We remained until the next day at noon, by which time a gray-bearded scamp, the chief of the mukkairees, or muleteers, succeeded in getting us five miserable beasts for the journey to Aleppo.  On leaving the city, we travelled along a former street of Antioch, part of the ancient pavement still remaining, and after two miles came to the old wall of circuit, which we passed by a massive gateway, of Roman time.  It is now called Bab Boulos, or St. Paul’s Gate.  Christianity, it will be remembered, was planted in Antioch by Paul and Barnabas, and the Apostle Peter was the first bishop of the city.  We now entered the great plain of the Orontes—­a level sea, rioting in the wealth of its ripening harvests.  The river, lined with luxuriant thickets, meandered through the centre of this glorious picture.  We crossed it during the afternoon, and keeping on our eastward course, encamped at night in a meadow near the tents of some wandering Turcomans, who furnished us with butter and milk from their herds.

Leaving the plain the next morning, we travelled due east all day, over long stony ranges of mountains, inclosing only one valley, which bore evidence of great fertility.  It was circular, about ten miles in its greater diameter, and bounded on the north by the broad peak of Djebel Saman, or Mount St. Simon.  In the morning we passed a ruined castle, standing in a dry, treeless dell, among the hot hills.  The muleteers called it the Maiden’s Palace, and said that it was built long ago by a powerful Sultan, as a prison for his daughter.  For several hours thereafter, our road was lined with remains of buildings, apparently dating from the time of the Greek Empire.  There were tombs, temples of massive masonry, though in a bad style of architecture, and long rows of arched chambers, which resembled store-houses.  They were all more or less shattered by earthquakes, but in one place I noticed twenty such arches, each of at least twenty feet span.  All-the hills, on either hand, as far as we could see, were covered with the remains of buildings.  In the plain of St. Simon, I saw two superb pillars, apparently part of a portico, or gateway, and the village of Dana is formed almost entirely of churches and convents, of the Lower Empire.  There were but few inscriptions, and these I could not read; but the whole of this region would, no doubt, richly repay an antiquarian research.  I am told here that the entire chain of hills, which extends southward for more than a hundred miles, abounds with similar remains, and that, in many places, whole cities stand almost entire, as if recently deserted by their inhabitants.

During the afternoon, we came upon a portion of the ancient road from Antioch to Aleppo, which is still as perfect as when first constructed.  It crossed a very stony ridge, and is much the finest specimen of road-making I ever saw, quite putting to shame the Appian and Flaminian Ways at Rome.  It is twenty feet wide, and laid with blocks of white marble, from two to four feet square.  It was apparently raised upon a more ancient road, which diverges here and there from the line, showing the deeply-cut traces of the Roman chariot-wheels.  In the barren depths of the mountains we found every hour cisterns cut in the rock and filled with water left by the winter rains.  Many of them, however, are fast drying up, and a month later this will be a desert road.