an, the name of which we first meet with on the monuments of
the Assyrian king Assur-bani-pal. To the north it was bounded by
Ituraea, so named from Jetur, the son of Ishmael (Gen. xxv. 15), the
road through Ituraea (the modern Jedur) leading to Damascus and its
well-watered plain.

The gardens of Damascus lie 2260 feet above the sea. In the summer the
air is cooled by the mountain breezes; in the winter the snow sometimes
lies upon the surface of the land. Westward the view is closed by the
white peaks of Anti-Lebanon and Hermon; eastward the eye wanders over a
green plain covered with the mounds of old towns and villages, and
intersected by the clear and rapid streams of the Abana and Pharphar.
But the Abana has now become the Barada, or "cold one," while the
Pharphar is the Nahr el-Awaj.

The Damascus of to-day stands on the site of the city from which St.
Paul escaped, and "the street which is called Straight" can still be
traced by its line of Roman columns. But it is doubtful whether the
Damascus of the New Testament and of to-day is the same as the Damascus
of the Old Testament. Where the walls of the city have been exposed to
view, we see that their Greek foundations rest on the virgin soil; no
remains of an earlier period lie beneath them. It may be, therefore,
that the Damascus of Ben-Hadad and Hazael is marked rather by one of the
mounds in the plain than by the modern town. In one of these the stone
statue of a man, in the Assyrian style, was discovered a few years ago.

An ancient road leads from the peach-orchards of Damascus, along the
banks of the Abana and over Anti-Lebanon, to the ruins of the temple of
the Sun-god at Baalbek. The temple as we see it is of the age of the
Antonines, but it occupies the place of one which stood in Heliopolis,
the city of the Sun-god, from immemorial antiquity. Relics of an older
epoch still exist in the blocks of stone of colossal size which serve as
the foundation of the western wall. Their bevelling reminds us of
Phoenician work.

Baalbek was the sacred city of the Bek'a, or "cleft" formed between
Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon by the gorge through which the river Litany
rushes down to the sea. Once and once only is it referred to in the Old
Testament. Amos (i. 5) declares that the Lord "will break the bar of
Damascus and cut off the inhabitant from Bikath-On"--the Bek'a of On.
The name of On reminds us that the Heliopolis of Egypt, the city of the
Egyptian Sun-god, was