rear such temples as these.

We went to the quarry from whence the stones of Baalbec were taken. It

was about a quarter of a mile off, and down hill. In a great pit lay the

mate of the largest stone in the ruins. It lay there just as the giants

of that old forgotten time had left it when they were called hence--just

as they had left it, to remain for thousands of years, an eloquent rebuke

unto such as are prone to think slightingly of the men who lived before

them. This enormous block lies there, squared and ready for the

builders' hands--a solid mass fourteen feet by seventeen, and but a few

inches less than seventy feet long! Two buggies could be driven abreast

of each other, on its surface, from one end of it to the other, and leave

room enough for a man or two to walk on either side.

One might swear that all the John Smiths and George Wilkinsons, and all

the other pitiful nobodies between Kingdom Come and Baalbec would

inscribe their poor little names upon the walls of Baalbec's magnificent

ruins, and would add the town, the county and the State they came from

--and swearing thus, be infallibly correct. It is a pity some great ruin

does not fall in and flatten out some of these reptiles, and scare their

kind out of ever giving their names to fame upon any walls or monuments

again, forever.

Properly, with the sorry relics we bestrode, it was a three days' journey

to Damascus. It was necessary that we should do it in less than two.

It was necessary because our three pilgrims would not travel on the

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The Innocents Abroad