I suppose it to be of Saracen origin.
[p.14] The women of Baalbec are esteemed the handsomest of the
neighbouring country, and many Damascenes marry Baalbec girls. The air
of Belad Baalbec and the Bekaa, however, is far from being healthy. The
chain of the Libanus interrupts the course of the westerly winds, which
are regular in Syria during the summer months; and the want of these
winds renders the climate extremely hot and oppressive.
September 30th.--I again visited the ruins this morning. The Emir had
been apprised of my arrival by his secretary, to whom I had a letter of
recommendation. He sent the secretary to ask whether I had any presents
for him; I answered in the negative, but delivered to him a letter,
which the Jew bankers of the Pasha of Damascus had given me for him;
these Jews being men of great influence. He contented himself with
replying that as I had no presents for him, it was not necessary that I
should pay him my respects; but he left me undisturbed in my pursuits,
which was all I wanted.
Near a well, on the S. side of the town, between the temple and the
mountain, I found upon a stone the following inscription;
C. CASSIVS ARRIANVS
MONVMENTVM SIBI
-OCO SVO VIVVS
FECIT
In the afternoon I made a tour in the invirons of Baalbec. At the foot
of the Anti-Libanus, a quarter of an hour's walk from the town, to the
south is a quarry, where the places are still visible from whence
several of the large stones in the south wall of the castle were
extracted; one large block is yet remaining, cut on three sides, ready
to be transported to the building, but it must be done by other hands
than those of the Metaweli. Two other blocks, cut in
[p.15]like manner, are standing upright at a little distance from each
other; and near them, in the rock, are two small excavated tombs, with
three niches in each, for the dead, in a style of workmanship similar to
what I saw to the north of Aleppo, in the Turkman mountains towards Deir
Samaan. In the hills, to the S.W. of the town, just behind this quarry,
are several tombs, excavated in the rock, like the former, but of larger
dimensions. In following the quarry towards the village of Duris,
numerous natural caverns are met with in the calcareous rocks; I entered
more than a dozen of them, but found no traces of art, except a few
seats or steps rudely cut out. These caverns serve at present as winter
habitations for the Arabs who pasture their cattle in this district. The
principal quarry was a full half hour to the southward of the town.
The mountains above Baalbec are quite uncultivated and barren, except at
the Ras el Ain, or sources of the river of Baalbec, where a few trees
only remain. This is a delightful place, and is famous amongst the
inhahitants of the adjoining districts for the salubrity of its air and
water. Near the Ain, are the ruins of a church and mosque.
The ruined town of Baalbec contains about seventy Metaweli families, and
twenty-five of Catholic Christians. Amidst its ruins are two handsome
mosques, and a fine bath. The Emir lives in a spacious building called
the Serai. The inhabitants fabricate white cotton cloth like that of
Zahle; they have some dyeing houses, and had, till within a few years,
some tanneries. The men are the artizans here, and not the women. The
property of the people consists chiefly of cows, of which every house
has ten or fifteen, besides goats and sheep. The goats are of a species
not common in other parts of Syria; they have very long ears, large
horns, and long hair, but not silky like that of the goats of Anatolia.
[p.16]The breed of Baalbec mules is much esteemed, and I have seen some
of them worth on the spot £30 to £35. sterling.
October 1st.--After having again visited the ruins, I engaged a man in
the forenoon, to shew me the way to the source of the rivulet called
Djoush [Arabic]. It is in a Wady in the Anti-Libanus, three quarters of
an hour distant from Baalbec. The rivulet was very small, owing to the
remarkable dryness of the season, and was lost in the Wady before it
reached the plain; at other times it flows down to Baalbec and joins the
river, which, after irrigating the gardens and fields round the town,
loses itself in the plain. A little higher in the mountain than the spot
where the water of the Djoush first issues from the spring, is a small
perpendicular hole, through which I descended, not without some danger,
about sixteen feet, into an aqueduct which conveys the water of the
Djoush underground for upwards of one hundred paces. This aqueduct is
six feet high and three feet and a half wide, vaulted above, and covered
with a thick coat of plaister; it is in perfect preservation; the water
in it was about ten inches deep. In following up this aqueduct I came to
a vaulted chamber about ten feet square, built with large hewn stones,
into which the water falls through another walled passage, but which I
did not enter, being afraid that the water falling on all sides might
extinguish the only candle that I had with me. Below this upper passage,
another dark one is visible through the water as it falls down. The
aqueduct continues beyond the hole through which I descended, as far as
the spot where the water issues from under the earth.
