The same evening we rode two hours further, to Britân, and arrived before sunrise next morning, at Bâlbek, the ancient Heliopolis, with its famous ruins of the temple of the sun. I stopped next by the old stone bridge, by which the road passed, and measured there a building block, which was not quite loosened from the rock, of 67 feet in length, 14 feet in breadth, and 13 feet 5 inches thick. Of such blocks, or of somewhat smaller ones, consist several walls of the ruins of the temple and Bâlbek. A block that I measured on the spot, and in its place, without particularly choosing it, was 65 feet 4 inches, by 12 feet 3 inches, and 9 feet 9 inches. The ruins are, in fact, immense; the style of the architecture, in all its ornamental parts, is however heavy, overloaded, and partly of a very barbarous taste. To Bâlbek there hangs a very sad recollection. As I approached the straggling houses of the village, which is very near the ruins of the ancient temple, my faithful servant, Ibrahim, who had arrived here before us, came to meet me with the joyful intelligence, that Abeken, from whom we had separated in Jerusalem, had just reached the village. I found him, indeed, in the next house to the worthy bishop, Athanasins; hardly, however, had we greeted each other, when they came to tell me that Ibrahim was dying outside in the street. I found him almost on the same spot where he had met me in so friendly a manner, stretched out, the death-rattle in his throat, and his eyes already fixed. A priest, from the next convent, endeavoured to assist him, but in vain; he died in a few minutes before my eyes. A fever produced by being exposed to the weather, seemed to have given him his death-blow. He was a man of sterling worth, and an inborn noble nature, such as is not often found among the Arabs. I had taken him with me, in my journey to Nubia, from Assuan; he desired, from his own impulse and attachment, to accompany me to Europe, and would have been exceedingly useful to me in my labours on the Sudan languages, on account of his knowledge of the Nubian dialects. I wished to place a stone over the spot where he was buried, at the foot of Antilibanon, on the slope of the hill near a tree; but no stone-mason could be found. For this reason I sent one from Berut, with this inscription:--IBRAHIMO HASSAN SYENE ORIVNDO SERVO BENE MERENTI P.R. LEPSIVS. D. XXI. NOVEMB. MDCCCXLV. This news made a deep impression upon Gabre Mariam, when I told it him at Berut; he wept bitterly, for they had been very good friends.