The people were
hideous, poor, ragged, dirty, and diseased, nearly every one of them
afflicted with ophthalmia. What have the descendants of the great
Zenobia done to come to this? We dined at the Shaykh's house, and had
our coffee and pipes. Later we returned to our camp, which consisted of
our five tents and ten for the eighty soldiers. It was picturesquely
placed, close to the east of the grand colonnade of Palmyra, for the
sake of being near the wells, and the animals were picketed as much as
possible in the shelter, for during our sojourn there we suffered from
ice and snow, sirocco, burning heat, and furious sou'westers. We had
two sulphurous wells, one to bathe in, and the other to drink out of.
Everybody felt a little tired, and we went to bed early. It was the
first night for eight days that we had really undressed and bathed and
slept, and it was such a refreshment that I did not wake for twelve
hours. My journal of the following morning contains a very short notice.
We were considerably refreshed, and attended to our horses and several
camp wants. We lounged about till breakfast and wrote our diaries. It
was scorchingly hot weather. We were here for five days, so we did not
begin serious work until noon.
So many travellers have described Palmyra that it is not necessary for me
to describe it again, and I suppose that everybody knows that at one time
it was ruled over in the days of its splendour by Zenobia, a great queen
of the East.
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