Syria and the Holy Land : their scenery and their people : incidents of travel, &cfrom the best and most recent authorities . mpare the countless slender shafts, with the curving * JBurckhardt. 230 SYRIA AND THE HOLY LAND. foliage of their capitals, to a petrified grove of palms ? No ; it is rather thetulip-bed of a powerful fairy: some evil power has dried up the sap of thebeautiful flowers, and we men now believe that what we see was once atown. Yes, truly, it was impossible for me to comprehend the prodigiousspectacle presented to our view from the height. Let it not be expected,then, that
Syria and the Holy Land : their scenery and their people : incidents of travel, &cfrom the best and most recent authorities . mpare the countless slender shafts, with the curving * JBurckhardt. 230 SYRIA AND THE HOLY LAND. foliage of their capitals, to a petrified grove of palms ? No ; it is rather thetulip-bed of a powerful fairy: some evil power has dried up the sap of thebeautiful flowers, and we men now believe that what we see was once atown. Yes, truly, it was impossible for me to comprehend the prodigiousspectacle presented to our view from the height. Let it not be expected,then, that I should attempt to depict it—the attempt would be useless; for,after all, every reader would have to call in the aid of his own fancy toenable him to reconstruct from my sketch the image of that vast ruin-coveredplain ; of those columns, which, seen from a distance, appear slender as thestems of tulips, and the bases of which are yet higher than a mans head,and that stretch out their marvellous vistas to the length of 3000 rode in speechless wonder down the hill, gazing with eager eyes on thescene before Part of the Great Colonnade of Palmyra. Descending to the plain, we stopped to drink at a well near the outerwall of the Temple of the Sun, and then pitched under an olive-tree in adeserted garden. This site of perished grandeur might once more be madea very agreeable spot by a proper distribution of two streams which are nowentirely neglected by the Arabs; they are both of hot, sulphureous water,which, however, the inhabitants find wholesome and not disagreeable. Themost considerable rises westward of the ruins from a beautifu. grotto at thefoot of the mountains, almost high enough in the middle to admit of onesstanding upright. The whole bottom is a basin of very clear water somefeet deep. The heat thus confined makes it an excellent bath, for whichpurpose the Arabs use it. The stream, which runs from it with a pretty PALMYRA. 231 brisk current, is about a fo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, bookpublisherlondonchapmanandha
