r on, towards the Eastern
horizon, spread the plain of Damascus, and the desert towards Palmyra.

To the north, the wide and fertile valley of Bekaa lay between the two
great chains of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon; the latter of whose varied
hills and glens, speckled with forests and villages, lay beneath my
feet. Nothing but lakes were wanting to the valleys, nothing but heather
to the mountains. We caught some goats after a hard chase, and, milking
them on the snow, drank eagerly from this novel dairy.

Soon afterwards we discovered a little fountain gushing from a snowy
hill, and only those who have climbed a mountain 9,000 feet high, under
a Syrian sun, can appreciate the luxury of such a draught as that cool,
bubbling rill afforded.

_VIII.--Damascus: The World's Oldest City_

Emerging from the savage gorges of Anti-Lebanon, we entered a wide,
disheartening plain, bounded by an amphitheatre of dreary mountains. Our
horses had had no water for twenty-four hours, and we had had no
refreshment of any kind for twenty. After two hours of more hard riding
I came to another range of mountains, from beyond which opened the view
of Damascus, from which the Prophet abstained as too delicious for a
believer's gaze. It is said that after many days of toilsome travel,
when he beheld this city thus lying at his feet, he exclaimed, "But one
paradise is allowed to man; I will not take mine in this world;" and so
he turned his horse's head from Damascus and pitched his tent in the
desert.

For miles around us lay the dead desert, whose sands seemed to quiver
under the shower of sunbeams; far away to the south and east it spread
like a boundless ocean; but there, beneath our feet, lay such an island
of verdure as nowhere else perhaps exists. Mass upon mass of dark,
delicious foliage rolled like waves among garden tracts of brilliant
emerald green. Here and there the clustering blossoms of the orange or
the nectarine lay like foam upon that verdant sea. Minarets, white as
ivory, shot up their fairy towers among the groves; and purple
mosque-domes, tipped with the golden crescent, gave the only sign that a
city lay bowered beneath those rich plantations.

One hour's gallop brought me to the suburban gates of Mezze, and
thenceforth I rode on through streets, or rather lanes, of pleasant
shadow. For many an hour we had seen no water; now it gushed and gleamed
and sparkled all around us; from aqueduct above, and rivulet below, an