About eight o’clock of the next day, we passed, among an amphitheatre of hills, the head waters of the Farrady, which here bursts into daylight amid a little paradise of verdure; thence our course was generally over high and barren ridges, deserted by the very insects. As we approached once more the plain of Coelo-Syria, we reached another stream, and soon after this we passed on our left the Tomb of Abel!! still in good repair. As such, at least, is regarded, both by Musselmen and Christians, a grave-shaped mound of earth, 113 feet in length. Near it are two pillars, on which Abel is said to have presented his offerings; and they tell us that yearly, in the month of December, fire descends from heaven and rests on their summit. “As I did not see this,” says El Devoto Perigrino, “and it is told me by Christians who are not very scrupulous, I have not given it much credit.”
Proceeding on, again over bare and desolate ridges, we came, at 1 P.M. to where a gorge in the mountain obstructed our path, and casting our eyes to the left, we saw, just beyond its outlet in the plain of Coelo-Syria, a profusion of majestic ruins.
These were the temples of Balbec.
At the head of the little valley at our feet we saw also a fountain, so large and clear, and cool-looking, that it immediately acted as a magnet, and we determined to be the companions of the Naiads during our visit here. So our tents were pitched beneath some fine spreading trees, on a green island formed by the branching of the waters, a few yards from the fountain.
This fountain, called Rosalyn by the natives, is about fifty feet in diameter, and lies embosomed among gently sloping hills, the only opening being on the west of it, where the eye rests on the ruins of Balbec, and beyond them, on the snowy summits of Lebanon. Towards one side of it is a small island, on which, and also on the main land adjoining, are ruins, apparently of an ancient temple; but at present it is impossible to determine their character.
Having pitched our tents, and disposed our baggage, and cooled our feverish faces in the stream, we prepared—to visit the ruins? no, but to take a nap. And there was good philosophy in this; for he who, after a long journey to see an interesting object, rushes up with eyes full of dust and faculties all jaded, does injustice to it, and gets but a modicum of satisfaction himself. If he would enjoy it to the full, let him first get a comfortable meal and then a little repose: the world, and every thing in it, will then be quite a different affair. If the reader’s journeying has been altogether in fancy or in books, he can have no idea how much the traveller’s pleasures are curtailed by these every day wants and feelings; and how often, when he expected to be in raptures, they keep him in incessant torments. “How magnificent are those ruins,” says enthusiasm to him: “yes, but how burning hot this sun,” says his poor, red, scaly face: “why don’t you break out into rapturous exclamations at this splendid colonnade?” cry upbraidingly, reason, and taste and fancy, all combined. “Why, I can’t,” he groans pettishly; “don’t you see my mouth is parched up with thirst, and my tongue is as dry as if it belonged to a mummy.” “Come, come, look,” exclaims his guide; “here, this way is something truly wonderful!” “What! away there,” he answers; “why I am already almost inanimate from fatigue, my feet are blistered, and that roll down yonder precipice has left me in the state of a mere jelly.”
The reader has doubtless often thought that he would like to walk the streets of the disentombed Pompeii, and has been in raptures as he imagined himself amid its remains. Yes, but let him first imagine himself on the way to it; for travelling does not give one the power of the magic Arabian lamp. Well, let us suppose him making the experiment of getting there. In the first place, if he does not desire the comfort of being cheated out of four times the honest price for the conveyance, he has to bargain at Naples—no, that is not the word—he has to get angry, and scold and quarrel, or at least to go through the appearance of all this, about his carriage; also about the fare to him who drives, and to him who rides behind; and perhaps about the price of the horses’ feed. You start at length; and, except that in the thronged road one is in constant dread of jolts or an upset, all goes on well for a little while; but the beggars,—here they come: they mark the foreigner at a distance, and are really such pitiful objects that one’s heart bleeds for them. The way up hill is occupied by the aged, or by cripples, or by the blind with a boy to lead them: the level spots by the more robust: and the descent by children, who start from the side of their haggard parents, and cry “miseracordia, famine, sickness,” till your ears tingle, and your fancy is filled with all kinds of diseases and their associations. And the dust, the dust! you are now off from the paved streets of Resina, and a hundred vehicles besides your own are kicking up dust enough to satisfy the ambition of twenty Napoleons: it settles on your new coat, and fills your eyes, and sets you to sneezing; and still amid it all you hear the cry of “miseracordia,” “orphans,” “famine,” “disease.” Next comes a long level spot, and here the beggars leave you; and now start up a dozen urchins, who seem so many Mercuries with winged feet, so rapidly do they follow your godship as you sail along in the cloud—of dust. They would pick your pockets, too, if they could. And now look at them; they turn heels over head, and making a wheel of their extended arms and legs, whirl along by your side: they make music for you by chuckling their chin with the fist; they pick up the dust, and, rubbing it all over their faces, then grin and wriggle, and look like so many imps escaped up from the flames of Vesuvius: and you try in vain to bribe them to stay behind by tossing them some money. They pick it up, and follow you for more. At last you are at the gate of Pompeii, and your carriage comes to a halt; but here, children, with all kinds of deformed limbs, crawl about, and dragging themselves to your feet, call upon you for compassion. And while you yield to pity and think you are doing a charitable act, you are filled with horror on being informed that, in the opinion of physicians who have examined them, their limbs have probably been distorted thus on purpose, in order to make them objects of charity; and that you have been only encouraging their inhuman masters in their iniquitous gains. But at length you are in the city, and you hope now to be at peace. No. You are accompanied all through it by a soldier, who tells you plainly, by his looks and by his manner of watching you, that he believes you only want an opportunity to turn thief and steal some of the relics; and he expects too to be paid for his strict attentions. And you will find a dozen official showmen there, expecting to be paid, and they would not be satisfied if you were to spend a fortune in presents to them. And no matter how liberal you may have been, when you go away you leave behind you faces, looking at least, as if they thought you mean. The rogues! how indignant you feel at them! And this is the strongest feeling which you carry away with you, and it ever afterwards is associated in your mind with Pompeii.
Yes, this is a plain account of a visit to Pompeii. How greatly obliged, then, are the public, to those writers who enable them to travel without the vexations of travel; and to grow sentimental or to grow wise, without growing—hungry; for I will warrant to every man by the time he gets from Pompeii to Naples, not only a good covering of dust, but a famous appetite.
And yet, I suppose the reader is scolding because I have not already set him down quietly among the ruins of Balbec, forgetting that we ourselves had yet a walk of two miles through the hot sun before we could reach them.
These ruins of Balbec, which stand here without a history and without a name, are indeed worthy of all the admiration that has been bestowed upon them. They are at one side of the present village or town of Balbec, a miserable place of a few hundred hovels, and in no wise diverting the attention from them as we approach: its squalid appearance, perhaps, heightens their effect. They rise high above all other objects, so as to be conspicuous at a great distance; and as we approach, our wonder and admiration are mingled with sadness to think that such magnificent edifices should have been so mutilated by the hand of violence and of time; and yet this sadness increases our interest in them.