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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by Maynard Owen Williams 



A REUC OF TFlE DAYS P.EFORK THE LEBANON WENT DRY 



When the abstemious Turk supplanted the convivial Roman in the plateau between the 

 Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon, the once-famous temple of Bacchus went out of use, but its 

 final indignity was to come when the Kaiser placed a glaring memorial tablet on its time- 

 softened walls. The carvings that frame the doorway consist of conventional designs of 

 flowers and sheaves of wheat, and delicate carvings of bacchantes and dryads, not so con- 

 ventional. 



half way between the supposed place of 

 burial and the outer columns, were com- 

 panies of Moslem soldiers — privates in 

 ill-fitting costumes ; officers in many 

 kinds of shoulder-straps and caps, who 

 seemed to lack authority over their men. 

 Then followed a pitiful scene. The 

 soldiers found that there were too many 

 pilgrims near the Chapel of the Angels, 

 so they began to drag men and women 

 out of places which they had held all 

 night. White-haired, honest-faced Rus- 

 sians in tight-fitting jackets and black 

 boots were dragged protesting from the 

 crowd. There were babies there. One 

 woman had stepped aside to nurse her 

 little one and she was seized upon and 

 thrust out into the dark recesses, outside 

 the circle of massive columns. Protests, 

 entreaties — all were useless. Gradually 

 the struggling pilgrims were passed out 

 through a fissure in the crowd. 



The balconies are filled with visitors 

 and celebrities — curiosity - seekers at- 

 tracted by the spectacle and paying dearly 

 for a cramped place from which they 

 can see the show. 



PATIENT PIEGRIMS AND SKEPTICAL 



SIGHTSEERS 



Gradually the temporary platforms in 

 the archways just above the heads of the 

 crowd become filled with visitors from 

 the four corners of the earth. Spectacled 

 American women, almost mannish, can 

 be seen here and there. A young Ameri- 

 can beauty climbs a ladder to a place on 

 one of the platforms. English women, 

 French women, Moslems in their black 

 veils — all are there. The wide-awake 

 curiosity of the foreign tourists, secure 

 on their platforms, contrasts with the 

 quiet patience of the somber pilgrims 

 huddled below. 



Kavasses, resplendent in gold lace, 



