Scattered over this locality, and widely apart, are the well-known “Lebanon Schools.” We visited one of these, and certainly never were schools built and conducted on more economical principles. This building was like a large hut, with an earthen floor, having a few plain wooden seats, a desk, a lot of books and slates, a few maps hung on the walls, and no superfluities. There was room only for from twenty to thirty scholars; the teacher, who was a native Syrian, did not speak English, and therefore I had much difficulty in understanding him. He indicated that the attendance was good; but, being the dinner hour, we saw only a few of the scholars. They were healthy-looking boys, with intelligent countenances, and very plainly but cleanly dressed. Such schools, if well conducted, seemed calculated to do immense good at very small cost.
On riding through the villages, we were generally met by a somewhat unfriendly barking of dogs, then the women and children appeared; and if we chanced to alight for our mid-day lunch, nearly the whole of the women and children of the village—generally Maronites, I think—stood in a circle around us, patiently watching our movements with apparent interest, but always without rudeness. In this journey Braham had brought no tents, but he found accommodation for us in one of these houses. Our first night’s experience was by no means encouraging. Our bedroom was certainly very ample in point of dimensions, and our beds consisted of a tolerable mattress laid on the earthen floor; the windows were without glass, and the doors by no means secure, although fastened by a wooden “lock;” but the atmosphere was extremely warm, for which, or other reasons, we found sleep by no means inviting. Our morning ablutions were generally performed in the open air, and were very refreshing.
Our next day’s ride brought us to Balbec. Seen from the distance, the ruins are picturesque. They are situated on a rising ground in the valley, near to the Anti-Lebanon range, but their magnificence was not appreciated until we stood within them. There are, I believe, no grander architectural ruins in the world, although consisting only of two great temples; the principal of these is called the “Great Temple,” of which six magnificent Corinthian columns remain standing entire. With their pedestals and entablature, they stand about eighty feet high, and measure upwards of seven feet in diameter. With what is called its “Courts” and portico this temple had been of very great size. Almost adjoining on the south, and at a level, about twelve feet lower, is another temple—apparently of more recent date, and generally called the “Temple of the Sun,” which, although much smaller in size, is larger than the Parthenon at Athens. It is very difficult to imagine why these two magnificent temples should have been erected so huddled together, on different levels, and without apparent connexion.
Both buildings are of the rough-grained limestone rock of the Anti-Lebanon mountains adjoining, and the style of architecture in both is somewhat similar. The original size and form of the buildings are still traceable by the portions of the walls, in some parts twelve feet thick, which remain standing, and the pedestals of numerous columns and capitals which lie prostrate within them. The ornamentation and design of the Temple of the Sun is rich, and its great eastern doorway—of which the photograph is familiar to most—seemed to me particularly fine, but has been very much destroyed by an earthquake. Much uncertainty exists, indeed nothing is known, as to the age of these temples, which some attribute to Solomon; but it is evident that they date from three or four widely different ages. The foundations and portions of the walls date very far back—probably to the days of that wise king—and contain some stones of enormous size; but the superstructures seem to belong to the Greek or early Roman period, while a third portion bears marks of Moslem work.
There is a legend told by historians that the Emperor Trajan, in order to test the oracle at Balbec, sent a blank sheet of paper, which he received back again blank. This confirming his faith in the oracle, he consulted it a second time, and received in response a few withered twigs folded up in cloth. Trajan’s death shortly afterwards was deemed a true interpretation of this oracular answer; and on his body being sent to Rome for burial, the fame of the oracle was greatly increased.
It was difficult, amongst the confused mass of ruins, to determine what the original ground level had been. What impressed us greatly was the size of the huge fallen capitals and entablature—how small even the tallest of our party looked as we moved amongst them. We descended by a hole in front of the east gateway into what is now an underground vault of excellent masonry, and we also passed through a grand archway of great length and width, apparently a carriage way, but now under the ground level, and partially dark.
The Syrians have been accused of overturning many of the columns of these grand temples for the sake of the pieces of metal which formed their joints, and certainly the fallen pieces bear marks of this spoliation. The quarry from which these great stones had been taken is distant only about a mile eastward, and there still remains one of them upon the road, apparently left in transit, for what reason cannot now be known; but it indicates some political or other sudden change of circumstances or government. It measures, I think, about 60 feet in length, 15 in width, and fully 14 feet in thickness, being only a very little more than the dimensions of three other similar stones built into the original west wall of the temple, and, as the perfection of their joinings indicate, by the hands of a master builder. Even now, and with all the appliances of modern science, nothing approaching this feat in masonry has been attempted. The length of the Great Temple seemed to me nearly 1000 feet over all. Verily there were giants on the earth in those days.
Of Balbec, the great City of the Sun, there are now no other remains except two much smaller ruins, evidently Roman. There are only a few hundred inhabitants, who live in the modern Syrian houses such as I have already described, and in two of these our party lodged for the night, resuming our journey southward in the morning. The view of this long valley is fine, with its green cornfields, the river Leontes flowing down its centre, the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountains on either hand, and Mount Hermon far south in the distance. The morning sun lighted up the whole scene, and the mountain tops were brilliantly white or vermilion and orange tinted. But the mountains were bare of vegetation—the famous Cedars of Lebanon no longer exist, except about a dozen of almost fabulous age and size, which, however, are several miles further north.
Balbec was probably the most northern city of the “Land of Promise,” which is repeatedly described in Scripture as extending “from the entering in of Hamath” on the north “unto the river of Egypt” on the south. But, except in the days of Solomon, the Israelites do not seem to have possessed their inheritance so far north; nor I think did they ever possess, in its full width eastward, the land promised to their fathers. Hamath appears to have been a semi-independent province situate in the centre of this Lebanon valley of Cœle-Syria, of which Toi is mentioned as the king in the days of David.
Braham took us to view the so-called tomb of Noah, which is at a small village upon a steep shoulder of the Lebanon range. Entering a very long narrow stone building we found a tomb rising fully two feet higher than the floor, and extending the whole length of the building, probably about seventy feet. It seemed stone-built, white coloured, and lighted up with numerous oil lamps, which are kept perpetually burning, at, as I understood, the expense of the Turkish Government. Here and there were bits of cloth and rags hung over the tomb, which we understood were used as talismanic charms or given as votive offerings. The keeper explained as well as he could that the body of Noah lay upon its back the whole length, and that, as the house over the tomb, long as it was, was still too short, the legs of the saint from the knees downward were bent down into a perpendicular hole dug into the ground! Braham said the tomb of Shem, another antedeluvian of nearly as great length, was to be seen on the mountain opposite; but we assured him we were quite satisfied with Noah’s.