From the silversmiths' bazaar we visited the exterior of the southern wall of the mosque, jumping over a narrow street, and running along the house-roofs. Here we found a fine Byzantine doorway, with a well-carved cornice, and along its frieze the famous Greek inscription: "Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.â
On the 4th of July we left this fascinating city for the cooler retreat in the mountains, where the English Vice-Consul was staying. Passing once more up the narrow valley, with its green groves amid desolate crags, we crossed the Saharah, or desert plateau, and, diverging towards the right, we made for a fine gorge, with high precipices. The Barada, a clear, broad, green stream, here comes slipping rapidly down over ledges of rock and through deep pools, and by its channel is the mud village called Sûk Wâdy Barada. The river makes a sudden bend at the gorge, and passes between high rocks, burrowed with tombs, which are in many cases inscribed with barbarous Greek texts. The stream falls over a low precipice, and forms a broad pool--a delightful bathing-place, reminding me on each visit of Naaman's boast about this very river, "better than all the waters of Israel.â A more picturesque spot than this gorge, with its Roman road cut in the cliff, its cemetery, its tall poplars and rushing stream, its crags, above which is the traditional tomb of Abel, we did not again meet. This place is the ancient Abila, and its name is still recognisable in the tradition of Abel's tomb, where, after carrying the corpse for a hundred years, Cain was allowed to lay it down. On the 24th of July we revisited the gorge, and inspected the antiquities. A tablet, cut in the side of the precipice above the ancient road, identifies the town as Abila, and is repeated again a little farther on; below it is an aqueduct tunnel, and lower down the valley, on the left bank opposite the village, are remains of a small temple. On this visit we discovered no less than six inscriptions previously unknown, all on tombstones.
Crossing the stream, just above the waterfall, by a single arch, we continued along the left bank. The Barada has worn a deep bed, and on either side the remains of petrified leaves and stems are visible in the rude conglomerate of the banks. The stream pours over boulders and broken blocks, and is half-covered with luxuriant bushes. Gradually ascending, the road leads into the long plain of Zebdâny--a sort of repetition of the Stûra plain on a smaller scale, flanked on the west by the ragged and castellated ridges of the Anti-Lebanon, and on the east by a range of equal height. The plateau is bare and treeless, except towards the north, where are groves of poplar. Through the centre runs the river, its course marked by green bushes. In the middle of the plain it springs up suddenly from a great blue pool, or small lake, of unfathomable depth, resembling the springs of Antipatris mentioned in the last chapter. The stream is here actually broader than at the gorge, and emerges in full volume from the earth. The basin is of hard yellow rock. At first the stream is sluggish, the banks clayey and grassy, fringed with tall canes; and the water of the pool is full of fish and frequented by water-fowl; lower down, however, the fall is very rapid, and, from the gorge to Damascus, the current is extremely quick.