MAGNIFICENT RUINS OF PALMYRA. 505 



are no vestiges of the walls, whereby to judge of its ancient form. 

 Itis now a deplorable spectacle to behold, being only inhabited bjr 

 thirty or forty miserable families, who Lave ba'nt poor hats of mad, 

 within a spacious court, which once inclosed a magnificent heathen 

 faaple. 



To begin the description here : This court, which stands about 

 the south end of the city, i> two hundred and twenty yards on each 

 side, with an high and stately wall of large square stone, adorned 

 with pilasters within and without, to the number, as near as could 

 be judged, of sixty. two on a side. The beautiful cornices hate 

 been purposely beaten down by the Turks, who have thereby de. 

 prired the world of one of the finest works of the kind that perhaps 

 was ever seen, as hereand. there a fragment, which has escaped 

 their fury, abundantly evinces. The west side of this court, by 

 which you enter it, is most of it broken down ; and towards th 

 Middle of it there are remains of an old castle, built by the Mam. 

 Inks, as is supposed, out of part of the ruins which are here in such 

 abundance. This castle shrouds the remains of an ancient fabric 

 of exquisite beauty, as appears by what is still standing of its en. 

 trance, being two stones of thirty.tive feet in length, carred with 

 vines and clusters of grapes, exceeding bold, and to the life. They 

 are both in their right places, and by them it appears, that the door 

 or gate was fifteen feet wide. In this great court are the remains 

 of two rows of very noble marble pillars thirty, seven feet high with 

 capitals of the finest carved work ; and the cornices must hare 

 been of equal beauty, though quite destroyed by the relentless so. 

 persthion of the Mohammedans. Of tht.-e pillars titty-eight are 

 inure. They most have been many more in number; for, by 

 what appears, they went quite round the court, and supported a 

 most spacious double piazza or cloister. The walks on the west 

 side of this puzza, which face the front of the temple, seem to hare 

 been the nost spacious and stately of all ; and at each end of it are 

 two niches for statues at their full length, with their pedestals, bor- 

 ders, support rs, and canopies, carved with the greatest artifice 

 and cariosity. The space within this once beautiful ioclosure, is 

 conceived to have been an open court, as we have already called it, 

 in the midst of which stands the temple, incompassed with another 

 row of pillars of a different order, and far exceeding the former in 

 dimwMMM, being fifty feet high. Of these, sixteen are now 

 standing ; bat there must have been about doable that number, 



