Obrazy na stronie
PDF
ePub

THE

RUINS:

OR,

Meditations on the Revolutions of

Empires.

CHAP. I.

THE TOUR.

IN the eleventh year of the reign of Abd-ul Hamid, son of Ahmed, emperor of the Turks; when the Nogaian Tartars were driven from the Crimea, and a Mussulman prince, of the blood of Gengis Khan, became the vassal and the guard of a woman, a Christian, and a queen*; I journeyed in the empire of the Ottomans, and traversed the provinces which formerly were kingdoms of Egypt and of Sy

ria.

Directing the whole of my attention to what concerns the happiness of mankind in a state of society, I entered into cities, and studied the manners of their inhabitants; I gained admission into palaces, and observed the conduct of those who governed; I wandered over the country, and examined the condition of the peasantry and perceiving every where

* That is to say, in the year 1784. quested not to lose sight of this epoch. end of the volume.

B

The reader is reSee the notes at the

nothing but robbery and devastation, tyranny and wretchedness, my heart was oppressed with sorrow and indignation.

Every day I found, in my route, fields abandoned by the plough, villages deserted, and towns in ruins. Frequently I met with antique monuments, wrecks of temples, palaces, and fortifications, pillars, aqueducts, and sepulchres. By these scenes, my reflections were carried back to past ages, and my mind was absorbed in serious and profound meditation.

Arrived at Hamsa on the borders of the Orontes, and being at no great distance from the city of Palmyra, situated in the desert, I resolved to make myself personally acquainted with its boasted monuments. After three days travel in barren solitude, and having traversed a valley filled with grottoes and tombs, my eyes were, on a sudden, struck, in passing from this valley into a plain, with a most astonishing scene of ruins. It consisted of a countless multitude of superb columns standing erect, and which, like the avenues of our parks, extended in regular files until the eye gradually lost sight of them. Among these columns, magnificent edifices were observable, some entire, others half mouldered away. The ground was covered on all sides with fragments of similar buildings, cornices, capitals, shafts, entablatures, and pilasters, all of white marble, and of exquisite workmanship. After a walk of three quarters of an hour along these ruins, I entered the inclosure of a vast edifice which had formerly been a temple

dedicated to the sun; and I accepted the hospitality of some poor Arabian peasants, who had established their huts in the very area of the temple. This I resolved to make my residence for some days, in order that I might examine more circumstantially into the beauty of so many stupendous works.

Every day I walked out to visit some of the monuments which bespread the plain; and one evening when lost in reflection, I had advanced as far as the Valley of Sepulchres, I ascended the heights that bound it, from which the eye commands at once the whole of the ruins and the immensity of the desert. The sun had just sunk below the horizon; a radiant wreath tinged with a reddish hue still marked the place of his retreat behind the distant perspective of the mountains of Syria: the full moon in the east reposing on a ground of deep blue, rose from the smooth bank of the Euphrates: the sky was cloudless; the air calm and serene; the expiring lustre of day served to soften the horror of approaching darkness; the native freshness of the evening breeze assuaged the heat of the parched earth; the herdsmen had led the camels to their stalls; the eye was not accosted by a single motion amidst the monotonous gloom of the dusky plain; through the whole desert all was solemn stillness, uninterrupted, except at intervals by the mournful sonnets of a few solitary birds of night, and the cries of a few chacals.* The dusk increased, and my sight.

An animal much resembling the fox, but less remarkable for cunning, and extremely ugly. It feeds upon dead bodies, and lives among the rocks and ruins.

« PoprzedniaDalej »