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Edward L. Wilson "A Drop from the Desert", The Photographic Times and American Photographer, Vol.XII, June, 1882, No.138 - New Series, No.18, , p.197
A hundred topics come up in my mind when I look over the magazines which awaited my arrival at Jerusalem and Beyrout, I find photographers everywhere, and even in that old city of Damascus photographs are made largely and sold in many of the bazaars amid antiques and draperies and gorgeous apparel. The very first thing I saw after emerging from the subterranean arch which leads you into the center of the "Great Court" of the magnificent ruins at Baalbec was a photographer's temporary tent, well stained by developer and hypo., and outside the enthusiastic disciple of our art wrestling with some visitors whom he was trying to persuade to have a group made with the six remaining giant columns of the Temple of Jupiter, or of Baal (as you like), i serving as a background. Jupiter ! What a commentary upon the growth of civilization this was. Baal himself would have become an amateur photographer could he have seen how lovely the rich columns of his temple looked inverted on my ground glass, and reduced through a breach in the wall (whose stones are nearly seventy feet long) from sixty-five feet to two inches and a half in height, and all their glories thrown in. I found the amateur photographer with priestly robes bringing Mount Sinai down to his requirements, and the German professor gathering fragments with his camera where Moses watched the Amalekites while Israel drove them away from the water supply which they required for purposes not entirely photographic. In the Holy City, too, I found Mr. Bergheim, the well-known banker, to be a talented and loving amateur photographer, while Rev. Mr. Phillips, the able missionary at Damascus, was about to join our ranks and include photography as one of the industries which he will in the future teach his native pupils.
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