Submitted by scott on

September 13 Friday:

The Pilgrims  traveled to Baalbek and the Baalbek quarry.  (See Murray Route 38) Then, to the dismay of Sam, on to Sirghaya.  The leg to Baalbek is approximately 15.6 miles with a drop in elevation to 3,111 feet and a climb then to 3.671 feet.  The leg from Baalbek to Sirghaya is approximately 15.9 miles with a climb to 5,582 feet.  This section of the pilgrim's trail has several changes in elevation  with 4,663 feet at Sirghaya. (See Murray Route 37)

Twelve or thirteen hours in the saddle, even in a Christian land and a Christian climate, and on a good horse, is a tiresome journey; but in an oven like Syria, in a ragged spoon of a saddle that slips fore-and-aft, and “thort-ships,” and every way, and on a horse that is tired and lame, and yet must be whipped and spurred with hardly a moment’s cessation all day long, till the blood comes from his side, and your conscience hurts you every time you strike if you are half a man,—it is a journey to be remembered in bitterness of spirit and execrated with emphasis for a liberal division of a man’s lifetime.

The Valley of Lebanon

We had a tedious ride of about five hours, in the sun, across the Valley of Lebanon. It proved to be not quite so much of a garden as it had seemed from the hill-sides. It was a desert, weed-grown waste, littered thickly with stones the size of a man’s fist. Here and there the natives had scratched the ground and reared a sickly crop of grain, but for the most part the valley was given up to a handful of shepherds, whose flocks were doing what they honestly could to get a living, but the chances were against them.

Ba'albek

It is hard to see why Baalbek was included in the Mark Twain’s Holy Land tour; it is surely magnificent, quite magnificent, but its magnificence stems from it being the Roman Empire’s most sacred site of pagan worship, and the largest temple complex in the whole Roman Empire.

Self-Righteous Pilgrims

Three Days Journey to Damascus - Done in Two

The first serious fall-out among the Excursionists occurred as the caravan- serai left Baalbek. It was a Friday morning. Damascus was some sixty hot and ragged miles away. The dragomen Abraham and Mohammed told them it would take three days. The New Pilgrims counted on their fingers: Friday, Saturday, Sunday - and declared that would be impossible as it would mean travelling on the Sabbath; they would all have to complete the journey in two days to retain their saintliness.

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