The plague was occasionally making its appearance in different families, so that I could visit no one without some degree of apprehension. Respecting the modern town, this is the information I collected. It contained now no more than from 120 to 150 families, about thirty of which were Catholics.[4] The Mahometan inhabitants were Metoualys or Shyas.[5] Nothing could present a more miserable appearance than the streets. Five sixths of the old town were now covered with rubbish. Wretchedness was depicted in the rags and looks of the inhabitants, and poverty in the palace of the emir. It is said that the emir himself, rendered desperate by the little quiet which the pasha of Damascus allowed him, had, of his own accord, destroyed whole streets, that his town might be no longer an object of covetousness to him. Bâlbec is situated in 33° 50 N. I observed two mosques, Jamâ el Malak and Baekret el Cadi. There were four gates to the town, which was divided into seven parishes. The district of Bâlbec contained twenty-five villages.
South and by east of the temple, at the distance of a quarter of a mile, is an elevation which commands the town, and affords a beautiful view of the ruins and of the surrounding country. On the top of this eminence was a well, hewn out of the rock, of a square form, but now filled up with rubbish. The quarries, which supplied the stone for building the temple, are to the south-west of it. Viewed from this spot, the plain of the Bkâ seems to run north-east and south-west. The last visible point of Anti-Lebanon, seen from hence, lies north-east and by north half east, and the snowy summit of Mount Lebanon bore north-north-west.
I forbear to give any description of the Temple of the Sun. It was in the same state in which Volney saw it in 1784. The immense stones which form the escarpment of the south-west corner, and which are always mentioned by travellers with so much wonder, somewhat disfigure the edifice;[6] for their monstrous magnitude is so little in correspondence with the stones which form the upper part of the wall that they destroy all symmetry, and impress an idea of a building less in size than its component parts were intended for.
Lady Hester’s first inquiry was generally for a bath; and, when she had ascertained that there was one, having reposed herself for two or three days, she was desirous of going to it: so it was to be cleaned out for her reception. It was the afternoon, and, as is customary, the women, who always bathe from noon to sunset, were in it. The bathmaster, eager for the bakshysh, which he already anticipated he should get from a person reputed so rich as Lady Hester, requested me to wait a little, and said he would order the women out in a moment, and show it to me. Accordingly, he went into the centre room, vociferating as he entered, and then, driving them, undressed as they were, into a side chamber, he called me in. A few naked children continued to run about; whilst the women, curious to see a Frank, peeped out of their hiding-place, and cared very little what part of their person was exposed to view. Had I been anything but a medical man, neither the bathman nor I could have risked such an adventure on such an occasion. Thus the women of the east, veiled from head to foot, and shut up with bars and bolts, still find means, under the excuse of doctors, dervises, and relations, to admit men into places from which their jealous husbands in vain would exclude them.
RAS EL AYN, BÂLBEC.
The spot at which we were encamped was one of the most beautiful that it is possible to behold. It was at the extremity of a valley, on the first rise of the Anti-Lebanon, where several copious springs, bubbling up in a circular basin of antique masonry, formed a considerable rivulet, which watered the whole valley down to Bâlbec, one mile off. The valley was covered with the dense foliage of fruit-trees, cypresses, weeping-willows, plane, and fruit-trees of all kinds, through which a shady path led to the town. Close to the spring were the ruins of an old mosque, and the remains of a gateway, the lintel and posts of which were single blocks of stone. It probably had belonged to the temple; and the circular basins, which confined the springs, were once, to appearance, surmounted by domes. Many large loose stones lay round about. In looking from the bank, just above the spring, a variety of objects filled up the landscape. In the farthest distance were the two most elevated peaks of Mount Lebanon, covered with snow, contrasted with a lower chain of the mountain, wooded and dark-looking. Over the tops of the gardens rose, in magnificent grandeur, the six columns, which were still standing, of the inner temple. Dispersed in the field to the left of the mosque were the green tents, with asses and mules tied up among them. It was but to turn one’s back on these cheerful objects, when the barren declivities of Anti-Lebanon presented themselves, heightening the beauty of the mixed scenery at their foot by the contrast which they presented.
By an arrangement made previous to Lady Hester’s departure from Meshmûshy, Selim, the son of Mâlem Musa Koblán of Hamah, of whom mention has been made during our stay at that place, was to meet her here; but, as he had not come, my servant was despatched on a mule with a letter to him. This necessarily detained us at Bâlbec; and, when the ruins had been seen, the governor visited, and the prospects round about admired, a stay here became somewhat irksome: as the plague was so much increased that it was necessary to abstain from entering people’s houses.
The death of a Sayd or Sherýf of the plague alarmed the governor so much, that he removed soon afterwards with his household to a castle at a small distance. But the motive he assigned was not considered by us as the real one: for we thought that he was either afraid of Selim’s coming, of which he had heard, considering that he might be an emissary of the Pasha of Damascus, who had long endeavoured to lay hold of his person: or else, apprehensive that in our exposed encampment we might be plundered, he supposed, by removing himself from the town, he should not be considered as responsible, or charged by the Porte with reparation.
In the mean time, as it happened everywhere, Lady Hester never rode through the streets, or approached the town, but she was immediately followed by several persons. Ali, Emir of Derny,[7] was so far attracted by curiosity as to depart from his dignity and ride round our encampment, in the wish of getting a sight of her. Affairs with Emir Jahjáh had brought him from his principality, which is on the north extremity of Mount Lebanon, down to Bâlbec, and his martial air, as he rode along with a dozen attendants, struck me very forcibly; but Lady Hester did not see him.