running out into the sea, and joining the island on which the town was built. It is perhaps half a mile in length, and very uneven, by reason of the sandhills which the waves and the winds have thrown upon it. We entered the town by its only gate, whose threshold was a broken granite column, and threading our way through the narrow, zigzag streets, came out upon the open space which surrounds the town on the side next the sea. The circular shore was precipitous and rock-bound; and from its brow had fallen the magnificent edifices which adorned the ancient city, and their ruins lay before me in the waters, consolidated with the sand and gravel, and covered over with sea-moss. The tide was out, and I descended and walked over them, until, coming to a remarkable pile of fractured columns, broken friezes, and sculptured marbles, I sat down on a carved capital covered with seaweed, and read, O thou that art situate at the entrance of the sea, a merchant of the people for many isles, thus saith the Lord God: O Tyrus, thou hast said I am a perfect beauty; all the ships of the sea, with their mariners, were in thee to occupy thy merchandise: thou didst enrich the kings of the earth with the multitude of thy riches and of thy merchandise. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty; thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground; I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God. I will destroy thee: I will make thee like the top of a rock, a place to spread nets upon." Before me was the evidence of her former greatness, and the fulfilment of the denunciations. I had travelled along her coast a whole day, and saw not a single sail upon her sea; and at hand were the remains of the magnificent sea

wall that shut in her harbour on the north, once spacious and deep, but now choked up with sand, and containing only three or four small shallops. The population is perhaps three thousand, but the hovels which now rest on a portion of her ancient site present no contradiction of the dread decree," Thou shalt be built no more."-(Ezek., xxvi., 14.)

Orders had been left with the servants to follow us, and halt at the gate, as we intended to pitch our tent on the shore; but when we returned to the portal they were not there, but were seen miles off, close under the hills, advancing towards a khan on the way to Sidon. Nothing remained for us but to call on our consular agent, Monsieur Yacub L'Acat, whom we had shunned, fearing he might bore us to death in his best parlour, as happened to the Rev. Messrs. Robinson and Smith. But our fears were groundless; he did not even make his appearance or apology, but simply sent a man to conduct us to miserable lodgings in what seemed to be a dilapidated convent, from the presence of a monk or two, and yet seemed not to be, as women and children were there also. However, his excellency sent us a pan of live coals, and Said bought eggs, bread, figs, and coffee for us, and some oats for our horses, which were tied in the paved court. We slept soundly on the bare stone floor, and departed early next morning for Sidon.

The road from Tyre to Sidon lay altogether in the Plain of Phoenicia, sometimes along the sea and sometimes near the mountains. The plain must have once been studded over with towns and adorned with public buildings, judging from the substructions, columns, and marbles appearing everywhere. Now only one solitary village is seen, perched upon a hill, whose name, Sarafend, points out the Sarepta of the New Testa

ment, where Elijah found a retreat in the house of the widow whose son he raised from the dead. In this neighbourhood the traveller sees a great number of common stone sarcophagi with their lids off and their contents gone. The dead as well as the living have fled the country.

Shortly after passing Sarafend, Sidon appeared in sight, and at three o'clock we approached the town through orchards of olives, mulberries, and figs, whose roots struck deep among the substructions of the ancient city. The male population was without the gate, smoking and drinking under tents, and in the shade of the walls and trees. The women, each wrapped in white, were sitting in groups amid the tombs of the adjacent cemetery. The tombs here, as at Alexandria, had flowers growing out of their tops, producing a striking effect; a luxuriant vegetation waves over the fields of the dead immediately under the walls of the town. Paths intersect the cemetery in every direction, and the footman and the donkey, as they pass, touch the graves and the mourners. In the midst of this strange scene we pitched our tents.

While dinner was preparing, Mr. C. and myself rode into the city to see what there was of interest or novelty. We entered through the south gate over a broken column, as usual, and during our ramble found nothing of interest. The town has been so often destroyed and reconstructed, that the ancient buildings have been literally comminuted and compounded into the present habitations. The streets are narrow and crooked, but many of the houses are large, lofty, and well built. The population is perhaps six thousand, chiefly engaged in trade. The majority are Moslems; the remainder Greek Catholics, with a few Maronites and Jews.

At seven o'clock next morning we set out for Beyrout, and found the road desolate and heavy. It lay along the coast, over a succession of rocky promontories jutting into the sea, and around the sandy coves included between them, so that we were continually either clambering over rugged rocks, or wading in the wet sand, with the spray dashing around our horses' feet. Upon approaching the broad and lofty promontory of Beyrout, which projects into the sea five miles beyond the line of the coast, we found its southern side a desert of moving sand, which would well compare with that of the Saharah; but, gaining the summit, the northern side sloped down to the sea, richly covered with orchards, in the midst of which were many lofty white stone buildings with flat roofs, looking like islands of chalk amid the sea of green verdure. Below the orchards, immediately on the sea, was the compact little city of Beyrout, the Bereytus of the Romans, containing at present about twelve thousand inhabitant within its castellated walls, and five thousand more inhabiting the gardens and orchards which completely surround them. This is the only instance in which I had seen a population outside of the walls of a city in the East. Our approach to the town led us through these orchards by narrow, steep lanes, deeply sunk, in some places, below the surface, and in others enclosed by walls of earth or masonry, from which sprang the prickly pear, whose roots consolidated the walls, while their luxuriant branches, impending over the way, formed a canopy over our heads. Our guide conducted us to Baptiste's Hotel, where we found comfortable rooms compared with any we had seen since we had left Cairo, and once more heard the language and witnessed the manners of Christian Europe.

AMERICAN CONSUL.-MISSIONARIES.

49

CHAPTER V.

BEYROUT TO DAMASCUS.

Letters from Home.-American Missionaries.-American Consul.-Importance of Beyrout.-Commerce.-Appearance of the City.-Environs.Groves and Orchards.-The Pacha.-Departure for Damascus.-Villages and Terraces on the Mountain Side.-Mount Lebanon.-Dangers of Travel. -Uncertain Weather.-Beautiful View.-Hospitality.-Too many Lodgers.-First View of Damascus.-Scripture Recollections.-Naaman the Syrian.-Saul of Tarsus.-Enter Damascus.

ARRIVING at Beyrout was to us almost like getting home. Mr. Chassaud, the American consul-general for Syria, sent us packages of letters from friends in America and Europe, and freely proffered us his services. All the American missionaries stationed in Syria were assembled in the town at their annual consultation, and although we were personally unknown to each other, yet we greeted them, and they received us, as brethren and countrymen. I spent several evenings in their company with pleasure and profit, and worshipped with them on Sabbath morning in the house of Mr. Chassaud, which is indeed their church. The little congregation was made up of Americans, Englishmen, Frenchmen, Maltese, Arabs, and Armenians, to whom Mr. Lanneau preached an excellent sermon.*

There

are ten thousand Christians in Beyrout, the great majority of whom are Roman Catholics, and the remainder Greeks, Armenians, and a little company of Protestants. Beyrout is the centre of the American missions in Syria. The missionaries have several presses here,

* Perhaps I ought to say I was requested to preach, and declined, as I preferred to hear rather than to speak.

VOL. II.-E