is, as usual at Mussulmans' tombs, very strong. "Tell him," said the guardian of the mosque-on seeing an English traveller inadvertently turning his back on the tomb-" that he would not turn his back on the Sultan; why not show equal regard to the Prophet." On the opposite side of the vale of Cœle-Syria, and therefore nearly facing the tomb of Seth, immediately close to the village of Muallakah, is the similar mosque of Nebi-Nuach the "Prophet Noah," though smaller, and apparently less honoured. He "having died a natural death, and been therefore buried at peace," the tomb was proportionally longer than that of Seth, being nearly 120 feet in 'length, the feet being supposed to rest in a well. Two or three other temples exist not far off: Mejdel further south, and Ain-Ata further north, in the same plain. Tomb of Baalbek. But Baalbek stands supreme, and may well close this series of the sanctuaries of Anti-Lebanon. Its identification with any Biblical site must remain extremely uncertain. It may possibly be Baalath, the frontier city of Solomon, or Baalhamon, the pleasure-garden of the Canticles, or BaalHermon, the sanctuary of Baal in Hermon, or Baal-Gad, ("the gathering of Baal") "under Hermon." But against each of those suppositions there are objections which must prevent us from coming to any positive conclusion on the subject. Of its general importance, however, there can be no question. The size and beauty of the buildings render them at once a physical landmark and a historical monument which no notice of Syria can omit. "In3 vastness of plan, combined with elaborateness and delicacy of execution, they seem to surpass all others in Western Asia, in Africa, and in Europe." The ranges of columns which give their peculiar grace to the edifices, belong 1 Early travellers were told that the Ark was built here (De Brocquière, in Early Travellers, p. 293). It is curious that the statements respecting the measurements of this tomb should be so various. Burckhardt gives it at only ten feet (p. 5). The most accurate account is in Lepsius, who visited both tombs (Letters, pp. 338, 345). The tomb of Eve, at Jedda, is 200 paces long (Burton's Pilgrimage, iii. 388). That of Joshua, on the Giant's Mountain, near Constantinople, is thirty feet. Baalath (1 Kings ix. 28) is strongly advocated by Mr. Hogg (The Names of Baalbec, pp. 2-4). Baal-hamon, Cant. viii. 11. Baal-hermon, 1 Chron. v. 23, Judg. iii. 3. Baal-Gad, Joshua xi. 17: this is advocated by Ritter. Several of these names may, in fact, be synonyms for the same place. 3 Robinson, Lat. Res. 517. to the same age of later Roman magnificence which has left so many proud memorials of itself throughout the East. But there are touches of an earlier antiquity which give it a true connection with the history of Palestine and Egypt. Its situation was probably fixed by the necessity of a sanctuary to greet the travellers and merchants on the great caravan route between Damascus and Tyre, as Petra between Damascus and the Gulf of Elath. Its name, even if we cannot connect it with any Biblical spot, evidently points to its connection with BaalBaal-bek, "the assembly'. or gathering of Baal," as its Greek name, "Heliopolis," shows the identification of Baal with the sun. Baal was, in Greek Mythology, identified as the supreme God with Jupiter, as the Sun-God with Apollo; and hence, in the description of the different temples included within the vast sanctuary, has arisen, both in ancient and modern times, a confusion between the two, which it is now almost impossible to rectify. Like the temples of Baal at Samaria and at Gades, it included the inferior deities as well as the chief Sun-God himself. "To the Gods of Heliopolis" is the inscription which still testifies to the plurality of divinities worshipped here. The influence of Egypt is indicated not only by the legend of the sacred' image brought from the Egyptian City of the Sun "On"-" Heliopolis,"-but by some striking peculiarities of Egyptian architecture: as, for example, the Egyptian symbol of a winged globe is in one of the recesses of the great court; an Egyptian capital crowns one of the columns of the lesser temple; and the crested eagle with its outspread wings in the portal, occupies the same relative position, and apparently represents the same idea, as the wings of the Egyptian doorways. "Under the shadow of thy wings shall be my refuge" is the most general expression in which the figure appears in the Biblical imagery; "The 'Sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings," is the thought which is more directly illustrated by the eagle of Baal-bek. Finally, the huge substructions of the outer enclosure probably point to the earliest foundation of the building, Phoenician, Jewish, or Syrian. The three vast stones, which for a long period gave to the whole building the name of the "Three-Stone" (Trilithon), exceed in size even those of Hebron or Jerusalem; and, with the still vaster stone' on which they rest, present the most gigantic masses of hewn stone that are to be found in the world. In the adjacent quarry are to be seen the stones still standing against the rock, like tall trees waiting to be felled; one already lies prostrate, with the lines drawn across its two ends, as if for thre cutting off of the 'unfinished parts. Within the precincts of the Temple of Baalbek the worship of Baal lingered to the latest days of Paganism, with a union of licentiousness and ferocity which rendered the spot a memorial, on its darker side, of the ancient religion of Canaan, -as its magnificence and beauty recalls the brighter and nobler side of the faith of the whole ancient world. The Vale of Two great valleys part the Anti-Lebanon from the Lebanon. The southernmost and smallest of the two is the Wâdy-et-Teim,' the vale of the Hasbany or Hasbeya river-the ‘geothe Hasbany. graphical, though not the historical, source of the Jordan. The whole valley has its sacred associations, but it derives them not from Classical or Hebrew times, but from the singular sect which there first established itself in strength. It was the refuge, in the eleventh century, of Derazy, the founder of the Druzes. At Hasbeya is their original sanctuary, and from the hills and villages, along this valley have radiated their settlements through the whole of the two ranges. The northern valley is one of wider extent and wider fame. "Cole-Syria" or "the Basin of Syria" was the name given by the Greeks or Romans to the vast green plain which divides the range of Lebanon and Anti-Leba The Vale of non, the former reaching its highest point in the snowy crest to 1 It is of a darker colour, and is hewn away at the top. It is 68 feet long: the others are 64. Whether it is one or two stones, is difficult to determine. 2 Robinson, Lat. Res. 522, 523. the north, behind which lie the Cedars; the latter in the still more snowy crest of Hermon; the culmination of the range being thus in the one at the northern, in the other at the southern extremity, of the valley which they bound. The view of this great valley is chiefly remarkable as being exactly to the eye what it is on maps -the "hollow" between the two mountain ranges of "Syria," or, according to the ancient Hebrew denomination, which has subsisted almost unchanged from the time of Amos to the present day, the broad "Cleft," Beka'ah or Buka'a. A screen, through which the Leontes breaks out, closes the south end of the plain. There is a similar screen at the north end, but too remote to be visible, "the entering-in' of Hamath," so often mentioned as the extreme limit in this direction of the widest possible dominion of the Israelite Empire.. Lebanon. II. From the plain of Cole - Syria we mount the range of Lebanon. Its physical features have been already described. Its connexion with the western portions of the Holy Land must have been as close as those of Hermon with the eastern portions. From its southern extremity the views over Palestine must have been those which the Assyrian conquerors enjoyed as they first looked from "the 'tower of Lebanon" upon their prey. "I have travelled," says M. Van de Velde, “in no part of the world where I have seen such a variety of glorious mountain scenes within so narrow a compass. Not the luxurious Java, not the richly wooded Borneo, not the majestic Sumatra or Celebes, not the paradise-like Ceylon, far less the grand but naked mountains of South Africa, or the low impenetrable woods of the West Indies, are to be compared to the southwestern projecting mountains of Lebanon. In those lands all is green or all is bare. An Indian landscape has something monotonous in its superabundance of wood and jungle that one wishes in vain to see intermingled with rocky cliffs or with towns or villages. In the bare table-lands of the Cape Colony, the eye discovers nothing but rocky cliffs. It is not so, however, with the southern ranges of Lebanon. Here there are woods and mountains, streams and villages, bold rocks 1 Num. xiii. 21; 2 Kings xiv. 25; 2 Chron. xii. 8; Van de Velde, ii. 470; Schwarz, 25; Pückler Muskau, iii. 22. 2 Cant. vii. 4. and green cultivated fields, land and sea views. Here, in one word, you find all that the eye could desire to behold on this earth. The whole of Northern Canaan lies at our feet. Is not this Sidon? Are not those Sarepta, and Tyre, and Ras-el-Abiad? I see also the Castle of Shŭkif, and the gorge of the Leontes, and the hills of Safed, and, in the distance, the basin of the Sea of Tiberias, with the hills of Bashan, far, far away, and all these hundreds of villages between the spot we are at and the sea-coast. Half a day would not suffice for taking the angles of such an ocean of villages, towns, castles, rivers, hills, and capes." Temple of . Such another view is obtained from the south-eastern extremity of the same range-the ridge of Dahar close to the Wâdy-et-Teim. Lebanon and Hermon are visible at once; and the valley of the Jordan is spread out in both its upper stages that of the Hasbany river-that of the Merom lakeending in the still distinct glimpse of the waters of the sea of Galilee. It is one of the best geographical prospects in Syria. The historical monuments of Lebanon are much less numerous than those of Anti-Lebanon. The Temple of Astarte at Afka is the only one of importance. From its romantic defile the river of Adonis "ran purple to the sea" with "blood of Thammuz yearly wounded;" that is, with the stains of the red earth which gave birth to the legend. The Nahr-el-Kelb -the "Dog" or "Wolf" river, so called from the fabled dog, whose bark at the approach of strangers could be heard as far as Cyprus -is marked by the confluence of the inscriptions of the Sculptures and four empires of Egypt, Assyria, Greece, and Rome;Inscriptions of Nahr-el-Kelb. So remarkable both in themselves and in their history. It is instructive to note their gradual resuscitation from the neglect of centuries. Maundrell sees them for a moment, and conjectures them to be "perhaps the representations of some persons buried hereabouts, whose sepulchres may probably also be discovered by the diligent observer." Pococke sees in them only "some small figures of men in relief cut out in different compartments, but very much defaced by time." The Roman 1 Van de Velde, ii. 433, 437. The view from the summit of Hermon is well given by Mr. Porter, Five Years in Da mascus, i. 309, 310. |