and amphitheatres and temples, suddenly appearing in
the bare and lonely landscape as if by enchantment.

How came these monuments of splendour and permanence into this country
of simplicity and transience, this land of shifting shepherds and
drovers, this empire of the black tent, this immemorial region that has
slept away the centuries under the spell of the pastoral pipe? What
magical music of another kind, strong, stately and sonorous, music of
brazen trumpets and shawms, of silver harps and cymbals, evoked this
proud and potent city on the border of the desert, and maintained for
centuries, amid the sweeping, turbulent floods of untamable tribes of
rebels and robbers, this lofty landmark of

"the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome"?

What sudden storm of discord and disaster shook it all down again,
loosened the sinews of majesty and power, stripped away the garments of
beauty and luxury, dissolved the lovely body of living joy, and left
this skeleton of dead splendour diffused upon the solitary ground?

Who can solve these mysteries? It is all unaccountable,
unbelievable,--the ghost of the dream of a dream,--yet here it is,
surrounded by the green hills, flooded with the frank light of noon,
neighboured by a dirty, noisy little village of Arabs and Circassians on
the east bank of the stream, and with real goats and lean, black cattle
grazing between the carved columns and under the broken architraves of
Gerasa the Golden.

Let us go up into the wrecked city.

This triumphal arch, with its three gates and its lofty Corinthian
columns, stands outside of the city walls: a structure which has no
other use or meaning than the expression of Imperial pride: thus the
Roman conquerors adorn and approach their vassal-town.

Behind the arch a broad, paved road leads to the southern gate, perhaps
a thousand feet away. Beside the road, between the arch and the gate,
lie two buildings of curious interest. The first is a great pool of
stone, seven hundred feet long by three hundred feet wide. This is the
Naumachia, which is filled with water by conduits from the neighbouring
stream, in order that the Greeks may hold their mimic naval combats and
regattas here in the desert, for they are always at heart a seafaring
people. Beyond the pool there is a Circus, with four rows of stone seats
and an oval arena, for wild-beast shows and gladiatorial combats.

The city walls have almost entirely disappear