out holiday-making, and come crowding round the strangers, staring to

WE left our travellers in the Buka'a valley, not far from the town of Zahleh. Their sad thoughts about the approaching end of their journey are a little distracted by the glories of the lovely scenery through which they are passing. At the end of the day they leave the plain, and enter a deep mountain-glen, which, when they have ascended for some distance, they finally arrive at Zahleh, the largest (and assuredly the most beautiful) village in the Lebanon. The town was captured in 1860 by the Druses, and there was a terrible massacre of the Christians. Its population now is ten thousand, almost all of whom are Christians. The houses are clustered in terraces up the side of the glen; and a very charming picture they make, rising steeply on each side of the stream which flows below, bordered by tall trees, while the rocky sides of the glen tower above in protecting grandeur.

The tents are pitched on a high knoll of grassy downland overlooking the town, a situation very like that which they occu pied at Shechem; and the view from the tiful. The people crowd round the visit tent doors is wonderfully grand and beau

ors, all in bright holiday attire womankind wearing light-colored cotton dresses, and the pretty white muslin veils which, when wound about the head and thrown over the shoulder, are so charmingly becoming. Some of the children can talk a little English.

"Where did you learn English?" asks Sebaste of a small boy. "In the school,'

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says he.

'Why are you not in school now?" "It is a holy-day. The Lord went to heaven."

the farther on. What that wicked ruin has got into its head I know not; but certain it is that it plays at hide-and-seek round the rocky hillsides, gets farther away instead of nearer, and finally vanishes altogether, so that the riders begin to grow bewildered, and also to feel some twinges of compunction at having brought their horses over such rocky ground on what seems likely to prove but a wild-goose chase after all. Just at this moment, tearing over the break-neck rocks, up gallops the Cæsar, and with eyes flashing wrath, though with his usual gentle politeness, asks whither they are going, tells them that the ruin is two hours distant (a statement not to be taken too literally), and placing himself at their head, leads them back to the road like so many sheep. They find it rather difficult to answer all the sympathetic inquiries of the others as to the interior wonders of that unconscionable ruin.

"That means," says Sophia," that this is the Feast of Ascension in the Greek Church the octave of our own."

The next morning our friends regain the valley, and for several hours journey on as aforetime at the foot of the Lebanon chain, which towers above them on their right while on their left stretches the broad, smooth, green plain, bounded by the purple heights of Anti-Lebanon, which trend away towards the south till they rise up before them in the shining peaks of Hermon. It is a view not soon to be forgotten, and the colors thereof are marvellous, first the soft, rich green of the plain, then the purple mountain-slopes, transfigured by a dazzling haze of all tender hues, and above all, the cloudless blue of the Syrian sky.

Farther on Cæsar points out a building used for storing the Lebanon snow, which, says he, is bought up from year to year for £200 or £300 and taken to Beyrout, where it is sold and used for cooling sherbet, etc. They also see at some distance a group of buildings devoted to the manufacture of silk. The slopes of Lebanon are to a great extent covered with young mulberry-trees hereabout, grown for the support of silkworms.

Toward midday they begin to mount the rocky slopes of Lebanon to their right; the plain sinks rapidly beneath Luncheon is eaten high up in the mounthem, the distant Hermon alone remain-tains, near the Khan Sofar, and the tents ing almost unchanged; and so they rise higher and higher till they gain the summit of the Lebanon Pass, five thousand and sixty feet above the sea-level, whence they obtain wonderful glimpses of the broad, bright, blue sea, and, alas! of unwelcome, unwished - for, uncalled - for, wholly superfluous Beyrout at last.

Shortly after leaving the plain the travellers are called upon to behold and admire the Tomb of Noah, wherein, say the Moslems, Noah lies buried. The tomb is about one hundred and twenty feet long, by two or at most three feet broad. Poor Noah seems to have been very thin for his height!

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are pitched lower down in a vineyard (some of the tent-cords being fastened to the vine-stems), whence there is a wonderful view of Beyrout lying far below, and beyond, the high wall of the brightly gleaming sea.

A thick cloud hides the western sun, but just leaves the horizon clear, so that, as the invisible sun sinks lower and lower, our friends can see his bright reflection lying across the steep waters toward them, like a pillar of dazzling light. Just as the pale ball of the rayless sun appears in the fringe of the cloud, the inexorable Abu Said suddenly ejaculates, in a sepulchral voice," Dinner ready!" and though they allow the "soop of the evening " to grow nearly cold, they behold not the actual sun-setting. This is the last supper in camp, and a somewhat melancholy repast, though the father tries to make it more cheerful by beautifully decorating the table with ferns gathered near the tents, and some lovely garden roses which suddenly make their appearance, having been brought in by some of the Arabs,

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