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DJERASH.
and thirty-five to forty feet in heighth. I was unable to ascertain ¬
the number of columns in the flanks of the peristyle. The
temple stands upon an artificial terrace elevated five or six feet
above the ground. The interior of the temple is choaked with the
ruins of the roof; a part of the front wall of the cella has fallen
down; but the three other sides are entire. The walls are without
ornament ; on the interior of each of the two side walls, and about
mid-way from the floor, are six niches, of an oblong shape, and
quite plain : in the back wall, opposite to the door, is a vaulted
recess, with a small dark chamber on each side. The upper part
of a niche is visible on the exterior of the remains of the front wall,
with some trifling but elegantly sculptured ornaments. This ruin
stands within a peribolus or large area surrounded by a double row
of columns. The whole edifice seems to have been superior in
taste and magnificence to every public building of this kind in
Syria, the temple of the Sun at Palmyra excepted. On the two
sides marked (x) ofthe colonnade of the peribolus many bases and
broken shafts of the inner row of columns are yet standing ; on the
two other sides there are but few ; these columns are three spans
and a half in diameter. On the long side (x) forty columns may be
traced to have stood, at only three paces distant from each other ; on
the opposite long side one perfect column is yet standing; on the
short side (x) are three in the outer row without their capitals. The
corner columns of this peribolus were double, and in the
shape of a heart, as in the annexed figure. Of the outer
row of the peribolus very little remains ; indeed it may be
doubted whether any outer row ever existed opposite to
the back of the temple, where the ground is rocky and uneven. The
number of columns which originally adorned the temple and its area
was not less than two hundred or two hundred and fifty.
Proceeding westwards from the above described ruin, through
