Between Rashêya and this place we have seen two ancient wine presses, hewn out of the solid rock; they date over 2,000 perhaps 3,000 years back; they enable one to understand what building a wine press meant, and what a terrible loss and disappointment it would be to the builder, if, when he “looked for grapes, he found but wild grapes.” The Cactus hedges too, with which the vineyards are surrounded to keep out the “little foxes that spoil the vines,” also take great trouble and many years before they form that impenetrable barrier through which even the wild boar cannot break his way. We pass through Surghaya and halt for lunch in the Wady Yafûfeh, on the banks of the Saradah, which we cross by a single arched Saracenic bridge, and on resuming our journey leave on our left Nadu Shays, the reputed tomb of Seth. Ham is said to be buried a little further east. A beautiful panorama of Lebanon now bursts upon our view, separated from us by the great plain of the Bukâa, or valley of the Litany (the accursed river). We next pass near the village of Brêethen, thought to be the Beroshai of Samuel, and soon come in sight of the many-rilled orchard gardens and grand Acropolis of Baalbec, the great ancient shrine of Baal in Phœnicia, the Heliopolis, or City of the Sun of the Greeks and Romans, and the Baal-gad, according to many, of Joshua, formerly a station like Palmyra on the great caravan road from Tyre to India, which we may mention was the original overland route, and if history repeats itself will be so again. What shorter route to India can there be than rail to Brindisi, steamer to Corinth through the canal now being made to Piræus, across the Ægean, to Smyrna, and thence all the way by rail through the iron gates of Cilicia, viâ the two Antiochs, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia and Afghanistan, to India—there are no difficulties which modern engineers could not overcome. But perhaps we are waiting for the French or Germans to show the way.[[1]] Before entering the town we visit the ancient quarries out of which were hewn the enormous Cyclopean stones which formed the very ancient Phœnician or Hittite foundation. One block lies there already hewn but not quite separated from the quarry, it is about 70 feet long, 14 feet wide and 14 high, weighing some 10,000 tons; other large stones are seen lying about partially hewn—why they were thus left unfinished in the workshop—whether it was an Assyrian or Persian invader who made the busy mason so suddenly throw away the gavel to seize the sword will now never be known. We put up at a small hotel facing the ruins, and find it fairly comfortable; but are quite alone in our glory until late in the evening, when an English countess and her niece come in with two Turkish guards as guides, with whom they can only converse in the primitive language of signs—the result being that when next morning they want to see the ruins, they are taken from them, to a hill some miles off, where they see them—from a distance—a fine effect probably, but not what was wanted. However, we coming to the rescue, they get a closer inspection in the afternoon, and having previously gone through it all ourselves, are quite eloquent in dragomanic descriptions. Their guides, if not useful as Cicerones, were we must admit extremely picturesque and pleasant barbarians. The younger lady has we believe by this time immortalized them and the ruins on canvas, and we hope with supreme effect, for we planted the fair artist on a high pinnacle of the Temple from which the coup d’oeil was magnificent.
[1]. Since writing the above we hear that the Porte are about to grant a firman to make a railway from Ismid to Bagdad.
Soon after, we see another instance of the inconvenience of having a guide whose language is unintelligible. On our way to Beyrût we meet a man and his horse at cross purposes, endeavouring in vain to find out the reason from his Arab guide. He appeals to us; “Well,” we say, “you and your horse certainly do not appear to be friends.” “No,” the traveller replies, “he does not understand me, and I do not understand my guide, who only speaks Arabic; my horse is a brute.” “Not so, my friend,” we rejoin, “you are riding him with an Arab bridle in English fashion.” He was, in fact, unknowingly the greater brute of the two, for he was torturing the poor beast, and the injured animal might, if he had been so gifted as the Scriptural ass, have appropriately replied, “Tu quoque brute.” The Arab bit is in the shape of a gridiron (minus interior bars), a ring hangs from the flat broad end of it, in which the lower jaw of the animal is placed the handle of the gridiron is in the mouth, and by a pull of the reins is forced up into the roof of the mouth, causing considerable pain; the reins are bunched in the hand, and the animal is guided by laying the left rein across the neck when wishing to go to the right, and vice versâ. Pulling the rein English fashion would simply hurt and puzzle the animal. We explain the process and leave the man and his beast better friends; they now understand each other. (How many of us would also like each other better if we were less impatient, and took more trouble to understand). Horse and rider now go on their way as reconciled to one another as Balaam to the ass after the departure of the Angel.
A Street called “Straight,” Damascus.
CHAPTER VI.—Baalbec.
Baalbec, more correctly, we believe, Baalbak, is situated about forty-five miles north of Damascus but slightly to the west, on the lowest slope of Anti-Lebanon, near the source of the Leontes or Litany. The Litany and Orontes rivers rise six miles west from Baalbec within one mile of each other. The Litany runs west down the Bukâa or Cœlesyria, and falls into the sea between Sidon and Beyrût. The Orontes, El Asi or rebellious river, so called because it changes its course in a remarkable manner, flows north and falls into the Gulf of Antioch. Baalbec is the point where the great roads from Damascus, Tyre, Beyrût and Tripoli converge, hence probably its great ancient importance, and it was also the entrance gate to Padan Aram or Upper Syria where Terah lived, whence Abram emigrated and whither Jacob went to seek a wife among the daughters of his uncle Laban, who was also his cousin and subsequently his father-in-law, a very mixed up series of relationships; even more puzzling than that which befell the proverbial American who married his stepmother’s mother, and was driven to despair, insanity and death, because he never could make out what relation he was to himself.