. With the world's great travellers;. -desses. Entering the temple by a hole in the Saracen wall thatcloses it, we find a grand door-way which was square, thetop being trilithic, two stones resting on the pilasters orside posts, the middle one keyed in between these. Thismiddle stone has been shaken from its position, and theouter two, opening a little, have let it slip down, but it iscaught by the width of its upper part, and thus hangs,threatening destruction to whoever passes under it. Onthe under side of this stone is carved an eagle, whose wings,or the tips of them, are left on the other
. With the world's great travellers;. -desses. Entering the temple by a hole in the Saracen wall thatcloses it, we find a grand door-way which was square, thetop being trilithic, two stones resting on the pilasters orside posts, the middle one keyed in between these. Thismiddle stone has been shaken from its position, and theouter two, opening a little, have let it slip down, but it iscaught by the width of its upper part, and thus hangs,threatening destruction to whoever passes under it. Onthe under side of this stone is carved an eagle, whose wings,or the tips of them, are left on the other stones. The tipstouch two cupids, one of which scaled off when the eaglefell. The other was battered by the early Christians,whose vandalish propensities are so noticeable in Egyptiantemples. The eagles bill holds a wreath and bundle offlowers. Within, the temple is battered and bruised, anddefaced with the names of hundreds of modern it is gorgeous, and was glorious. The carving of the RUIISJS OF^ -TEMPLE AT BAALBEC. Prime] BAALSEC, THE CITY OF THE SUN. 113 oak-leaves and acorns, of the delicate bead-work, and of theintricate and innumerable patterns and ornaments, sur-passes all the work in stone that I have seen , festoons, and garlands are wrought all over thewalls with the utmost skill and taste. On the east side of this temple there are yet standingfour of the columns which support a very perfect speci-men of the frieze, but no description can convey an ideaof the elaborate nature of it. Bulls and lions heads alter-nate with oak-leaves and grapes, and various other pat-terns. The top of this architrave is disfigured by a rude stonewall, piled on it by the Saracens, the object of which I amat a loss to guess at. There are many other ruins of buildings on the greatplatform and connected with it, but I pass from them tothe vaults below. I postponed an examination of theseuntil the third day of our visit, having devoted a part ofthe previous
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectvoyages, bookyear1901
