each year Baalat falls in love with her Adonis and loses him,
only to bring him back to life and lose him again in the coming year.

The whole neighbourhood of Byblos, and that part of Mount Lebanon in
which it lies, were steeped in memories of this legend from the very
earliest times. We know the precise spot where the goddess first caught
sight of her lover, where she unveiled herself before him, and where at
the last she buried his mutilated body, and chanted her lament for the
dead. A river which flows southward not far off was called the Adonis,
and the valley watered by it was supposed to have been the scene of this
tragic idyll. The Adonis rises near Aphaka,* at the base of a narrow
amphitheatre, issuing from the entrance of an irregular grotto, the
natural shape of which had, at some remote period, been altered by the
hand of man; in three cascades it bounds into a sort of circular basin,
where it gathers to itself the waters of the neighbouring springs, then
it dashes onwards under the single arch of a Roman bridge, and descends
in a series of waterfalls to the level of the valley below.

* Aphaka means "spring" in Syriac. The site of the temple and
town of Aphaka, where a temple of Aphrodite and Adonis still
stood in the time of the Emperor Julian, had long been
identified either with Fakra, or with El-Yamuni. Seetzen was
the first to place it at El-Afka, and his proposed
identification has been amply confirmed by the researches of
Penan.

[Illustration: 256.jpg VALLEY OF THE ADONIS]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.

[Illustration: 256a.jpg THE AMPHITHEATRE OF APHAKA AND THE SOURCE OF THE
NAHH-IBRAHIM]

Drawn by Boudier, from a photograph.

The temple rises opposite the source of the stream on an artificial
mound, a meteorite fallen from heaven having attracted the attention of
the faithful to the spot. The mountain falls abruptly away, its summit
presenting a red and bare appearance, owing to the alternate action
of summer sun and winter frost. As the slopes approach the valley they
become clothed with a garb of wild vegetation, which bursts forth from
every fissure, and finds a foothold on every projecting rock: the base
of the mountain is hidden in a tangled mass of glowing green, which the
moist yet sunny Spring calls forth in abundance whenever the slopes are
not too steep to retain a shallow layer of nourishing mould. It would
be hard to find, ev