Les ruines, ou méditation sur les révolutions des empires

CHAPTER I. / THE JOURNEY.

I was traveling in the Ottoman Empire, and I was traversing the provinces that were formerly the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria.

Directing all my attention to what concerns the happiness of men in the social state, I entered the cities, and I studied the manners of their inhabitants; I penetrated into the palaces, and I observed the conduct of those who govern; I wandered into the countryside, and I examined the condition of the men who cultivate the land; and everywhere seeing nothing but robbery and devastation, nothing but tyranny and misery, my heart was oppressed with sadness and indignation.

Every day I found on my route abandoned fields, deserted villages, and cities in ruins. Often I encountered ancient monuments, remains of temples, palaces and fortresses; columns, aqueducts, and tombs: and this spectacle turned my mind toward the meditation of past times, and aroused in my heart grave and profound thoughts.

And I arrived at the city of Hems Homs, on the banks of the Orontes a major river in Western Asia; and there, finding myself

close to that of Palmyra, situated in the desert, I resolved to see for myself its so-highly-praised monuments; and, after three days of marching through arid solitudes, having crossed a valley filled with caves and sepulchers, suddenly, upon leaving this valley, I perceived in the plain the most astonishing scene of ruins: it was an innumerable multitude of superb standing columns, which, like the avenues of our parks, extended as far as the eye could see in symmetrical rows. Among these columns were large buildings, some entire, others half-collapsed. On all sides, the ground was strewn with similar debris, with cornices, capitals, shafts, entablatures, and pilasters, all of white marble, of exquisite workmanship. After three-quarters of an hour of walking along these ruins, we entered the enclosure of a vast building, which was formerly a temple dedicated to the Sun; and I received hospitality from poor Arab peasants, who have established their huts on the very courtyard of the temple; and I