peculiar interest, however, lies in the beautiful gorge which it has formed through the Lebanon, and its rise in the vale of Cole-Syria'. 1. THE RAVINE OF THE LEONTES. "The cleft is very narrow and the rocks rise perpendicularly to the height of sometimes a thousand or twelve hundred feet. The froth, as it dashes up, keeps the base of the rock constantly damp, so that the vegetation of this place is luxuriant to a degree that I have seldom met with in my travels. The snow-white foam is often concealed by the overhanging trees whose branches meet and thickly intertwine"." 2. CŒLE-SYRIA. We finally looked down on the vast green and red valleygreen from its yet unripe corn, red from its vineyards not yet verdant-which divides the range of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon; the former reaching its highest point in the snowy crest to the north, behind which lie the Cedars; the latter in the still more snowy crest of Hermon: the culmination of the range being thus in the one at the northern, in the other at the southern extremity, of the valley which they bound. The view of this great valley is chiefly remarkable as being exactly to the eye what it is on mapsthe "hollow" between the two mountain ranges of "Syria." A screen through which the Leontes breaks out closes the south end of the plain. There is a similar screen at the north end, but too remote to be visible. It is in the centre of the plain that you find the ruins of Baalbec. That northern screen of hills, with its opening beyond, is "the entering in of Hamath'," so often mentioned as the extreme limit, in this direction, of the widest possible inheritance of Israel. The huge walls of Baalbec represent, in all probability, the ancient sanctuary which commanded the route of commercial traffic through these northern defiles', as Petra, at a later period, served the same purpose in the southern Desert. III. The northern river is the Orontes. This alone, of the 1 For the Leontes, see Chapters II. and VII. 2 Van de Velde, i. 113. 3 Num. xiii. 21; 2 Kings xiv. 25; 2 Chr. vii. 8, &c. For this opening, see Pückler Muskau, iii. 22; Van de Velde, ii. 470; Schwarze, 25. Mr. Porter (Damascus, ii. 355); but, as far as I can see, without sufficient reason, assigns this name to the western approach to Hamath. 4 See Ritter; Lebanon, 236. . Lebanon in to the Orontes. four rivers, is said to have the aspect, not of a mountain stream, but of a true river. With this agrees the account of its relation the abundant waters of its source', immediately north of the rise of the Leontes, which seems to have entitled it, amongst all the springs of Syria, to the emphatic name of "the Spring." Worthily of its origin the river rolls on; and, whether in the length of its course, or the volume of its waters, or the rich vegetation of its banks, it is not surprising that, to the Roman world, the Orontes should have appeared as the representative of Syria. Politically, too, as well as by its natural features, it presented the chief point of contact, in later times, between this corner of Asia and the West. Near what may be called the turning-point of its course, where its spacious stream is diverted from advancing further northward by the chain of Amanus, the offshoot of the Taurus range, rose the Greek city of Antioch. Out of a vast square plain, the Orontes issues into a broad valley, opening seawards, but closed in on the north by Amanus, on the south by the rugged hills of the Casian range. These last, with the circuit of vast walls that crown their heights, defended the city on one side, as the Orontes formed a natural moat on the other side in the level valley. All the cities in Palestine must have seemed mere villages or garrison towns in comparison with the size, the strength, and the beauty of this new capital. It has often been observed how the Christianity of the first ages throve in cities rather than in the country. So it was emphatically with "the disciples who were first called Christians at Antioch," the capital of the East. From Antioch the river pursues its westerly course, and it is in this its last stage that the scenery occurs, which-by the wooded cliffs, the numerous windings, and the green spaces by the river side-has suggested the likeness of the English Wye. Enormous water-wheels, 471. Ritter; 1 Van de Velde, ii. Lebanon, pp. 177, 996. For the name "Ha-Ain," the spring, (Numb. xxxiv. 11) see Appendix, Ain. This peculiarity in the situation of Antioch, with hills on one side and river on the other, explains the apparent inconsistency noticed by Gibbon between the vast extent of its walls and the small number of its gates. Of the five gates, one commanded the only pass into the hills, one the bridge across the river; and (in the shorter ends of the oblong space) one led up the valley (eastward), and two down the valley (westward). This remark, as well as the general facts selected as characteristic of the Orontes and Antioch, which I was unable to visit, I owe to the accurate observation of my friend and fellow-traveller, Mr. Fremantle. turned by the ample stream; gardens, hedged in not by the usual fence of stiff prickly pear, but by plane and myrtle; the ground thickly studded with bay and oleander, as the river passes by the probable site of Daphne-these are some of the features which distinguish the scenery of the Orontes from the usual imagery of the East. Lebanon in its relation Barada. IV. The Leontes and Orontes are unknown, Baalbec and Antioch all but unknown, to the earlier history of the Jewish people. But when we turn eastward we find ourselves once more on well-known ground. There to the is no portion of Syria where the history is so dependent on the geography as that which hangs on the fourth river of Lebanon, now called "Barada," by the ancient Greeks "Bardines" or "Chrysorrhoas," by the Hebrews "Abana" or "Pharpar." The interior aspect of Damascus, however striking in itself, has often been described, and has no special bearing on the object of this volume. But its geographical situation forcibly illustrates the characteristics of Oriental scenery, and well explains the reason why such a city must always have existed on the spot,-the first seat of man in leaving, the last on entering, the wide Desert of the East'. Damascus. course of a little stream The stream is the Barada. Damascus should be approached only one way, and that is from the west. The traveller who comes from that quarter passes over the great chain of Anti-Libanus; he crosses the watershed, and he finds himself following the flowing through a richly cultivated valley. It flows on, and the cultivation which at its rise spreads far and wide along its banks, nourished by the rills which feed it, gradually is contracted within the limits of its single channel. The mountains rise round it absolutely bare. The peaks of Mount Sinai are not more sterile than these Syrian ranges. . . . But the river winds through them visible everywhere by its mass of vegetation-willow, poplars, hawthorn, walnut, hanging over a rushing volume of crystal water, -the more striking from the contrast of the naked Desert in which it is found. One of the strongest impressions left by the East is the connection-obvious enough in itself, but little thought of in Europe 1 The course of the Barada is well described by Mr. Porter (Journal of Sacred Literature, iv. 246-259). He identifies the Pharpar with the 'Awaj, which he has 'also described; as rising in Hermon, and losing itself in a lake south of Damascus (ibid. v. 49-57), as the Barada in two lakes east of Damascus (ibid. iv. 260). See also his Damascus, i. 255, 299, 320. -between verdure and running water. But never-not even in the close juxtaposition of the Nile valley and the sands of Africahave I seen so wonderful a witness to this life-giving power, as the view on which we are now entering. The further we advance the contrast becomes more and more forcible; the mountains more bare, the green of the river-bed more deep and rich. At last a cleft opens in the rocky hills between two precipitous cliffs -up the side of one of these cliffs the road winds; on the summit of the cliff there stands a ruined chapel. Through the arches of that chapel, from the very edge of the mountain-range, you look down on the plain of Damascus. It is here seen in its widest and fullest perfection, with the visible explanation of the whole secret of its great and enduring charm, that which it must have had when it was the solitary seat of civilisation in Syria, and which it will have as long as the world lasts. The river with its green banks is visible at the bottom, rushing through the cleft; it bursts forth,' and, as if in a moment, scatters over the plain, through a circle of thirty miles, the same verdure which had hitherto been confined to its single channel. It is like the bursting of a shell-the eruption of a volcano-but an eruption not of death but of life. Far and wide in front extends the level plain, its horizon bare, its lines of surrounding hills bare, all bare far away on the road to Palmyra and Bagdad. In the midst of this plain lies at your feet the vast lake or island of deep verdure, walnuts and apricots waving above, corn and grass below; and in the midst of this mass of foliage rises, striking out its white arms of streets hither and thither, and its white minarets above the trees which embosom them, the City of Damascus. On the right towers the snowy height of Hermon, overlooking the whole scene. Close behind are the sterile limestone mountains-so that you stand literally between the living and the dead. And the ruined arches of the ancient chapel, which serve as a centre and framework to the prospect and retrospect, still preserve the magnificent story which, whether truth or fiction, is well worthy of this sublime view. Here, hard by the sacred heights of Salihyeh-consecrated by the caverns and tombs of a thousand Mussulman saints-the Prophet is said to have stood, whilst yet a camel-driver from Mecca, and after gazing on the scene below, to have turned away without entering the city. "Man," he said, "can have but one paradise-and my paradise is fixed above." The origin of Damascus, as thus depending on this rush of many waters, is well expressed in the legendary account, said to have been given by El-Khudr, the Ancient Wanderer of the Mussulman religion. "Once," he said, "I passed by and saw the site of this city all covered by the sea wherein was an abundance of water collected. After this I was absent five hundred years, and then returning, beheld a city commenced therein, where many were walking about." (Jelal-ed-din, p. 486.) 2 Maundrell: Early Travellers, p. 485. The chapel is called "Kubbet-en-Nasar," -"the Dome of Victory." According One other traditional view there is on the opposite side of Damascus, which though nearer at hand and only seen from the level ground, is, if correct, yet more memorable-the most memorable, indeed, which even this world-old city has presented to mortal eyes. A quarter of an hour from the walls of the city on the eastern side the Christian burial-ground, and a rude mass of conglomerate stone mark the reputed scene of the conversion of St. Paul. We were there" at noon." There was the cloudless blue sky overhead; close in front the city wall, in part still ancient; around it, the green mass of groves and orchards: and beyond them, and deeply contrasted with them, on the south, the white top of Hermon, on the north, the gray hills of Salihyeh. Such, according to the local belief, was St. Paul's view when the light became darkness before him, and he heard the voice which turned the fortunes of mankind. NOTE A. ON THE TRADITIONAL LOCALITIES OF DAMASCUS. IN the above description of Damascus, I have ventured to allude to the two traditional views which must occur to every one in approaching Damascus, as fitly closing the long succession of celebrated prospects, which form so remarkable a series of links between the history and geography of the Holy Land. But the two spots in question must be considered, historically, as more than doubtful. : Mahomet probably never reached Damascus at all in his early wanderings; and the story seems, like many others relating to the neighbourhood, to have been only an expression of the strong sense of the beauty of the scene. With regard to the conversion of St. Paul," as he drew nigh to Damascus," it is not likely that the exact scene should have been preserved and it is curious that no less than four' distinct spots have been pointed out at different times along the road to Damascus, at a greater or less distance, within ten miles. from the city. Of these four spots, the only one now remeinbered seems to be that which has just been mentioned. And even of this, the tradition is only retained in the Latin convent. The ignorant guides of the place point it out only as the place where St. Paul hid himself after his escape, and all memory of the Vision and Con to one version of the story it is said to be the grave of the Prophet's guide, who said, "Here let me die." (See a very inaccurate work, but with a few shreds of information, Yussuf, p. 253). From the hills to the north of this Abraham is said to have had the celebrated view of the rising and setting of the sun, the Inoon, and the stars, which occasioned his abandonment of idolatry. (Ibn Batuta, i. 23. Koran VI. 76-78.) Quaresmius, vol. ii. 874. |