Their journey northward, through the Lebanon country, to Beyrout, was highly interesting, not only for the grandeur and beauty of the scenery, but because it brought them in contact with the Maronites and Druses. Among the Maronites they always found industry, especially silk-weaving and the raising of silkworms, and considerable prosperity, wherever they enjoyed a quasi-independence of Turkish rule. At Deh-el-Kams the Emir (who was secretly a Christian) was full of interest in the West, a man of taste[15] and energy, who, like other Orientals, worshipped the memory of Sir S. Smith. The great Maronite convent of St. Anthony had a printing-press at work, and was a centre of cultivation and industry. They heard much of the Druses, and the jealous care with which they guarded the secret of their religion, the Acchals, or stricter Druses, living a recluse and ascetic life, the Jechaird Druses mingling with all, and professing themselves indifferently Christian or Mohammedan. Their relations were then peaceful; but the peace was jealous and precarious, and the Turkish authority (as usual) seemed weak to protect, and powerful only to oppress. Baalbec, Damascus, and Palmyra, were their chief objects of attraction. The situation of Baalbec, in the midst of its forest of walnut-trees, delighted the eye of the artist, but accurate plans and descriptions of the magnificent ruins (then but little known, and even now described with much discrepancy of authorities), gave evidence of more elaborate architectural study. The great encircling wall of the citadel, within which the ruins stand, formed of huge blocks of stone, some as much as 30 feet long, 13 feet high, and 10 feet thick, the fragments of the Greater Temple (of the Sun?), 270 feet by 165 feet, the extensive remains of the Smaller Temple (of Jupiter?), and a third circular Corinthian temple, with their decorations and masterly bas-reliefs, in which the Roman eagle was conspicuous, gave them the idea of that union of power with richness, which well deserves the title of “magnificence.”[16] It was a curious transition from the silent grandeur of Baalbec to the bustle and life of Damascus. The first view of the city struck them, as it strikes all travellers, as one perfectly unique in its beauty,--“a boundless plain, with surface and horizon level as the sea,” but covered with masses of dark verdure, out of which the city of Damascus rises, “bright as the whitest marble.” The city itself hardly corresponded with this glorious appearance. The travellers were probably taken for Turks, and so were able to see, without molestation, all the parts of this city,--the very home of Turkish fanaticism; but with the exception of a few of the larger buildings, which were full of Oriental magnificence, there was little to justify the glowing descriptions of former travellers. They quitted it without regret; for Palmyra lay before them.