PORTION OF THE EASTERN PORTICO, BAALBEC. 
The Great Temple, with all its connected buildings, stands at the western extremity of 
the City, and just within the modern walls. A wall of moderate height, and flanked by 
square towers at intervals, encompasses the remaining portion of the City. The interior 
is covered with the ruins of private and public buildings. 
The chief entrance to the Sacred Enclosure, in its original state, was a grand Portico 
of the Corinthian order, looking to the East, and approached by a broad and stately flight 
of stone steps. This entrance is now walled across, and flanked at the extremities by two 
square towers, evidently a later work, being built up with fragments of cornices and 
columns. Two Courts lead the way to the Gi’eat Temple itself. The first is a Hexagon of 
144 feet diameter. From this there was an ascent into a vast Quadrangle of 347 feet in 
length, by 317 feet in breadth. Both Courts were evidently surrounded with buildings, 
probably for the dwellings of the priests; but those of the Hexagon are in such a state of 
dilapidation, as to defy any distinct conjecture. Those of the Quadrangle being in a 
ruined condition, give evidence of a succession of arcades and covered recesses of various 
less sizes; probably, Exedrse, or places of lecture for the priesthood and students, similar 
to those in the public groves of Greece; some of them squares of 43 feet, and some semi¬ 
circular, of 30 in diameter. The whole, with its noble columns, cornices, and elaborate 
sculpture, forming a scene, in its day of early beauty, to which the architectural world 
has no parallel. 
The roofs of those chambers, which were all open to the Court, have fallen in, and 
have long since been in dust; but the exterior walls, from which they sprang, remain, and 
in sufficient preservation to give an idea of the immense labour bestowed on their decora¬ 
tion. A row of niches for statues extends the whole length of these walls, which are 
ornamented with rich mouldings, and divided by pilasters. There are similar niches in the 
buttresses between. Wild herbs have now sprung up on the summit, and added their green 
and picturesque luxuriance to the general ruin. A foundation wall is discoverable in the 
middle of the Quadrangle, but whether of a temple, it is hopeless to ascei’tain. 
Still advancing to the westward, the stranger enters upon a grand Esplanade, a 
parallelogram of 230 feet by 118. This Court had arches similar to the former along 
its western and northern sides. On the southern side stood a row of magnificent 
Corinthian columns, surmounted by a highly sculptured architrave, making the whole 
height sixty or seventy feet above the epistylia. Of this colonnade six only are now 
erect; the remainder lie around them. The whole Esplanade being artificially raised 
above the level of the surrounding country, they form a very conspicuous object among 
the ruins. 
The magnitude of the materials strikes the eye with scarcely inferior effect to the 
general decoration of those splendid reliques of ancient genius. “ I cannot help,” says 
