8/26 Far and wide the streets were littered with debris and charred fragments of burned timbers. At another place on the breast of Zion was a chaos of rock where a mansion had been literally pulled down. Somewhere near Akra pale columns of pungent, wind-blown smoke still rose from a colossal heap of fused matter that the Ephesian could not identify. About it were neglected houses; not a sign of festivity was apparent; windows hung open carelessly; the hangings in colonnades were stripped away entirely or whipped loose from the fastenings and abandoned to the winds. Numbers of dwellings appeared to have been sacked; others were so closely barred and fortified that their exteriors appeared as inhospitable as jails. |