236 
A CRUSADE IN THE EAST. 
statues. The Greek priests suppose this to be the tower of 
Santa Barbara. By some travelers it is compared to the 
Temple of Janus at Home. Two little streams of water run 
through the town, one of which passes under this temple. 
One of the most remarkable ruins in Baalbek is that of 
the ancient mosque, in which is seen the tomb of Saladin. I 
had some do ibts as to this being the ruin of a mosque; but, 
in the absence of any better information than that of our 
dragoman, had to take it as such. There is a high wall, in¬ 
closing a space of some hundreds of yards square, in which 
are rows of vast arches, sustained by pillars, covering the 
entire interior. Looking through underneath it has the ap¬ 
pearance of a perfect forest of pillars. Near the entrance is 
a little tomb, built of rough stone, apparently of Saracenic 
construction, upon one end of which is an inscription in 
Arabic. This is said to be the tomb of the famous Saladin, 
the conqueror of the Christian hosts on the fields of Hatin 
and of Esdraelon. I did not read the inscription; so I am 
unable to tell you what it means. 
There are some few objects of interest in the way of ruined 
walls and arches, containing patches of the antique, scattered 
about through the town and the neighborhood, all of which 
we thoroughly examined; but they are so much like any 
other ruins that the interest depends mainly upon their being 
in Baalbek, where every body can not go to see them, as in 
Home or Athens. 
Tired of rambling about, I sat down on an eminence over¬ 
looking the ruins, and began to think seriously and soberly 
of all that I had seen, and to divest myself of the first en¬ 
thusiastic impressions, so as to arrive at some reasonable idea 
of what Baalbek must have been in the days of its glory. 
Sober second thought is a good deal like a written contract; 
it brings both parties (the imagination and the judgment) to 
a proper understanding, and leaves no room for visionary spec¬ 
ulation or loose interpretation. 
That Baalbek was a city abounding in fine edifices is suf¬ 
ficiently apparent from the magnificence of its ruins. One 
can not but deplore the desolation of those splendid temples, 
