Descending from our mountain camp, we rode north-west, over the well-watered plain, with its long rows of poplars, narrow strips of green turf beside the streams, and long vineyards, with vines trained into little bushes, as in Burgundy. Thence we ascended a rugged path over the grey rocky slopes of Anti-Lebanon, and our view extended over the broad brown Bukei’a, and as far as the long gleaming ridge of Lebanon, “the milk-white mountain,” the outline of which is broken by cones and rounded tops, whilst below a dusky fringe of brushwood creeps up the slopes. After five hours’ riding, we began to descend, over downs of blinding white chalk, to the great plain, and at length came in sight of a village, lying low in an oasis of green trees, with a fine spring to the east, from which ran a stream fringed with willows and poplars. The village, or town, of Baalbek is extensive and flourishing. At the gate of the governor’s house a fine statue, of colossal size, headless, and seated between sculptured lions, has been placed in a corner of the road. Passing through the main street, we rode on, between dry-stone walls, in a narrow lane, which had a perfect screen of poplars above; and, behind this, rose a huge tawny fortress-wall, like that of the Temple at Jerusalem; while, to the right, stood a little temple, staggering, as it were, after the last earthquake, the joints of the magnificent masonry yawning, and the columns and cornices bending over. The great wall is crowned by a Saracenic battlement, with loopholes, and its masonry is a perfect patchwork; but below, the ancient drafted ashlar, with Greek masons’ marks on the stones, remains intact. We now found ourselves riding, three abreast, through a dark tunnel of enormous masonry, and looked back on the green paradise of foliage; while in front a glaring dust-heap indicated the ascent into the great enclosure; hence we emerged into the centre of the ruins, with the famous Six Columns and the Temple of Jupiter in front. So gracefully are these great buildings proportioned, that the mind fails at first to appreciate their enormous size. It is only when standing beneath the pillars, the bases of which, alone, are higher than a man’s stature, that one can believe the columns to be seventy-five feet high. Even the rich tracery of the roofs and cornices, is scarcely more striking than the orange rusty colour which the stone has assumed in weathering. As at Jerusalem, this colour is most remarkable on the side from which the winter storms beat on the ruins. The position of the Kŭl’ah, or “Castle,” as the enclosure is called, is very low; but the plateau is supported on vaults some thirty feet high, the space enclosed being, roughly, 1000 feet east and west, by 400 north and south. On the east is a hexagonal structure, with a vestibule, to which a flight of magnificent steps originally led up, but was destroyed by the Saracens in converting the temple into a fortress.