Sunday, March 21.—Ras-el-ayn is a place where are the cisterns called Solomon's, supposed, according to the common tradition hereabouts, to have been made by that great king, as a part of his recompense to king Hiram for the supplies of materials sent by him toward the building of the temple. They are doubtless very ancient, but yet of a much later date than what this tradition ascribes to them. That they could not be built till since Alexander's time may be conjectured from this, amongst other arguments: because the aqueduct, which conveys the water from hence to Tyre, is carried over the neck of land by which Alexander, in his famous siege of this place, joined the city to the continent; and, as the cisterns cannot well be imagined to be more ancient than the aqueduct, so one may be sure the aqueduct cannot be older than the ground it stands upon. Of these cisterns there are three entire at this day, one about a furlong and a half distant from the sea, the other two a little farther up.
The former is of an octagonal figure, twenty-two yards in diameter. It is elevated above the ground, nine yards on the south side and six on the north; and, within, is said to be of an unfathomable deepness; but ten yards of line confuted that opinion. Its wall is of no better a material than gravel and small pebbles; but consolidated with so strong and tenacious a cement, that it seems to be all one entire vessel of rock. Upon the brink of it you have a walk round, eight feet broad, from which, descending by one step on the south side, and by two on the north, you have another walk twenty-one feet broad. All this structure, though so broad at top, is yet made hollow, so that the water comes in underneath the walks, insomuch that I could not, with a long rod, reach the extremity of the cavity. The whole vessel contains a vast body of excellent water, and is so well supplied from its fountain that, though there issues from it a stream like a brook, driving four mills between this place and the sea, yet it is always brim full. On the east side of this cistern was the ancient outlet of the water, by an aqueduct raised about six yards from the ground, and containing a channel one yard wide; but this is now stopped up and dry, the Turks having broke an outlet on the other side, deriving thence a stream for grinding their corn.
The aqueduct (now dry) is carried eastward about one hundred and twenty paces, and then approaches the two other cisterns, of which one is twelve, the other twenty yards square. These have each a little channel, by which they anciently rendered their waters into the aqueduct; and so the united streams of all the three cisterns were carried together to Tyre. You may trace out the aqueduct all along by the remaining fragments of it. It goes about one hour northward; and then, turning to the west at a small mount, where anciently stood a fort, but now a mosque, it proceeds over the isthmus into the city. As we passed by the aqueduct we observed in several places, on its sides and under its arches, rugged heaps of matter resembling rocks. These were produced by the leakage of the water, which petrified as it distilled from above, and, by the continual adherence of new matter, were grown to a large bulk. That which was most remarkable in them was the frame and configuration of their parts. They were composed of innumerable tubes of stone, of different sizes, cleaving to one another like icicles. Each tube had a small cavity in its centre, from which its parts were projected, in form of rays, to the circumference, after the manner of the stones vulgarly called thunder-stones.
The fountain of these waters is as unknown as the contriver of them. It is certain, from their rising so high, they must be brought from some part of the mountains, which are about a league distant; and it is as certain that the work was well done at first, seeing it performs its office so well at so great a distance of time.
Leaving this pleasant quarter we came, in an hour and a half, to the white promontory, so called from the aspect it yields toward the sea. Over this you pass by a way about two yards broad, cut along its side, from which the prospect down is very dreadful, by reason of the extreme depth and steepness of the mountain, and the raging of the waves at bottom. This way is about one-third of an hour over, and is said to have been the work of Alexander the Great. About one-third of an hour farther you pass by a heap of rubbish, close by the sea-side, being the ruins of the castle Scandalium, taking its name from its founder, the same Alexander, whom the Turks call Scander. The ruin is one hundred and twenty paces square, having a dry ditch encompassing it; and from under it, on the side next the sea, there issues a fountain of very fair water. In an hour from hence you come to the sixth caphar, called Nachera; and in another hour to the plain of Acra, over a very deep and rugged mountain, supposed to be part of Mount Saron. All the way from the white promontory to this plain is exceeding rocky; but here the pleasantness of the road makes you amends for the former labour.
The plain of Acra (Acre) extends itself, in length, from Mount Saron as far as Carmel, which is at least six good hours; and in breadth, between the sea and the mountains, it is in most places two hours over. It enjoys good streams of water at convenient distances, and every thing else that might render it both pleasant and fruitful; but this delicious plain is now almost desolate, being suffered, for want of culture, to run up to rank weeds, which were, at the time when we passed it, as high as our horses' backs.
Having travelled about one hour in the plain of Acra, we passed by an old town called Zib, situate on an ascent close by the sea-side. This may probably be the old Achzib[546], called afterwards Ecdippa; for St. Jerome places Achzib nine miles distant from Ptolemais toward Tyre, to which account we found the situation of Zib exactly agreeing. This is one of the places out of which the Ashurites could not expel the Canaanitish natives. Two hours farther we came to a fountain of very good water, called by the French merchants, at Acra, the fountain of the blessed Virgin. In one hour more we arrived at Acra. Our whole stage, from Ras-el-ayn hither, was about eight hours and a half.
Acra had anciently the name of Accho, and is another of the places out of which the children of Israel could not drive the primitive inhabitants[547]. Being in after times enlarged by Ptolemy the First, it was called by him, from his own name, Ptolemais; but now, since it has been in the possession of the Turks, it has, according to the example of many other cities in Turkey, cast off its Greek[548], and recovered some semblance of its old Hebrew name again, being called Acca, or Acra.
This city was for a long time the theatre of contention between the Christians and infidels, till at last, after having divers times changed its masters, it was, by a long siege, finally taken by the Turks, and ruined by them in such a manner as if they had thought they could never take a full revenge upon it for the blood it had cost them, or sufficiently prevent such slaughters for the future. As to its situation, it enjoys all possible advantages both of sea and land. On its north and east sides it is compassed with a spacious and fertile plain; on the west it is washed by the Mediterranean Sea; and on the south by a large bay, extending from the city as far as Mount Carmel.
But notwithstanding all these advantages, it has never been able to recover itself since its last fatal overthrow; for, besides a large khan, in which the French factors have taken up their quarters, and a mosque, and a few poor cottages, you see nothing here but a vast and spacious ruin. It is such a ruin, however, as sufficiently demonstrates the strength of the place in former times. It appears to have been encompassed, on the land side, by a double wall, defended with towers at small distances; and without the walls are ditches, ramparts, and a kind of bastions faced with hewn stone. In the fields without these works we saw, scattered up and down upon the ground, several large balls of stone, of at least thirteen or fourteen inches diameter, which were part of the ammunition used in battering the city, guns being then unknown. Within the walls there still appear several ruins, which seem to distinguish themselves from the general heaps by some marks of a greater strength and magnificence, as, first, those of the cathedral church, dedicated to St. Andrew, which stands not far from the sea-side, more high and conspicuous than the other ruins; secondly, the church of St. John, the tutelar saint of this city; thirdly, the convent of the Knights Hospitallers, a place whose remaining walls sufficiently testify its ancient strength; and, not far from the convent, the palace of the grand master of that order, the magnificence of which may be guessed from a large staircase and part of a church, still remaining in it; fourthly, some remains of a large church formerly belonging to a nunnery, of which they tell this memorable story. The Turks, having pressed this city with a long and furious siege, at last entered it by storm, May 19, 1291; in which great extremity the abbess of the nunnery, fearing lest she, and those under her care, might be forced to submit to such bestialities as are usual in cases of that deplorable nature, used this cruel but generous means for securing both herself and them. She summoned all her flock together, and exhorted them to cut and mangle their faces as the only way to preserve their virgin purity; and, to show how much she was in earnest, she immediately began, before them all, to make herself an example of her own counsel. The nuns were so animated by this heroical resolution and pattern of the abbess, that they began instantly to follow her example, cutting off their noses, and disfiguring their faces with such terrible gashes as might excite horror, rather than lustful desires, in the beholders, the consequence of which was, that the soldiers, breaking into the nunnery, and seeing, instead of those beautiful ladies they expected, such tragical spectacles, took a revenge for their disappointed lusts by putting them all to the sword, thus restoring them, as in charity we may suppose, to a new and inviolable beauty. But, to go on, many other ruins here are of churches, palaces, monasteries, forts, &c., extending for more than half a mile in length, in all which you may discern marks of so much strength as if every building in the city had been contrived for war and defence[549].