THE RUINED CITIES OF PALESTINE, EAST AND WEST OF THE JORDAN. BY ARTHUR W. SUTTON, ESQ., J.P., F.L.S. (Illustrated by lantern slides.)

THE

HE view of Beyrout as we enter the harbour is most beautiful. The foreshore, covered with red-tiled houses, is backed by groves of mulberry and pomegranate trees; and behind these are the sloping hillsides terraced with the cultivation of vines and olives, with the mountains of Lebanon in the distance covered with snow.

After crossing for some miles very soft plains, once vineyards and oliveyards, but now a sandy desert with a few pines, planted a hundred years ago by the Governor of Beyrout to consolidate the soil, we come to the River Damur and then to the orange groves round Sidon, second only to those at Jaffa. Sidon is not only the most ancient city of Phoenicia, but one of the oldest of the known cities of the world, and is said by Josephus to have been built by Sidon, the eldest son of Canaan, and is mentioned with high praise by Homer in the Iliad, where he says that as early as the Trojan War the Sidonian mariners, having provoked the enmity of the Trojans, were by them despoiled of the gorgeous robes manufactured by Sidon's daughters, these being considered so valuable and precious as to propitiate the goddess of war in their favour. Sidon was renowned for its skill in arts, science and literature, maritime commerce, and architecture; and according to Strabo the Sidonians were celebrated for astronomy, geometry, navigation and philosophy.

Sidon was captured by Shalmaneser in 720 B.C., and it was again taken in 350 B.c. by Artaxerxes Ochus. It fell to Alexander the Great without a struggle, and afterwards came into possession successively of the Seleucidæ and the Ptolemies. During the time of the Crusaders Sidon was four times taken, plundered, and dismantled. Excavations have revealed several rock-hewn tombs, with elaborately carved sarcophagi. The most celebrated is the sarcophagus of Alexander, which before the war was in the mosque at Constantinople. He was certainly never buried in it. A sarcophagus was opened the other day at Sidon, full of fluid and containing a beautiful body in perfect preservation, but immediately it was lifted from the fluid it lost all shape

At Zarephath we saw the churning of butter in a leather bag full of milk, which is swayed backwards and forwards until it is formed.

This is the site of Sarepta, where Elijah raised the widow's son to life (1 Kings xvii, 8-24); and near here, on the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, our Lord healed the daughter of the Canaanitish

woman.

We next approach Tyre, now called Sur, from which the name of Syria is derived-Syria really meaning the land of the Tyrians or Surians. The origin of Tyre is lost in the mist of centuries, and Isaiah says its "antiquity is of ancient days' (xxiii, 7). Herodotus states it was founded about 2300 years before his time, i.e., 2750 B.C. William of Tyre declares it was called after the name of its founder, "Tyrus, who was the seventh son of Japhet, the son of Noah." Strabo spoke of it as the most considerable city of all Phoenicia. Sidon was certainly the more ancient city of the two, but Tyre by far the more celebrated and one of the greatest cities of antiquity. It was besieged by Nebuchadnezzar for thirty years. The siege of the city by Alexander the Great in 332 B.C. was the most remarkable and disastrous episode in the history of Tyre. The island city held out for seven months, but was finally captured by being united to the mainland by a mole formed of the stones, timber and rubbish of old Tyre on the shore, which were conveyed into position by the Grecian army. Then the island was made a peninsula, in which form it exists at the present day. This siege was so remarkable a fulfilment of the prophecies of Ezekiel that the words of the Hebrew prophet read more like a history than a prediction. "Therefore thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I am against thee, O Tyre, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up. And they shall destroy the walls of Tyre, and break down her towers: I will also scrape her dust from her and make her a bare rock. She shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God and she shall become a spoil to the nations and they shall make a spoil of thy riches, and make a prey of thy merchandise and they shall break down thy walls and destroy thy pleasant houses: and they shall lay thy stones and thy timber and thy dust in the midst of the waters" (Ezek. xxvi, 3-5, 12).

In more modern times the city was taken by the Mohammedans,

the lives and property of the inhabitants being spared on con dition that there should be "no building of new churches, no ringing of bells, no riding on horseback, and no insults to the Moslem religion." Tyre was retaken by the Christians in 1124, but once more fell into Moslem hands at the final collapse of the Crusades in 1291. It was then almost entirely destroyed, and the place has never since recovered, though of late years there have been signs of a slight revival of commerce, and the city is gradually becoming more populous. In the middle of the last century it had fallen so low that Hasselquist, a traveller, found but ten inhabitants in the place!

The ruins which are now found in the peninsula are those of Crusaders' or Saracenic work. The city of the Crusaders lies several feet beneath the debris, and below that are the remains of the Mohammedan and early Christian Tyre. The ancient capital of the Phoenicians lies far, far down beneath the superincumbent ruins.

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The ancient glory of Tyre has been described in Ezekiel with a graphic power of description and minute accuracy of detail which is scarcely equalled in the annals of literature. Strabo ascribes the prosperity of Tyre to two causespartly to navigation, in which the Phoenicians have at all times surpassed other nations, and partly to their purple, for the Tyrian purple is acknowledged to be the best; the fishing for this purpose is carried on not far off." The far-famed Tyrian dye was extracted from the glands of a peculiar species of shell-fish (Murex trunculus). Pliny says that the reason why Tyre was so famous in ancient times was "for its offspring, the cities to which it gave

birth."

Nearly the whole of ancient Tyre now lies buried fathoms deep beneath the surface of the sea, the only thing remaining visible now of the ancient city being an enormous mass of magnificent granite and marble columns and ruins, which lie in the northern harbour, submerged by the sea, but distinctly visible when the water is clear. Thus, literally, have Tyre's stones and dust been hid "in the midst of the waters.' "What city is like Tyrus, like the destroyed in the midst of the sea?" (Ezek. xxvii, 32).

Passing up the Wady Ashur, one of the most picturesque and interesting ravines in Syria, we find ourselves in the region of the wonderful Phoenican rock-sculptures and tombs, and