A wall has originally extended from the south-east, and possibly also from the north-east, across the narrow plain which lies between the ruins and the hill to the east. This wall, much of which remains, has been of great strength. On the side of the hill is a very large pediment, and about it lie many pieces of a stupendous column which once stood upon it. No mortar or cement was used in the construction of these works. The rock has been cut so smooth, and fitted so exactly, that it is impossible to insert the blade of a penknife between them. I had heard that there were large columns of Egyptian granite among these ruins. I saw some fragments of small columns of that kind, but the large columns were all of the rock which abounds in the quarry near. There is, in an old mosque not far from these ruins, a number of columns of Egyptian granite, but none of them of a very large kind. Still they were large enough to start the inquiry how they could have been brought from Egypt to this place--how could masses of rock, three feet in diameter and ten or fifteen feet long, be brought over Mount Lebanon, which is so steep and high that it is a great labour for man unloaded to pass? That it is the true Egyptian granite, all who know that rock will at once admit--no such rock is found in Syria. Within the wall, and among the rubbish, is a small village. The houses are indifferent, and the population must be small. The Christians live in one quarter, and the Mohammedans in another. Rather to our surprise, on reaching Baalbec, we saw to the east of the ruins a number of tents, and other appearances of an encampment. We learned in due time that there was stationed here a body of four or five hundred Egyptian troopers, and that they had made this their head-quarters for several years past. They lodged in tents separated a little from each other, so as to give room for fastening their horses. The tents were pitched in rows and the horses arranged with some regularity. All had a very pretty appearance.