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.