Nothing more marks the contrast between the religions of the Greeks and Romans and of the Egyptians, or rather between the genius of the two civilizations, than their treatment of sacred edifices. And it is all the more to be noted, because the more modern nations accepted without reserve any god or object of veneration or mystery in the Egyptian pantheon. The Roman occupants of the temple of Philæ sacrificed without scruple upon the altars of Osiris, and the voluptuous Græco-Romans of Pompeii built a temple to Isis. Yet always and everywhere the Grecians and the Romans sought conspicuous situations for the temples of the gods; they felt, as did our Pilgrim Fathers, who planted their meeting-houses on the windiest hills of New England, that the deity was most honored when the house of his worship was most visible to men; but the Egyptians, on the contrary, buried the magnificence of their temples within wall around wall, and permitted not a hint of their splendor to the world outside. It is worth while to notice also that the Assyrians did not share the contemporary reticence of the Egyptians, but built their altars and temples high above the plain in pyramidal stages; and if we may judge by this platform at Ba'albek, the Phoenicians did not imitate the exclusive spirit of the Pharaonic worshippers.
We lingered, called again and again by the impatient dragoman, in this fascinating spot, amid the visible monuments of so many great races, bearing the marks of so many religious revolutions, and turned away with slow and reluctant steps, as those who abandon an illusion or have not yet thought out some suggestion of the imagination. We turned also with reluctance from a real illusion of the senses. In the clear atmosphere the ridge of Lebanon was startlingly near to us; the snow summit appeared to overhang Ba'albek as Vesuvius does Pompeii; and yet it is half a day's journey across the plain to the base of the mountain, and a whole day's journey from these ruins to the summit. But although this illusion of distance did not continue as we rode down the valley, we had on either hand the snow ranges all day, making by contrast with the brilliant colors of the plain a lovely picture.
XII.—ON THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS.
THE station at Stoura is a big stable and a dirty little inn, which has the kitchen in one shanty, the dining-room in another, and the beds in a third; a swift mountain stream runs behind it, and a grove of poplars on the banks moans and rustles in the wind that draws down the Lebanon gorge. It was after dark when we arrived, but whether our coming put the establishment into a fluster, I doubt; it seems to be in a chronic state of excitement. The inn was kept by Italians, who have a genius for this sort of hotel; the landlord was Andrea, but I suspect the real authority resided in his plump, bright, vivacious wife. They had an heir, however, a boy of eight, who proved to be the tyrant of the house when he appeared upon the scene. The servants were a tall slender Syrian girl, an active and irresponsible boy, and a dark-eyed little maid, in the limp and dirty single garment which orphans always wear on the stage, and who in fact was an orphan, and appeared to take the full benefit of her neglected and jolly life. The whole establishment was on a lark, and in a perpetual giggle, and communicated its overflowing good-humor even to tired travellers. The well-favored little wife, who exhibited the extremes of fortune in a diamond ring and a torn and draggled calico gown, sputtered alternately French and Italian like a magpie, laughed with a contagious merriment, and actually made the cheerless accommodations she offered us appear desirable. The whole family waited on us, or rather kept us waiting on them, at table, bringing us a dish now and then as if its production were a joke, talking all the while among themselves in Arabic, and apparently about us, and laughing at their own observations, until we, even, came to conceive ourselves as a party in a most comical light; and so amusing did we grow that the slim girl and the sorry orphan were forced to rush into a corner every few minutes and laugh it out.
I spent a pleasant hour in the kitchen,—an isolated, smoke-dried room with an earth floor,—endeavoring to warm my feet at the little fires of charcoal kindled in holes on top of a bank of earth and stone, and watching the pranks of this merry and industrious family. The little heir amused himself by pounding the orphan, kicking the shins of the boy, and dashing water in the face of the slim girl,—treatment which the servants dared not resent, since the father laughed over it as an exhibition of bravery and vivacity. Fragrant steam came from a pot, in which quail were stewing for the passengers by the night mail, and each person who appeared in the kitchen, in turn, gave this pot a stir; the lively boy pounded coffee in a big mortar, put charcoal on the fire, had a tussle with the heir, threw a handspring, doing nothing a minute at a time; the orphan slid in with a bucket of water, slopping it in all directions; the heir set up a howl and kicked his father because he was not allowed to kick the orphan any more; the little wife came in like a breeze, whisking everybody one side, and sympathized with dear little Hobby, whose cruel and ugly papa was holding the love from barking his father's shins. You do not often see a family that enjoys itself so much as this.
It was late next morning when we tore ourselves from this enchanting household, and went at a good pace over the fertile plain, straight towards Anti-Lebanon, having a glimpse of the snow of Mount Hermon,—a long ridge peering over the hills to the? southeast, and crossing in turn the Litany and the deep Anjar, which bursts forth from a single fountain about a mile to the north. On our left we saw some remains of what was once a capital city, Chalcis, of unknown origin, but an old city before it was possessed by the Ptolemies, or by Mark Antony, and once the luxurious residence of the Herod family. At Medjel, a village scattered at the foot of small tells rising in the plain, we turned into the hills, leaving unvisited a conspicuous Roman temple on a peak above the town. The road winds gradually up a wady. As we left the plain, and looked back across it to Lebanon, the colors of Bukâ'. and the mountain gave us a new surprise; they were brilliant and yet soft, as gay and splendid as the rocks of the Yellowstone, and yet exquisitely blended as in a Persian rug.
The hill-country was almost uninhabited; except the stations and an occasional Bedaween camp there was small sign of occupation; the ground was uncultivated; peasants in rags were grubbing up the roots of cedars for fuel. We met Druses with trains of mules, Moslems with camels and mules, and long processions of white-topped wagons,—like the Western “prairie schooner”—drawn each by three mules tandem. Thirty and forty of these freight vehicles travel in company, and we were continually meeting or passing them; their number is an indication of the large trade that Damascus has with Beyrout and the Mediterranean. There is plenty of color in the people and in their costume. We were told that we could distinguish the Druses by their furtive and bad countenances; but for this information I should not have seen that they differed much from the Maronites; but I endeavored to see the treacherous villain in them. I have noticed in Syria that the Catholic travellers have a good opinion of the Maronites and hate the Druses, that the American residents think little of the Maronites, and that the English have a lenient side for the Druses. The Moslems consistently despise all of them. The Druse has been a puzzle. There are the same horrible stories current about him that were believed of the early Christians; the Moslem believes that infants are slain and eaten in his midnight assemblies, and that once a year the Druse community meets in a cavern at midnight, the lights are extinguished, and the sexes mingling by chance in the license of darkness choose companions for the year. But the Druse creed, long a secret, is now known; they are the disciples of Hâkim, a Khalif of the Fatimite dynasty; they believe in the unity of God and his latest manifestation in Hakim; they are as much a political as a religious society; they are accomplished hypocrites, cunning in plotting and bold in action; they profess to possess “the truth,” and having this, they are indifferent to externals, and are willing to be Moslems with the Moslems and Christians with the Christians, while inwardly feeling a contempt for both. They are the most supercilious of all the Eastern sects. What they are about to do is always the subject of anxiety in the Lebanon regions.
At the stations of the road we found usually a wretched family or two dwelling in a shanty, half stable and half café, always a woman with a baby in her arms, and the superabundant fountains for nourishing it displayed to all the world; generally some slatternly girls, and groups of rough muleteers and drivers smoking. At one, I remember a Jew who sold antique gems, rings, and coins, with a shocking face, which not only suggested the first fall of his race, but all the advantages he has since taken of his innocent fellows, by reason of his preoccupation of his position of knowledge and depravity.