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Updated: June 28, 2025
Up to this time, we met very few persons; and we forgot the anticipated perils in contemplating the rugged scenery of the Anti-Lebanon. The mountain-sides were brilliant with flowers, and many new and beautiful specimens arrested our attention. The asphodel grew in bunches beside the streams, and the large scarlet anemone outshone even the poppy, whose color here is the quintessence of flame.
It was there that I acquired not only a good deal of rheumatism, but a great liking for our damp autumnal nature in the north of France. If, later in life, I have been charmed by Mount Hermon, and the sunheated slopes of the Anti-Lebanon, it is due to the polarisation which is the law of love and which leads us to seek out our opposites.
The odor of the velvety weed of Shiraz meets my nostrils; a dark-eyed son of Pan places the narghileh at my feet; and, bubbling more sweetly than the streams of Jordan, the incense most dear to the god dims the crystal censer, and floats from my lips in rhythmic ejaculations. I, too, am in Arcadia! Crossing the Anti-Lebanon.
In the background we could descry some ruins on a rock, apparently the remains of an ancient castle. The next place we saw was Sarepta, where Elijah the prophet was fed by the poor widow during the famine. The Lebanon range becomes lower and lower, while its namesake, the Anti-Lebanon, begins to rise. It is quite as lofty as the first- named range, which it closely resembles in form.
Departure from Damascus The Fountains of the Pharpar Pass of the Anti-Lebanon Adventure with the Druses The Range of Lebanon The Demon of Hasheesh departs Impressions of Baalbec The Temple of the Sun Titanic Masonry The Ruined Mosque Camp on Lebanon Rascality of the Guide The Summit of Lebanon The Sacred Cedars The Christians of Lebanon An Afternoon in Eden Rugged Travel We Reach the Coast Return to Beyrout.
Since our arrival, I find that two other parties of travellers, one of which crossed the Anti-Lebanon on the northern side of Mount Hermon, were obliged to take guards, and saw several Druse spies posted on the heights, as they passed.
The distant view of the temple, on descending the last slope of the Anti-Lebanon, is not calculated to raise one's expectations. On the green plain at the foot of the mountain, you see a large square platform of masonry, upon which stand six columns, the body of the temple, and a quantity of ruined walls.
It indicates the completeness of the exploration by giving its extreme southern and northern points, the desert of Zin being probably the present depression called the Arabah, and 'Rehob as men come to Hamath' being probably near the northern Dan, on the way to Hamath, which lay in the valley between the Lebanon and the Anti-Lebanon.
These are due either to the change of latitude, or to the tropical heat of the Jordan and Dead Sea valley, or finally to the high elevation of Hermon, Lebanon, and Anti-Lebanon. The date-palm fringes the Syrian shore as high as Beyrut, and formerly flourished in the Jordan valley, where, however, it is not now seen, except in a few dwarfed specimens near the Tiberias lake.
In Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon the heat is of course still less; refreshing breezes blow almost constantly; and the numerous streams and woods give a sense of coolness beyond the markings of the thermometer. There is one evil, however, to which almost the whole Empire must have been subject.
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