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 Litâny
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 also called On, and the question arises whether
the name and worship of the On of Syria were not derived from the On of
Egypt. For nearly two centuries Syria was an Egyptian province, and the
priests of On in Egypt may well have established themselves in the
"cleft" valley of Coele-Syria.

From Baalbek, the city of "Baal of the Bek'a," the traveller makes his
way across Lebanon, and under the snows of Jebel Sannîn--nearly 9000
feet in height--to the old Phoenician city of Beyrout. Beyrout is
already mentioned in the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-Amarna under the