at I say concerning them is from my own observation. Of the
underground chambers I can only speak from the report, for the keepers
of the building could not be got to show them, since they contained,
as they said, the sepulchres of the kings who built the labyrinth,
and also those of the sacred crocodiles; thus it is from hearsay only
that I can speak of the lower chambers. The upper chambers, however, I
saw with my own eyes, and found them to excel all other human
productions. The passage through the houses, and the various windings
of the path across the courts, excited in me infinite admiration, as I
passed from the courts into the chambers, and from chambers into
colonnades, and from colonnades into fresh houses, and again from
these into courts unseen before. The roof was throughout of stone like
the walls, and the walls were carved all over with figures. Every
court was surrounded with a colonnade, which was built of white stone
exquisitely fitted together. At the corner of the labyrinth stands a
pyramid forty fathoms high, with large figures engraved on it, which
is entered by a subterranean passage." No one who has read an account
of the Great Pyramid of Egypt, the building of Solomon's Temple, and
of the ruins of ancient stone buildings still remaining, will doubt
the ability of the ancients in the art of building with stones.
Baalbec has probably the largest stones ever used.

[Illustration: THE GREAT PYRAMID AND SPHINX.]

Baalbec is situated on a plain now called Bukaa, at the northern end
of a low range of black hills, about one mile from the base of
Anti-Lebanon.

It is unknown just how old it is, or by whom it was built. Dr. Kitto,
in his "History of the Bible," ascribes the building of it to Solomon.
But the present remains are mostly of a later period, probably about
3,000 years old. Some of the material and some of the original
foundations were used again for the second structures.

Baalbec has justly received a world-wide celebrity, owing to the
magnificence of its ruins, which have excited the wonder and
admiration of travelers who have enjoyed the privilege of seeing them.
Its temples are among the most magnificent of Grecian architecture.
The temples of Athens no doubt excel them in taste and purity of
style, but they are vastly inferior in dimensions.

While the edifices of Thebes exceed them in magnitude, they bear no
comparison with the symmetry of the columns, with the richness of the