506 MAGNIFICENT HUINS OP PALMYRA. 



which, whether they formed an inner court, or supported the roof 

 of a cloister, is uncertain. One great stone lies on the ground 

 which seems to have reached from these pillars, to the walls of the 

 temple ; so that the latter conjecture may naturally enough take 

 place. The whole space contained within these pillars, is one 

 hundred and seventy-seven feet in length, and in breadth, eighty, 

 four. In the midst of this space is the temple, extending ninety- 

 nine feet in length, and in breadth, about forty. It has a sump, 

 tuous entrance on the west, exactly in the middle of the building, 

 and, by what remains, it seems to have been one of the most glo- 

 rious edifices in the world. You here see vines and clusters of 

 grapes executed to the life ; and over the door you can just trace 

 out a spread eagle, as at Balbeck, which takes up the whole width ; 

 with some angels or Cupids accompanying it on the same stone, 

 and several eagles seen upon stones that are fallen down. No- 

 thing of this temple is standing but the walls, in which it is obser. 

 rable, that the windows, though not large, are narrower at top 

 than at bottom, but mightily enriched with sculpture. It has been 

 aukwardly patched up to serve for a mosque, all but the north end, 

 where are very precious reliques; which, whether they were in the 

 nature of canopies over altars, or to what use else they served, is 

 not easy to conjecture. They are beautified with the most curious 

 fret work and sculpture ; in the midst of which is a dome or cupola, 

 six feet diameter, all of one piece ; but whether they are hewn out 

 of the solid rock, or molded of fine cement or composition, is made 

 a doubt. 



When you leave this court and temple, a prodigious number of 

 marble pillars present themselves to your sight, scattered up and 

 down for the space of near a mile ; but, in such confusion, that 

 there is no room to guess for what end they were framed. 



Advancing towards the north, as you leave the temple, you have 

 a tall and stalely obelisk or pillar before you, consisting of seven 

 large stones, besides its capital. It is wreathed ; and the sculpture 

 here, as erery-where else, extremely fine. It is above fifty feet in 

 height, twelve feet and an half in compass just above the pedestal, 

 and a statue is conceived to have once stood upon it. On the east 

 and west of this, at the distance of a quarter of a mile, is a large 

 pillar, and a piece of another near to the eastern pillar, which looks 

 as if there had been once a continued row of them. The height of 

 this eastern pillar, as taken by a quadrant, is above forty feet. Its 



