History. Ba'albek is the Heliopolis of Græco-Roman authors, but we possess no written records regarding the city earlier than the 3rd or 4th cent. of our era. The Greek name suggests that the place was connected with the worship of the sun, and Baal corresponds generally with the sungod. Coins of Heliopolis as early as the 1st cent. show that the town was a Roman colony. Coins of Septimius Severus (193-211), however, no longer bear the earlier device of a colonist with an ox, but the outlines of two temples.

ROUTE 37. DAMASCUS TO BA’ALBEK,

Damascus to Dummar       1 15
Ain Fîjeh                2 45
Sik Wady Barada, Abila   1 40
Zebdâny                  3 0
Surghâya                 2 0
Ba‘albek, Heliopolis     4 30

Total .. .. .            15 10

Those who come from Egypt will do well to arrange with dragoman and servants there for the whole tour through Syria. This will save time and trouble. (For the usual mode of contract with the dragoman, see above, 7; and for the wages of servants, see ‘Handbook for Egypt.’) Such as come to Syria direct will find dragomen and servants at Beyrout and Jerusalem. They are generally bad and dear. Their written certificates are not to be depended on, for they are transferable; and the recommendations of hotel-keepers are worthless, for they are interested.

...are few in number, strangers in race and language, hated by every religion and class, wanting in physical power, destitute of moral principle, and yet they are the despots of the land. The Arabs have a proverb that, “though a Turk should compass the whole circle of the sciences, he would still remain a barbarian.” Those occupying the higher government situations in Syria are Turks, almost to a man. They obtain their power by bribery, and they exercise it for extortion and oppression.

A sketch of the inhabitants of Syria and Palestine could not be regarded as complete without a notice of the Jews. They are in one sense the most interesting people in the land. For 18 centuries have they been driven forth from the home of their fathers, and yet they cling to its "holy places” still. They moisten the stones of Jerusalem with their tears; “her very dust to them is dear,” and their most earnest wish on earth is that their bodies should mingle with it.

...are divided into several sects, the origin and tenets of which the traveller may wish to know.

(The generic name in Arabic is ed-Derúz —sing. Durzy).—This remarkable sect calls for a somewhat more minute notice than the others, for two reasons :—First, because their religious tenets have excited a good deal of interest in Europe; and second, because they are generally regarded as allies of England, and English travellers are likely to hear and see much of them.

These are and have been for many centuries the “lords of the soil,” and they constitute the great majority of the community. They are proud, fanatical, and illiterate. They are taught by the faith they hold to look with contempt on all other classes, and to treat them not merely as inferiors but as slaves. They are generally noble in bearing, polite in address, and profuse in hospitality; but they are regardless of

The inhabitants of Syria and Palestine form a most interesting study.  Their dress, their manners and customs, and their language, are all primitive.  No European nation, with the exception perhaps of the Spaniards, bears the least resemblance to them. Like Spain, too, the best specimens of humanity are here found among the lower classes. The farther we go from the contaminated atmosphere of government offices, the more successful shall we be in our search after honesty, industry, and genuine patriarchal hospitality— the great, almost the only unadulterated virtue of the Arab.