is entirely prohibited to strangers, but you are permitted to tarry at the portal, whence you can view the interior.

One of the curiosities of the modern city is a huge plane-tree, whose trunk measures seventy-three feet in circumference. It is hale and thrifty, and seems destined yet to survive a thousand years.

THURSDAY, May 8.

We left Damascus for Balbek at four o'clock in the morning, in a good carriage, with strong and vigorous horses, and arrived at Stoura, at the foot of AntiLebanon, at noon, where Messrs. Rogers and Beadel, having preceded us a day, had ordered dinner and good horses for us. After having refreshed ourselves, our guide (the proprietor of the house where we had found such good cheer) desired us to mount, as the ride from Stoura to Balbek was from six to seven hours' duration. Having passed Zahles, a large village with well-cultivated surroundings, we arrived at Nebi-Nouhh, where the guide made us visit the " Tomb of Noah," a square edifice, measuring sixty-three feet on each side.

We entered the large plain of Beka'a, and travelled thereon for several hours, passing, at intervals, small villages, while on our right was the chain of AntiLebanon, and on our left that of Lebanon. We travelled but slowly, for only we ladies had English saddles (the gentlemen being compelled to use Arab ones), so that Charles, but more especially Henry Beadel, would fall behind, and we had to stop from time to time to wait for the laggards.

The road generally was good, though sometimes it was difficult for the horses to pass marshy ground, caused by the melting of the snows of Lebanon; but inasmuch as the fatigue did not overcome me, I thoroughly appreciated the beauties of the route.

The thousand hues of the two sublime mountain chains on my right and left, imperceptibly changing with the declining sun, caused a regret that I had not with me a copy of "Lamartine's Travels in the East;" for I had always retained a vivid remembrance of his description of the two ranges, and of the ruins of Balbek; and when the fire-king retreated behind Lebanon I gave full scope to my enthusiasm. No scenery in the Alps had ever impressed me thus: the broad, deepgreen plain extended to the north and south beyond the line of vision, bounded on the east by Anti-Lebanon, still lighted by the reflection of departing day, the dark base of whose empurpled sides formed a pleasing and delicate contrast with the shade of its summit; and Lebanon on the west, black and gloomy in its majesty, sharply defined against the evening sky.

Over Anti-Lebanon the first star appeared, and night came on apace; Charles had rejoined us, but Henry was far back with Mr. Andrews, our host, and we had only a serving-man as guide; but as his horse carried the provision and crockery-ware for our usage, he could only go on a walk.

Anon the full moon "came peeping o'er the hills," reversing the twilight shade left by the setting sun; bringing new beauties from out the sides of Lebanon shimmering on the fretful stream; tinging with silvery

;

touch the facing shrubs; imparting her borrowed light to the wide plain walled in by black Anti-Lebanon.

But ah! how intimately connected are the spiritual and bodily sensations. Our seventeen hours' travelling had so "used up" us ladies, long before we arrived at our destination, that all the beauty of the moonlight playing on the ruins as we passed them failed to revive and we dismounted before the house where we were to pass the night at ten P.M., with hardly the necessary strength left to undress and go to bed without dinner.

us;

When Henry arrived the gentlemen enjoyed their meal, and afterwards roamed through the ruins until two o'clock in the morning.

CHAPTER XXII,

BALBEK.

FRIDAY, May 9, 1868.

HE beauties of the gigantic ruins of Balbek have been sung and described in every language; a poet or artist could pass months here, and at almost every step find some new cause for admiration; but our hours were numbered, for our passage was engaged for the steamer to leave Beyrout on the following Sunday, and all we could give to Balbek was four hours.

Four hours! hardly enough time to take a walk among the ruins; enough though to permit me to recognize every stone in the description Lamartinė gives; and which I here translate for the benefit of my friends, as a remembrance of his poetry and his genius; for since our return the cable has brought the announcement of his death!

"I had crossed the summits of Sannin, covered with eternal snow (the highest peak of Lebanon), and had come down from the Lebanon, crowned with its diadem of cedars, into the naked and arid desert of Heliopolis at the end of a fatiguing day. At the horizon yet far from us, on the extreme distance of the black mountains of Anti-Lebanon, an immense mass of yellow ruins, gilded by the setting sun, was detaching itself from the shadows of the mountains. Our guides were showing

it to us with their fingers, and exclaiming 'Balbek! Balbek!' It was indeed the marvel of the desert, the fabulous Balbek, coming forth all dazzling from her unknown sepulchre to relate to us of ages of which history has lost the memory.

"We were advancing slowly, restrained by the tardy step of our tired horses, our eyes fixed on those gigantic walls, on the beautiful and colossal columns, which seemed, the nearer we approached them, to spread, enlarge, and elongate. A profound silence was kept throughout our caravan, for each was afraid to lose a single impression of that hour by communicating what he felt.

"At last we arrived at the first stumps of columns, at the first blocks of marble, that earthquakes, accidents, and Arabs have scattered to more than a mile from the monuments themselves, like dried leaves tossed and rolled far from the tree after the tempest.

"We followed our route between the desert on our left and the undulations of the Anti-Lebanon on our right, walking along some cultivated fields, and the bed of a large torrent which winds between the ruins, and on the shore of which are some handsome walnuts.

"The Acropolis, or the artificial hill which supports all the great monuments of Heliopolis, appeared here and there between the boughs, and above the tops of the large trees; at last it was entirely disclosed to our sight, and all of us, as though touched by electricity, halted. No pen, no pencil could describe the impression that this single look imparted to the eyes-to the soul. Under our feet, in the bed of the torrent, in the midst