creaked, until we thought they must come down.

Sunday, November 7.-The morning was bitterly cold, and it was a luxury to feel we had not to make an early start, for we had none of us recovered from the fatigue of Friday. I spent most of the day lying on my bed and reading, and I don't think any of the others did much more. Tom read prayers in the morning, and in the afternoon he and Albert went for a stroll, while Evie and I found our way to a neighboring stream and washed out a few things. We had been led to expect the probability of a daily wash-out, and had therefore come but slenderly provided. As no one could be found to wash for us, it seemed best to take this opportunity of doing it for ourselves, in spite of its being Sunday. Our proceedings excited the greatest interest, and we soon found ourselves the centre of an admiring crowd.

Akurah is a flourishing Arab village, quite on a par with its neighbors as to noise. Nobody and nothing seems ever to go to sleep. All night long the dogs bark, the children cry, the cocks crow, men and women shout and wrangle, and the rest of the animals make queer nondescript noises. But they are quite harmless, and squatted in a watchful and deeply interested circle, about fifty yards off, all this bright Sunday afternoon. In our turn we gazed at them, especially at some picturesque creatures with long guns, and an imposing-looking Bedouin, who rested idly on a lance about fourteen feet long and pointed at each end. Presently one of the crowd asked permission to show us a curious trick. Of course we signified our willing consent, through Karam, whereupon the man proceeded with all a conjurer's gravity to place two common wine-bottles, filled with water, on the ground, a few inches apart. On the top of these he balanced nicely two tumblers, also filled to the brim with water. Then he laid a short, stout oak stick across, with an end just resting on each tumbler, and drawing his sword, cut the stick in two in two places with two strokes, and without spilling a single drop of the water. It was very cleverly done, and a real feat of skill, not a mere trick with a substituted stick.

One of the numerous native dogs, who always infest the camp directly it is pitched, attached himself to me to-day, and insisted on sleeping in our tent.

Monday, November 8.-Yesterday's thorough rest has completely refreshed all the camp, but the cold is intense. The sunrise was lovely, though at halfpast eight, when we started, the sun had not risen sufficiently over the mountains to warm us. Our way led through a narrow gorge, and then by bleak bare hills; an incessant climb for two hours. By this time it had become intensely hot, yet with a sharp east wind blowing; exactly like an English March day. The halt which Karam called, on the flat plateau at the top, gave us time to admire the magnificent view of the chain of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon, with the wide plain, some seven or eight miles across, stretching between. The highest peaks of the range were covered with

snow.

Almost immediately we began to descend a steep path, then crossed the lowest mountain spurs, and so made our way down to the plain itself. Here the travelling was more rapid, and we had crossed the river Orontes and reached Baalbek, after passing some Roman ruins, just as the moon was rising. The village is built on a green oasis in the midst of the long sandy plain, but we quickly left its narrow paths behind, and struck into a long subterranean passage, so pitch-dark that we could only make our way by the help of some cigar-lights which Albert fortunately had in his pocket. This tunnel led us out into the very centre of the court of the great Temple, and nothing I can write can convey any idea of the solemn beauty of the long colonnade of the Temple of the Sun or the six-columned frieze of the Temple of Baal, as we first saw them in the clear cold moonlight.

Our tents were pitched, and we found in another corner those of some friends, with whom we spent a pleasant evening, comparing notes of Syrian travel and adventure.

Tuesday, November 9.-The ruins look even more beautiful by day than in the moonlight. The delicate details of the decorations are better seen, the fine sharpness of the acanthus leaves, and the beauty of the bas-reliefs and wreaths

on the soffit or roof, between the colonnade and main building of the Temple of Jupiter. The mouldings in each square or octagon are perfectly exquisite. These temples stand on a platform still more ancient than themselves, comprising three enormous stones 64 feet long by 13 high. From these colossal blocks they originally derived their name of trilithon, or "the three-stoned."

The date of the temples is somewhere about 150 A.D. The great Temple was a Pantheon, dedicated to all the deities of Heliopolis. The second Temple was dedicated to the Sun; but Venus was worshipped there. Theodosius destroyed them in 379, only two hundred years after they had been built; but the carvings on their ruins are still as perfect as on the day they were finished. The great portico is especially magnificent; wreaths of foliage hang in graceful festoons on each side of the doorway, interspersed with Cupids and processions of dancing figures on the frieze. On the soffit of the door is a fine figure of an eagle, exactly like that in the Temple of Palmyra. It is an emblem of the Sun, to which the temple was dedicated. An earthquake has shaken the buildings to such an extent that this keystone has dropped down at least two feet, and the huge block, weighing many tons, looks as if the slightest jar would bring it down at a moment's notice. Indeed the whole gateway appears equally toppling and dangerous, and yet it has remained precisely in the same perilous condition for an immense time.

The interior of the great Temple of the Sun is as beautiful, each of its ruined details as conscientiously finished, as the outside is grand in its noble proportions. The remains of a magnificent arch still exist, also the friezes, on which are carved endless processions of dancing figures, full of life and movement, in every attitude. It must have been a larger building than the Necropolis at Athens, and is of a higher architectural value than the temples at Thebes, though it is smaller in size. It is the temple which has best escaped destruction; for, of the Temple of Baal, only six columns, supporting an exquisite and elaborate frieze, remain. This fragment stands on a large platform, which serves as a guide to the eye and

The

imagination as to its original area. circular Temple of Venus is almost entirely ruined, but the very little left is a perfect gem of beauty.

An Arab temple close by has been built with columns and capitals taken from the various temples around, and looks like a melancholy parody. The large capitals have been placed on columns far too short and too small, and everything seems carefully mismatched.

After a while we went outside to look once more at the enormous stones of the platform on which the temple stands. Then we strolled on to the stone-quarry, where a huge block remains waiting, as it has waited for many hundred years, for the finishing touch of its workmen. It is larger than any of the others used in the platforms, being 68 feet long, and has been cut into its destined shape, but levelled at only one end. What a satire on human vanity and man's desire to perpetuate his name, that there is not the faintest clue to the name of the builder of these colossal temples! Even that of the reigning king was only conjectured from an accidental remark of a writer in the seventh century, though it is known that the edifices themselves existed as far back as the second century.

The start for the day's journey was made after leaving the quarries, and just before turning round the shoulder of the hill we paused to have one more look at the ruins, half-hidden by the clustering trees. Beautiful and suggestive as are the Roman ruins, these far exceed them, and are indeed finer than anything I have ever seen.

Our road to Shurgaya lay over the same bare dreary hills. We lunched on a rocky spot, and then went on for four hours and a half more. This brought us to our destination, and we encamped just outside the village. It turned out to be a very noisy and sleepless night, for the jackals came down in troops from the mountains and surrounded the tents, and indeed the village, making most hideous noises.

Wednesday, November 10.-After an early breakfast we made a capital start by eight o'clock, and enjoyed the two hours' ride as far as Zebdany. The village itself stands most picturesquely, amid luxuriant orchards and gardens, just where the Abana rises, in a gorge

parched and dusty, and the Abana flowed low and sluggishly in its bed. But it was too late to alter now, so there was nothing for it except to dress and go and dine at the hotel. We made a droll cavalcade, on horseback, the gentlemen with loaded pistols, and the attendants, who carried lanterns, bristling with weapons. The table-d'hôte was rather bare of guests to-night, for the diligence which plies between here and Beyrout, and brings the travellers in time for dinner, did not arrive at all, having been required for the use of the Prince of Prussia, as it is the only car riage in all Syria ! We returned to the tents in the same melodramatic procession, and had, besides, four soldiers to guard the tents during the night.

Friday, November 12.-Another cold and lovely day. Friday is the MohamFriday is the Mohammedan Sabbath, and they make it market-day as well, so that the Bedouins of the desert, who come from long distances, may combine their temporal and spiritual duties comfortably, and do their marketing and go to the mosque on the same day. The streets were even more crowded than last night, with varied and wonderful costumes, and so closely packed that it was difficult to make one's way through them. In one corner stood a Bedouin Anazeh, of the tribes from near Palmyra, bargaining for 'a cane to make a spear, his goat's-hair cloak, with its broad black and white stripes, hanging from his stalwart shoulders. Another of the tribe, hard by, seemed to be doing his best to sell a horse, while others again rode by with an abstracted air, the graceful mares they bestrode often closely followed by whinnying foals. Groups of Turkish, Jewish, or Christian women make their purchases with quite as much earnestness and gesticulation as housewives nearer home, while their lords and masters lounged near, probably keeping an eye on the domestic expenditure, but apparently only intent on buying sweetmeats from some of the many venders. There were no Franks except ourselves.

It required great interest to get an order from the Turkish Governor of Damascus to see the great mosque, and the firman was only at last obtained through the good offices of Captain Burton, the celebrated traveller, now Con

sul here. The hour arranged for the visit was early, 9.30 A.M., and of course the first thing to be done when we reached the mosque, followed by a dense crowd, was to take off our boots. It is an enormous building, of great antiquity, but of no architectural beauty, used successively, in various ages, as a heathen temple, a Christian church, and an Arab mosque, and now falling into decay. We went through into the outer court, and so up the steep steps of the minaret, whence there was a fine bird'seye view of the city. After we had seen all worth seeing about the mosque, we went on to look at some Turkish and Jewish houses. They were all built on precisely the same plan as the hotel, with outer and inner courts, fountains, orange-trees, flat roofs and divans, and were all more or less richly decorated and furnished according to the wealth and taste of the respective owners.

After a twelve-o'clock breakfast, we sallied forth to visit the gold- and silversmiths' bazaars. They are something like the crypt of an old church, with smoke-blackened pointed arches, and divisions running from column to column, looking like old-fashioned square pews. Every division contains three or four men, each with his little pan of fire and pair of bellows. In these dingy dens most exquisite workmanship can be produced. What I found the most interesting were the ornaments worn by the Bedouin women, often heavily set with jewels, and the anklets and bracelets hung with bells, delighted in by Jewesses. There were also some golden" tantours,' or horns, from which, on great occasions, drops the veil of a well-dressed Jewish woman. Though the things looked curious, I did not feel tempted to buy much, and we soon left the bazaar and went on to see the walls and their curious projecting windows, from one of which St. Paul was let down in a basket. After this we passed to the gates at the end of the "street called Straight," and so on to the house of Naaman the Syrian, which is now an hospital for lepers, the original Roman stones having received many additions to enlarge the building. There was also to be seen the great sycamore which grows in one of the bazaars, and is of goodly proportions, thirty-eight feet round the trunk, and of unknown age.

At Damascus, as well as at Beyrout and Cairo, sugar-canes are sold at the corner of every street, and the children seem to be perpetually sucking pieces of them. We tried some, and found the juice very good, and if you only buy a

cane long enough you may do the same as we saw many passers-by doing, suck one end, and occasionally beat your donkey with the other.-Fraser's Magazine.

(To be continued.)

WITHIN the last few weeks two pieces of literary biography* have appeared, which present a somewhat remarkable contrast, and which at the same time supplement one another. The one is the "Life of Charles Lever," the other M. Emile Bergerat's volume of reminiscences of Théophile Gautier. Between the literary merits of Lever and of Gautier there can of course be little comparison; but between their positions as representatives of French and English (if Irish-English) men of letters of the nineteenth century there is a not inconsiderable similarity. They were almost exactly contemporary, being born within a very few years, and dying within a very few months of one another. Both depended entirely upon their pens for subsistence, and both, though in very different ways, were what is vaguely called men of pleasure. The rewards which they received were indeed different enough in amount. One cannot help thinking how Gautier would have envied a man of letters who could make and spend, as Dr. Fitzpatrick tells us Lever for some years made and spent, three thousand pounds a year. Seventy-five thousand francs represents the income of a man whom the French, in their modest arithmetic, would call "deux fois millionnaire, and we may be quite sure that Gautier never touched" half the amount in any one of his forty years of hard literary journeywork-of such journeywork as perhaps no other man of letters ever did.

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Less fortunate in his actual wages, Gautier was also far less fortunate than Lever in his extra-literary gains. M.

Théophile Gautier: Entretiens, &c. Par Emile Bergerat, avec une Préface de Edmond de Goncourt. Paris: Charpentier.

Life of Charles Lever. By W. J. Fitzpatrick, LL.D. London: Chapman and Hall. NEW SERIES.-VOL. XXX., No. 5

Bergerat has pointed out that, though Gautier was reproached with his Bonapartism, singularly few drops of the golden shower rewarded his adherence to the Empire. He did his work, which was perfectly honest work, and received his pay, which was perfectly clean money. But no senatorship, no lucrative sinecure, fell to his lot; while Lever, in the later years of his life, was at any rate provided for without the necessity of working. "Je redeviens un manœuvre," said the author of "Emaux et Camées," to M. Edmond de Goncourt, after the disasters of 1870. For my part, considering what this manœuvre has left us, I do not know whether, for the benefit of literature and the credit of the literary calling, one can wish that it had been otherwise. Mérimée's luck might have brought with it Mérimée's fate, and have substituted a zero of idleness and sterility for the splendid work which Gautier so manfully did.

It is not at first easy to account for the uncomfortable impression which Dr. Fitzpatrick's interesting book somehow leaves upon the reader. No biography of the author of "Charles O'Malley" could be dull, and the reader who is in quest of amusement merely will find plenty in these volumes. But that Lever, with all his rollicking, was a decidedly unhappy person, whether it be a true impression or no, is certainly the impression here given. He appears to have been one of those extremely unfortunate men who take no genuine delight in the calling which nevertheless they pursue. He was indeed intensely sensitive as to public opinion on his novels. But he seems to have felt this sensitiveness, not because unfavorable criticism made him doubt the goodness of his work, but because it hurt his vanity.

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