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THE

Methodist Magazine.

NOVEMBER, 1894.

TENT LIFE IN PALESTINE.

BY THE EDITOR.

DAMASCUS TO BAALBEC.

REMAINING COLUMNS OF THE GREAT TEMPLE, BAALBEC.

ON a lovely morning, April 26th, we mounted. our horses for the ride over the Anti-Lebanon range. The air was filled with the fragrance of fig and apricot blossoms, and of the Damascus roses, of which we each carried a bouquet of portentous size. The horses, refreshed with their few days' rest, were full of mettle, and we made a very hilarious party as we cantered along the smooth diligence road, the best in Syria. This splendid road of seventy miles to Beyrout was made by a French company, and twice a day its huge, lumbering carriages traverse the distance in ten hours.

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Soon leaving the road, we passed the grim gorge of the Barada (Abana), with bold exposure of highly tilted strata, and rode on beneath the shade of walnut, fig and olive orchards. Then for an hour we rode across the barren plain of Sahra, or the Syrian Sahara, a dreary expanse of sand and flint chips, enlivened at times VOL. XL. No. 5.

by flying flocks of gazelles. As we approached the gorge of the Barada we learned that the bridge across the stream was wrecked by a recent flood. Abdallah rode ahead and reported that, while it was badly shattered, it might possibly be crossed. As I was determined to take no risks, I gave orders to make a long détour over the barren hills to a safe ford.

We soon descended into a deep, romantic ravine, bordered by towering cliffs, and skirted, on a narrow ledge, the rushing Barada. A curious passage through the rocks was evidently a former aqueduct. Through the poplar and walnut foliage came stealing on our ears the sound of rushing water. After a short ride we reached the famous fountain of El-Figeh, the chief source of the Barada a name probably corrupted from the Greek anуn—a spring. A rushing torrent, clear as crystal, thirty feet in width and four feet deep, bursts forth from the foot of a lofty cliff with a current strong enough to turn a mill.

High above the birthplace of this storied stream, on massy foundations of huge stone, are the ruins of an ancient temple, some thirty feet square; and lower down near the water, another with walls two yards thick. This once formed a large vaulted chamber twenty feet high, with wide portal. The ancient Syrians, like the Greeks, deified their streams and fountains, and doubtless here, as at the source of the Jordan, were celebrated the rites of the ancient nature-worship of the land. Beneath the shade of fruit trees, beside this magnificent fountain, we ate our lunch and mused and moralized upon the eventful scenes of which, thoughout the ages, it had been the theatre.

In the afternoon we rode up the narrowing gorge, past the Kefr-el-Zeite (Village of Oil), and Kefr-el-Awamid (Village of Columns), where are enormous prostrate pillars of an ancient Greek temple, between yellow, chalky cliffs from 800 to 1,000 feet high. The vividness of the verdure in the bright spring sunlight, the infinite blue depths of the sky, and the picturesque outlines of the cliffs made a picture of surpassing beauty which haunts the memory with an abiding spell.

Crossing an old Roman bridge, which leaps in a single spring across the stream, we soon reached our encampment at Suk Wady Barada. Here, long ago, took place one of those ruthless massacres of a band of pilgrims and merchants which are so characteristic of Moslem misrule. The road here cuts a deep chasm through the anti-Lebanon range, bordered by cliffs 700 feet high, above which rises the stupendous mountain wall, like a vast amphitheatre. The scene is one of wild magnificence, whose interest is heightened by the remarkable remains of ancient power and

splendour which have earned for it the name of the Petra of Northern Syria.

After dinner I set out under the guidance of a bare-footed Arab to climb these cliffs and explore their ancient aqueducts and tombs. An old Roman road fifteen feet wide has been cleft through the rock for 600 feet and then came to an abrupt terminus. It evidently continued across the pass on a lofty viaduct now destroyed. High up the almost perpendicular face of the cliff, reached by long flights of steps, are numerous rock-hewn tombs, excavated with incredible labour. I counted in one chamber fifteen graves hewn in the rock, quite after the manner of the Roman Catacombs. The tombs were closed with double stone doors, having stone sockets. We crawled through an ancient aqueduct, about two feet wide, and in places so low we had to get upon our hands and knees. At last it came out in the open air on a narrow ledge and was still in part covered by sloping stone slabs. My bare-footed guide could speak no English and I could speak no Arabic, so our communication was entirely by signs. His prehensile toes seemed to clasp the rock, and he firmly held my hand as we crawled and clambered over the precipitous slope.

On a huge slab, on the face of the cliff, was a deeply-cut Latin inscription which affirms that "THE EMPEROR CÆSAR MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS AUGUSTUS ARMENIACUS, AND THE EMPEROR CESAR LUCIUS AURELIUS VERUS AUGUSTUS ARMENIACUS RESTORED THE ROAD BROKEN AWAY BY THE FORCE OF THE RIVER, THE MOUNTAINS BEING CUT THROUGH BY JULIUS VERUS, THE LEGATE OF SYRIA, AT THE COST('IMPENDUS) OF THE ABILENIANS." This identifies this place as the ancient Abilene, so named by tradition from the reputed tomb of Abel, which is still a place of Moslem pilgrimage. The "tomb" is plainly a part of an ancient stone wall, about nine yards long. This district is mentioned by Luke, chapter iii. 1, who says that John the Baptist began preaching in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar, Lysanias being the tetrarch of Abilene.

In the deepening twilight I made my way back to the camp, the shadows of the mountain cliffs stretching far across the valley. Other tourist parties joining us here, our encampment assumed quite military proportions, amounting to over 300 persons, including muleteers and camp-followers. About forty snowy tents were pitched, behind which were tethered about a hundred horses, whose champing and stamping made sleep a difficult achievement.

The next morning was bitterly cold, and the scramble up the rugged cliff was an agreeable exercise, but the effect was far less

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