The scene is wild, strange, grand, and gloomy. Ruins heaped on ruins, rows and rows of columns with great irregular gaps where Time and man have performed the work of destruction; huge pillars rising singly and in groups, scattered masses of enormous stones, broken arches and gateways and porticos, walls of immense strength encircling what was once the city, and in the back ground the great Temple of the Sun, these form the picture. Baalbek is humble in our minds as we look at Palmyra. No other ruin in Syria can compare with this. As we rode along the dreary stretch from Kuryetein to Palmyra we tried to imagine the spectacle that was to be revealed to us, but our imagination fell far short of the reality. We forget our fatigue and as our camel kneels we dismount and stand lost in admiration and amazement.
The greatest of all the ruins in Palmyra is that of the Temple of the Sun. The edifice was originally a square court, measuring seven hundred and forty feet on each of the four sides, and its walls were seventy feet high. Near the centre of this court was the temple, composed of Corinthian columns, which supported an entablature elaborately sculptured and revealing a high state of art. The work here is quite equal to that at Baalbek, and the resemblance in many points is remarkable. The temple is much defaced, as it has been used both as a fortress and a mosque, and in the latter instance the pious Moslems sought to remove as much as possible the indications of a pagan origin. Time has been more kind than man; the clear air of the Desert has preserved the sculptures wherever man left them untouched, and many of them are now as clear and sharp as when the architect pronounced his work complete, and stood in triumph at the entrance of the once magnificent portico. Remember that the columns of the temple were almost seventy feet high, and that inside the court nearly a hundred columns still remain standing!
About three hundred yards from the temple is the entrance to the grand colonnade, which originally consisted of four rows of columns, extending from one end of the city to the other, a dis tance of nearly an English mile. The columns were each nearly sixty feet high, including base and capital, and of the fifteen hundred that originally composed it, nine-tenths have fallen. It is thought that Palmyra has at some time suffered from an earthquake, as in some places whole ranges of columns are thrown down in such a way as to indicate that their fall was simultaneous. No one knows when this work was erected, but from certain marks on the stones, it is attributed to the time of the Emperor Hadrian.
The temple and the colonnade are the great wonders of Palmyra, and I will not detract from them by attempting a description of the other ruins inclosed within the walls or scattered among the hills that surround the site of this wonderful city. Let us fix our attention on the two objects I have named.
Palmyra, or Tadmor, owes its origin to Solomon, King of Israel. In his time the route of travel and commerce to and from the East lay in this direction, and he determined to found a city which should protect it. He, therefore, as recorded in I Kings ix. 18, built Tadmor in the wilderness.
For nearly a thousand years subsequent to the time of King Solomon, the name of Tadmor does not appear, but it became noticeable about the beginning of the Christian Era. After its submission to the Emperor Hadrian, its greatness increased rapidly; then it underwent a series of varying fortunes, until about the beginning of the fourth century, when the time of its grandeur came to an end, and its decline and fall were rapid. In the twelfth century it had a population of more than four thousand; now the only inhabitants of Palmyra are a few dozens of dirty and sullen Arabs, who live in hovels erected in the court yard of the Temple of the Sun.
We spend a day at Palmyra, wandering among its ruins and musing upon Solomon, and Hadrian, and Zenobia, whose very names are unknown to the people now dwelling there. Early the next morning we resume our seats in the saddle and return to Damascus.
From Palmyra one can travel to Bagdad by way of Mossool, and I met several gentlemen who had made the journey. It is a fatiguing one and must be made partly in the saddle and partly on a raft, unless the traveller is fortunate enough to find a boat at Mossool. The shores of the river are somewhat monotonous, and the principal incidents of the route are the danger of an upset.
Bagdad is well known to us from the recurrence of its name so frequently in the Arabian Nights. A British official who visited it a few years ago, says that it covers an enormous space for an Oriental city. Its population is estimated at about eighty thousand. The chief part of it consists of Arabs and Turks, but there is a large colony of Persians and other Orientals, as well as a fair number of Christians, and a few Jews.
The town proper is on one side of the Tigris, which is spanned by a bridge of boats, but the fine houses are scattered on both