BAALBEK. 
211 
been thrown out of place by some convulsion of nature. The 
lower block forming the base is broken nearly to the middle, 
the gap having the appearance of being purposely made to de¬ 
stroy the column by a fall. It is miraculous how it has so 
long resisted the force of the winds, which sometimes blow 
with great violence on this plain. 
In about an hour more we reached a miserable village, in 
sight of the ruins of Baalbek, where we stopped to lunch. 
This was the worst specimen of a Syrian village we had yet 
seen. There was a pond of green water close by from which 
the stench was insufferable ; and as to the huts, they were 
literally goat-houses, filthy and poverty-stricken to a degree 
that can not be conceived ; many of them being mere holes 
cut in the mud-banks partially walled up. The inhabitants 
corresponded well with the village, being a ragged, unwash¬ 
ed, squalid set of vagabonds, as lazy as Arabs can be, but, 
like all the Orientals, of handsome features and picturesque 
and dignified in their rags. Every man, with his turban and 
chibouck and fine beard, was a living picture. Of the women 
I can not say so much. They were coarse and ugly enough, 
and so covered up in dirty rags that the effect was more in 
distance than proximity. The Sheik was a dignified old man, 
who sat in front of his hovel smoking with the quiet air of a 
Pasha or Sultan. And here, let me observe, that I have sel¬ 
dom seen an Arab or Turk of any rank above the mere dregs 
of society who was not a model of good manners; never 
evincing any thing like awkwardness in the presence of his 
superiors, or self-sufficiency over his inferiors. The Sheiks 
of the villages dress quite as plainly as the best of the ordi¬ 
nary classes and can only be distinguished by the deference 
shown them by the people generally. In their administra¬ 
tion of justice they seem to be actuated by a desire to econ¬ 
omize their power by settling all difficulties amicably, and on 
the principles of common sense. Law is here divested of its 
tautology, for it is merely an accepted standard of right and 
wrong recognized by the mass of the community tradition¬ 
ally ; and the Sheik who acts with undue severity, or who 
is governed by inequitable or selfish motives, soon loses all 
