s brilliant light throws ever over ruins which
it illuminates. Soon we arrived, on the northern side, at the
foot of the gigantic walls which surround those beautiful
remains. A clear stream, flowing over a bed of granite,
murmured around the enormous blocks of stone, fallen from the
top of the wall which obstructed its course. Beautiful
sculptures were half concealed in the limpid stream. We passed
the rivulet by an arch formed by these fallen remains, and
mounting a narrow breach, were soon lost in admiration of the
scene which surrounded us. At every step a fresh exclamation of
surprise broke from our lips. Every one of the stones of which
that wall was composed was from eight to ten feet in length, by
five or six in breadth, and as much in height. They rest,
without cement, one upon the other, and almost all bear the
mark of Indian or Egyptian sculpture. At a single glance, you
see that these enormous stones are not placed in their original
site--that they are the precious remains of temples of still
more remote antiquity, which were made use of to encircle this
colony of Grecian and Roman citizens.

"When we reached the summit of the breach, our eyes knew not to
what object first to turn. On all sides were gates of marble of
prodigious height and magnitude; windows, or niches, fringed
with the richest friezes; fallen pieces of cornices, of
entablatures, or capitals, thick as the dust beneath our feet;
magnificent vaulted roofs above our heads; every where a chaos
of confused beauty, the remains of which lay scattered about,
or piled on each other in endless variety. So prodigious was
the accumulation of architectural remains, that it defies all
attempt at classification, or conjecture of the kind of
buildings to which the greater part of them had belonged. After
passing through this scene of ruined magnificence, we reached
an inner wall, which we also ascended; and from its summit the
view of the interior was yet more splendid. Of much greater
extent, far more richly decorated than the outer circle, it
presented an immense platform in the form of a long rectangle,
the level surface of which was frequently broken by the remains
of still more elevated pavements, on which temples to the sun,
the object of adoration at Balbec, had been