Count Zichy wished to be in Balbeck by the next day at noon; we therefore had but a short night's rest.
The night was so mild and beautiful, that we did not want the tents at all, but lay down on the bank of a streamlet, beneath the shade of a large tree.

For a long time sleep refused to visit us, for our encampment was opposite to a coffee-house, where a great hubbub was kept up until a very late hour.

Small caravans were continually arriving or departing, and so there was no chance of rest.

At length we dropped quietly asleep from very weariness, to be awakened a few hours afterwards to start once more on our arduous journey.
July 6th.
We rode without halting for eight hours, sometimes through pleasant valleys, at others over barren unvarying regions, upon and between the heights of the Anti-Libanus.

At the hour of noon we reached the last hill, and HELIOPOLIS OR BALBECK, the "city of the sun," lay stretched before us.
We entered a valley shut in by the highest snow-covered peaks of Lebanon and Anti-Libanus, more than six miles in breadth and fourteen or sixteen miles long, belonging to Caelosyria.