40 NOTES ON A SOJOURN IN THE LEVANT, 
temples, called the great and the small temple, dedicated to the 
Sun. 
Out of all the great number of columns which once adorned 
the Baalbec temples, only six remain standing. The enormous 
size of the stones used in these buildings causes the greatest won- 
der to all who see or know of them. There are three stones 
in one of the walls of the Great Temple lying side by side of 
One another, one is sixty-four feet long, another sixty-three feet 
eight inches, and the third sixty-three feet, and in a quarry just a 
mile outside Baalbec is one whose length is seventy feet, and 
which is seventeen feet high and fourteen feet thick. 
But we must now leave Baalbec, as we have to get on to Con- 
stantinople. Going back to Beyrout, we can take one of the 
steamers of the ‘“‘ Messageries Maritimes” line and voyage along 
the coast of Syria northwards. Skirting along the coast of Asia 
Minor, under the shadow of the Taurus mountains, you pass 
the island of Rhodes, and then at once you are among the islands 
of the A‘gean archipelago. And here begins the most delightful 
part of a most interesting and enjoyable voyage. The sea is 
studded with innumerable small islands, many of them too small 
to be marked in a map, some appearing to be inhabited solely by 
sea birds, which rise in large flocks from the white cliffs as the 
vessel passes by. The larger ones contain a town, or a village or 
two, built picturesquely on the steep surface of the island, and 
shining with dazzling whiteness in the brilliant sunshine. 
In this way you sail along for a whole day and night, when you 
begin to leave the small islands behind as you near the Bay of 
Smyrna. And now you are actually in the region that may be 
said to be almost sacred to a large part of mankind, in that it is 
the scene of the deeds and achievements of that truly wonderful 
nation, that of the ancient Greeks, and most travellers, I believe, 
find it difficult to withstand the influence of the “genius loci.’’ 
In these waters, and in the countries whose shores are washed 
by them, lived those learned and mighty men and heroes of old, 
of whom it is not too much to say that they have helped more 
than any other people to make modern Europe what it is, and 
