[p.8] Following up the Berdoun into the Mountain, are the villages of
Atein, Heraike, and another in the vicinity of Zahle.
September 26.--On the night of the 25th to the 26th, was the Aid
Essalib, or feast of the Cross, the approach of which was celebrated by
repeated discharges of musquets and the lighting of numerous fires,
which illuminated all the mountains around the town and the most
conspicuous parts of the town itself.
I rode to Andjar [Arabic], on the eastern side of the Bekaa, in a
direction south-east by south, two hours and a half good walking from
Zahle. I found several encampments of the Arabs Naim and Faddel in the
plain. In one hour and a quarter, passed the Liettani, near an ancient
arched bridge; it had very little water: not the sixth part of the plain
is cultivated here. The place called Andjar lies near the Anti-Libanus,
and consists of a ruined town-wall, inclosing an oblong square of half
an hour in circumference; the greater part of the wall is in ruins. It
was originally about twelve feet thick, and constructed with small
unhewn stones, loosely cemented and covered by larger square stones,
equally ill cemented. In the enclosed space are the ruins of
habitations, of which the foundations alone remain. In one of these
buildings are seen the remains of two columns of white marble, one foot
and a quarter in diameter. The whole seems to have been constructed in
modern times. Following the Mountain to the southward of these ruins,
for twenty minutes, I came to the place where the Moiet Andjar, or river
of Andjar, has its source in several springs. This river had, when I saw
it, more than triple the volume of water of the Liettani; but though it
joins the latter in the Bekaa, near Djissr Temnin, the united stream
retains the name Liettani. There are remains of ancient well-built walls
round all the springs which constitute the source of the Andjar; one of
the springs, in particular,
[p.9]which forms a small but very deep basin, has been lined to the
bottom with large stones, and the wall round it has been constructed
with large square stones, which have no traces of ever having been
cemented together. In the wall of a mill, which has been built very near
these springs, I saw a sculptured architrave. These remains appear to be
much more ancient than those of Andjar, and are perhaps coeval with the
buildings at Baalbec. I was told, by the people of the mill, that the
water of the larger spring, in summer time, stops at certain periods and
resumes its issue from under the rock, eight or ten times in a day.
Further up in the mountain, above the spring, is a large cavern where
the people sometimes collect saltpetre; but it is more abundant in a
cavern still higher in the mountain.
Following the road northward on the chain of the Anti-Libanus, half an
hour from these springs, I met with another copious spring; and a little
higher, a third; one hour further, is a fourth, which I did not visit.
Near the two former are traces of ancient walls. The waters of all these
sources join in Moiet Andjar, and they are all comprised under the
appellation of the Springs of Moiet Andjar [Arabic]. They are partly
covered with rushes, and are much frequented by water fowls, and wild
boars also resort to them in great numbers.
August 27th.--Being disappointed in my object of proceeding to Baalbec,
I passed the day in the shop of one of the petty merchants of Zahle, and
afterwards supped with him. The sales of the merchants are for the
greater part upon credit; even those to the Arabs for the most trifling
sums. The common interest of money is 30 percent.
August 28th.--Set out in the afternoon for Baalbec, with a native of
that place, who had been established with his family at Zahle, for
several years. Passed the villages of Kerak, Abla, Temnin, Beit