Produced by John Bickers and Dagny and David Widger
HISTORY
OF
P H OE N I C I A
by George Rawlinson, M.A.
First Published 1889 by Longmans, Green, and Co.
Camden Professor of Ancient History in the University of Oxford
Canon of Canterbury
Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy of Turin
TO THE
CHANCELLOR, VICE-CHANCELLOR, and SCHOLARS
Of The
UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
This Work
His Last as Occupant of a Professorial Chair
Is Dedicated
As a Token of Respect and Gratitude
By The
CAMDEN PROFESSOR
Oct. 1 MDCCCLXXXIX
PREPARER’S NOTE
The original text contains a number of characters that are
not available even in 8-bit Windows text. Where possible
these have been represented with a similar letter, but some
things, e.g. Hebrew script, have been omitted.
The 8-bit version of this text includes Windows font
characters. These may be lost in 7-bit versions of the text,
or when viewed with different fonts.
Greek text has been transliterated within brackets “{}”
using an Oxford English Dictionary alphabet table.
Diacritical marks have been lost. Phoenician or other
Semitic text has been replaced with an ellipsis in brackets,
i.e. “{...}”.
The numerous sketches and maps in the original have also
been omitted.
PREFACE
Histories of Phoenicia or of the Phoenicians were written towards the
middle of the present century by Movers and Kenrick. The elaborate work
of the former writer[01] collected into five moderate-sized volumes
all the notices that classical antiquity had preserved of the Religion,
History, Commerce, Art, &c., of this celebrated and interesting nation.
Kenrick, making a free use of the stores of knowledge thus accumulated,
added to them much information derived from modern research, and was
content to give to the world in a single volume of small size,[02] very
scantily illustrated, the ascertained results of criticism and inquiry
on the subject of the Phoenicians up to his own day. Forty-four years
have since elapsed; and in the course of them large additions have been
made to certain branches of the inquiry, while others have remained very
much as they were before. Travellers, like Robinson, Walpole, Tristram,
Renan, and Lortet, have thrown great additional light on the geography,
geology, fauna, and flora of the country. Excavators, like Renan and the
two Di Cesnolas, have caused the soil to yield up most valuable remains
bearing upon the architecture, the art, the industrial pursuits, and the
manners and customs of the people. Antiquaries, like M. Clermont-Ganneau
and MM. Perrot and Chipiez, have subjected the remains to careful
examination and criticism, and have definitively fixed the character
of Phoenician Art, and its position in the history of artistic effort.
Researches are still being carried on, both in Phoenicia Proper and in
the Phoenician dependency of Cyprus, which are likely still further to
enlarge our knowledge with respect to Phoenician Art and Archæology; but
it is not probable that they will affect seriously the verdict already
delivered by competent judges on those subjects. The time therefore
appeared to the author to have come when, after nearly half a century of
silence, the history of the people might appropriately be rewritten. The
subject had long engaged his thoughts, closely connected as it is with
the histories of Egypt, and of the “Great Oriental Monarchies,” which
for thirty years have been to him special objects of study; and a work
embodying the chief results of the recent investigations seemed to him
a not unsuitable termination to the historical efforts which his
resignation of the Professorship of Ancient History at Oxford, and his
entrance upon a new sphere of labour, bring naturally to an end.
The author wishes to express his vast obligations to MM. Perrot and
Chipiez for the invaluable assistance which he has derived from their
great work,[03] and to their publishers, the MM. Hachette, for their
liberality in allowing him the use of so large a number of MM. Perrot
and Chipiez’ Illustrations. He is also much beholden to the same
gentlemen for the use of charts and drawings originally published in
the “Géographie Universelle.” Other works from which he has drawn either
materials or illustrations, or both, are (besides Movers’ and Kenrick’s)
M. Ernest Renan’s “Mission de Phénicie,” General Di Cesnola’s “Cyprus,”
A. Di Cesnola’s “Salaminia,” M. Ceccaldi’s “Monuments Antiques de
Cypre,” M. Daux’s “Recherches sur les Emporia Phéniciens,” the
“Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum,” M. Clermont-Ganneau’s “Imagerie
Phénicienne,” Mr. Davis’s “Carthage and her Remains,” Gesenius’s
“Scripturæ Linguæque Phoeniciæ Monumenta,” Lortet’s “La Syrie
d’aujourd’hui,” Serra di Falco’s “Antichità della Sicilia,” Walpole’s
“Ansayrii,” and Canon Tristram’s “Land of Israel.” The difficulty has
been to select from these copious stores the most salient and noteworthy
facts, and to marshal them in such a form as would make them readily
intelligible to the ordinary English reader. How far he has succeeded in
doing this he must leave the public to judge. In making his bow to them
as a “Reader” and Writer “of Histories,”[04] he has to thank them for a
degree of favour which has given a ready sale to all his previous works,
and has carried some of them through several editions.
CANTERBURY: August 1889.
HISTORY OF PHOENICIA
CHAPTER I--THE LAND
Phoenicia--Origin of the name--Spread of the name
southwards--Real length of Phoenicia along the coast--
Breadth and area--General character of the region--The
Plains--Plain of Sharon--Plain of Acre--Plain of Tyre--Plain
of Sidon--Plain of Berytus--Plain of Marathus--Hilly
regions--Mountain ranges--Carmel--Casius--Bargylus--Lebanon--
Beauty of Lebanon--Rivers--The Litany--The Nahr-el-Berid--
The Kadisha--The Adonis--The Lycus--The Tamyras--The
Bostrenus--The Zaherany--The Headlands--Main
characteristics, inaccessibility, picturesqueness,
productiveness.
Phoenicé, or Phoenicia, was the name originally given by the Greeks--and
afterwards adopted from them by the Romans--to the coast region of the
Mediterranean, where it faces the west between the thirty-second and the
thirty-sixth parallels. Here, it would seem, in their early voyagings,
the Pre-Homeric Greeks first came upon a land where the palm-tree was
not only indigenous, but formed a leading and striking characteristic,
everywhere along the low sandy shore lifting its tuft of feathery
leaves into the bright blue sky, high above the undergrowth of fig, and
pomegranate, and alive. Hence they called the tract Phoenicia, or “the
Land of Palms;” and the people who inhabited it the Phoenicians, or “the
Palm-tree people.”
The term was from the first applied with a good deal of vagueness. It
was probably originally given to the region opposite Cyprus, from Gabala
in the north--now Jebili--to Antaradus (Tortosa) and Marathus (Amrith)
towards the south, where the palm-tree was first seen growing in rich
abundance. The palm is the numismatic emblem of Aradus,[11] and though
not now very frequent in the region which Strabo calls “the Aradian
coast-tract,”[12] must anciently have been among its chief ornaments. As
the Grecian knowledge of the coast extended southward, and a richer and
still richer growth of the palm was continually noticed, almost every
town and every village being embosomed in a circle of palm groves, the
name extended itself until it reached as far south at any rate as Gaza,
or (according to some) as Rhinocolura and the Torrens Ægypti. Northward
the name seems never to have passed beyond Cape Posideium (Possidi) at
the foot of Mount Casius, the tract between this and the range of Taurus
being always known as Syria, never as Phoenecia or Phoenicé.
The entire length of the coast between the limits of Cape Possidi and
Rhinocolura is, without reckoning the lesser indentations, about 380
miles, or nearly the same as that of Portugal. The indentations of the
coast-line are slight. From Rhinocolura to Mount Carmel, a distance of
150 miles, not a single strong promontory asserts itself, nor is there a
single bay of sufficient depth to attract the attention of geographers.
Carmel itself is a notable headland, and shelters a bay of some size;
but these once passed the old uniformity returns, the line being again
almost unbroken for a distance of seventy-five miles, from Haifa to
Beyrout (Berytus). North of Beyrout we find a little more variety.
The coast projects in a tolerably bold sweep between the thirty-fourth
parallel and Tripolis (Tarabulus) and recedes almost correspondingly
between Tripolis and Tortosa (Antaradus), so that a deepish bay is
formed between Lat. 34º 27´ and Lat. 34º 45´, whence the line again runs
northward unindented for fifty miles, to beyond Gabala (Jebili).
After this, between Gabala and Cape Posideium there is considerable
irregularity, the whole tract being mountainous, and spurs from Bargylus
and Casius running down into the sea and forming a succession of
headlands, of which Cape Posideium is the most remarkable.
But while the name Phoenicia is applied geographically to this long
extent--nearly 400 miles--of coast-line, historically and ethnically
it has to be reduced within considerably narrower limits. A race, quite
distinct from that of the Phoenicians, was settled from an early date
on the southern portion of the west Asian coast, where it verges towards
Africa. From Jabneh (Yebna) southwards was Palestine, the country of the
Philistines, perhaps even from Joppa (Jaffa), which is made the boundary
by Mela.[13] Thus at least eighty miles of coast-line must be deducted
from the 380, and the length of Phoenicia along the Mediterranean shore
must be regarded as not exceeding three hundred miles.
The width varied from eight or ten miles to thirty. We must regard
as the eastern boundary of Phoenicia the high ridge which forms the
watershed between the streams that flow eastward toward the Orontes,
Litany, and Jordan, and those that flow westward into the Mediterranean.
It is difficult to say what was the _average_ width, but perhaps it may
be fairly estimated at about fifteen miles. In this case the entire area
would have been about 4,500 square miles.
The tract was one of a remarkably diversified character. Lofty mountain,
steep wooded hill, chalky slope, rich alluvial plain, and sandy shore
succeeded each other, each having its own charm, which was enhanced by
contrast. The sand is confined to a comparatively narrow strip along the
seashore,[14] and to the sites of ancient harbours now filled up. It is
exceedingly fine and of excellent silicious quality, especially in the
vicinity of Sidon and at the foot of Mount Carmel. The most remarkable
plains are those of Sharon, Acre, Tyre, Sidon, Beyrout, and Marathus.
Sharon, so dear to the Hebrew poets,[15] is the maritime tract
intervening between the highland of Samaria and the Mediterranean,
extending from Joppa to the southern foot of Carmel--a distance of
nearly sixty miles--and watered by the Chorseas, the Kaneh, and other
rivers. It is a smooth, very slightly undulating tract, about ten
miles in width from the sea to the foot of the mountains, which rise up
abruptly from it without any intervening region of hills, and seem to
bound it as a wall, above which tower the huge rounded masses of Ebal
and Gerizim, with the wooded cone, on which stood Samaria, nestling at
their feet.[16] The sluggish streams, several of them containing water
during the whole of the year, make their way across it between reedy
banks,[17] and generally spread out before reaching the shore into wide
marshes, which might be easily utilised for purposes of irrigation.
The soil is extremely rich, varying from bright red to deep black,
and producing enormous crops of weeds or grain, according as it is
cultivated or left in a state of nature. Towards the south the view over
the region has been thus described: “From Ramleh there is a wide view
on every side, presenting a prospect rarely surpassed in richness and
beauty. I could liken it to nothing but the great plain of the Rhine
by Heidelberg or, better still, to the vast plains of Lombardy, as seen
from the cathedral of Milan and elsewhere. In the east the frowning
mountains of Judah rose abruptly from the tract at their foot; while on
the west, in fine contrast, the glittering waves of the Mediterranean
Sea associated our thoughts with Europe. Towards the north and south,
as far as the eye could reach, the beautiful plain was spread out like a
carpet at our feet, variegated with tracts of brown from which the crops
had just been taken, and with fields still rich with the yellow of the
ripe corn, or green with the springing millet. Immediately below us
the eye rested on the immense olive groves of Ramleh and Lydda, and the
picturesque towers and minarets and domes of these large villages. In
the plain itself were not many villages, but the tract of hills and
the mountain-side beyond, especially in the north-east, were perfectly
studded with them, and as now seen in the reflected beams of the setting
sun they seemed like white villas and hamlets among the dark hills,
presenting an appearance of thriftiness and beauty which certainly would
not stand a closer examination.”[18] Towards its northern end Sharon
is narrowed by the low hills which gather round the western flanks
of Carmel, and gradually encroach upon the plain until it terminates
against the shoulder of the mountain itself, leaving only a narrow beach
at the foot of the promontory by which it is possible to communicate
with the next plain towards the north.[19]
Compared with Sharon the plain of Acre is unimportant and of small
extent. It reaches about eight miles along the shore, from the foot of
Carmel to the headland on which the town of Acre stands, and has a width
between the shore and the hills of about six miles. Like Sharon it is
noted for its fertility. Watered by the two permanent streams of the
Kishon and the Belus, it possesses a rich soil, which is said to be at
present “perhaps the best cultivated and producing the most luxuriant
crops, both of corn and weeds, of any in Palestine.”[110] The Kishon
waters it on the south, where it approaches Carmel, and is a broad
stream,[111] though easily fordable towards its mouth. The Belus
(Namâané) flows through it towards the north, washing Acre itself, and
is a stream of even greater volume than the Kishon, though it has but a
short course.
The third of the Phoenician plains, as we proceed from south to north,
is that of Tyre. This is a long but comparatively narrow strip, reaching
from the Ras-el-Abiad towards the south to Sarepta on the north, a
distance of about twenty miles, but in no part more than five miles
across, and generally less than two miles. It is watered about midway
by the copious stream of the Kasimiyeh or Litany, which, rising east of
Lebanon in the Buka’a or Coelesyrian valley, forces its way through the
mountain chain by a series of tremendous gorges, and debouches upon the
Tyrian lowland about three miles to the south-east of the present city,
near the modern Khan-el-Kasimiyeh, whence it flows peaceably to the sea
with many windings through a broad low tract of meadow-land. Other
rills and rivulets descending from the west flank of the great mountain
increase the productiveness of the plain, while copious fountains of
water gush forth with surprising force in places, more especially at
Ras-el-Ain, three miles from Tyre, to the south.[112] The plain is, even
at the present day, to a large extent covered with orchards, gardens,
and cultivated fields, in which are grown rich crops of tobacco, cotton,
and cereals.
The plain of Sidon, which follows that of Tyre, and is sometimes
regarded as a part of it,[113] extends from a little north of Sarepta to
the Ras-el-Jajunieh, a distance of about ten miles, and resembles that
of Tyre in its principal features. It is long and narrow, never more
than about two miles in width, but well-watered and very fertile. The
principal streams are the Bostrenus (Nahr-el-Auly) in the north, just
inside the promontory of Jajunieh, the Nahr-Sanîk, south of Sidon, a
torrent dry in the summer-time,[114] and the Nahr-ez-Zaherany, two and
a half miles north of Sarepta, a river of moderate capacity. Fine
fountains also burst from the earth in the plain itself, as the
Ain-el-Kanterah and the Ain-el-Burâk,[115] between Sarepta and the
Zaherany river. Irrigation is easy and is largely used, with the result
that the fruits and vegetables of Saïda and its environs have the name
of being among the finest of the country.[116]
The plain of Berytus (Beyrout) is the most contracted of all the
Phoenician plains that are at all noticeable. It lies south, south-east,
and east of the city, intervening between the high dunes or sand-hills
which form the western portion of the Beyrout peninsula, and the skirts
of Lebanon, which here approach very near to the sea. The plain begins
at Wady Shuweifat on the south, about four miles from the town of
Beyrout, and extends northwards to the sea on the western side of
the Nahr Beyrout. The northern part of the plain is known as
Ard-el-Burâjineh. The plain is deficient in water,[117] yet is
cultivated in olives and mulberries, and contains the largest olive
grove in all Syria. A little beyond its western edge is the famous
pine forest[118] from which (according to some) Berytus derived its
name.[119]
The plain of Marathus is, next to Sharon, the most extensive in
Phoenicia. It stretches from Jebili (Gabala) on the north to Arka
towards the south, a distance of about sixty miles, and has a width
varying from two to ten miles. The rock crops out from it in places and
it is broken between Tortosa and Hammam by a line of low hills running
parallel with the shore.[120] The principal streams which water it are
the Nahr-el-Melk, or Badas, six miles south of Jebili, the Nahr Amrith,
a strong running brook which empties itself into the sea a few miles
south of Tortosa (Antaradus), the Nahr Kublé, which joins the Nahr
Amrith near its mouth, and the Eleutherus or Nahr-el-Kabir, which
reaches the sea a little north of Arka. Of these the Eleutherus is the
most important. “It is a considerable stream even in summer, and in
the rainy season it is a barrier to intercourse, caravans sometimes
remaining encamped on its banks for several weeks, unable to
cross.”[121] The soil of the plain is shallow, the rock lying always
near the surface; the streams are allowed to run to waste and form
marshes, which breed malaria; a scanty population scarcely attempts more
than the rudest and most inefficient cultivation; and the consequence is
that the tract at present is almost a desert. Nature, however, shows its
capabilities by covering it in the spring-time from end to end with a
“carpet of flowers.”[122]
From the edges of the plains, and sometimes from the very shore of the
sea, rise up chalky slopes or steep rounded hills, partly left to nature
and covered with trees and shrubs, partly at the present day cultivated
and studded with villages. The hilly region forms generally an
intermediate tract between the high mountains and the plains already
described; but, not unfrequently, it commences at the water’s edge, and
fills with its undulations the entire space, leaving not even a strip
of lowland. This is especially the case in the central region between
Berytus and Arka, opposite the highest portion of the Lebanon; and again
in the north between Cape Possidi and Jebili, opposite the more northern
part of Bargylus. The hilly region in these places is a broad tract
of alternate wooded heights and deep romantic valleys, with streams
murmuring amid their shades. Sometimes the hills are cultivated in
terraces, on which grow vines and olives, but more often they remain in
their pristine condition, clothed with masses of tangled underwood.
The mountain ranges, which belong in some measure to the geography of
Phoenicia, are four in number--Carmel, Casius, Bargylus, and Lebanon.
Carmel is a long hog-backed ridge, running in almost a straight line
from north-west to south-east, from the promontory which forms the
western protection of the bay of Acre to El-Ledjun, on the southern
verge of the great plain of Esdraelon, a distance of about twenty-two
miles. It is a limestone formation, and rises up abruptly from the side
of the bay of Acre, with flanks so steep and rugged that the traveller
must dismount in order to ascend them,[123] but slopes more gently
towards the south, where it is comparatively easy of access. The
greatest elevation which it attains is about Lat. 32º 4´, where it
reaches the height of rather more than 1,200 feet; from this it falls
gradually as it nears the shore, until at the convent, with which the
western extremity is crowned, the height above the sea is no more than
582 feet. In ancient times the whole mountain was thickly wooded,[124]
but at present, though it contains “rocky dells” where there are “thick
jungles of copse,”[125] and is covered in places with olive groves and
thickets of dwarf oak, yet its appearance is rather that of a park
than of a forest, long stretches of grass alternating with patches of
woodland and “shrubberies, thicker than any in Central Palestine,” while
the larger trees grow in clumps or singly, and there is nowhere, as in
Lebanon, any dense growth, or even any considerable grove, of forest
trees. But the beauty of the tract is conspicuous; and if Carmel means,
as some interpret, a “garden” rather than a “forest,” it may be held
to well justify its appellation. “The whole mountain-side,” says one
traveller,[126] “was dressed with blossoms and flowering shrubs and
fragrant herbs.” “There is not a flower,” says another,[127] “that I
have seen in Galilee, or on the plains along the coast, that I do not
find on Carmel, still the fragrant, lovely mountain that he was of old.”
The geological structure of Carmel is, in the main, what is called “the
Jura formation,” or “the upper oolite”--a soft white limestone, with
nodules and veins of flint. At the western extremity, where it overhangs
the Mediterranean, are found chalk, and tertiary breccia formed of
fragments of chalk and flint. On the north-east of the mountain, beyond
the Nahr-el-Mukattah, plutonic rocks appear, breaking through the
deposit strata, and forming the beginning of the basalt formation
which runs through the plain of Esdraelon to Tabor and the Sea of
Galilee.[128] Like most limestone formations, Carmel abounds in caves,
which are said to be more than 2,000 in number,[129] and are often of
great length and extremely tortuous.
Carmel, the great southern headland of Phoenicia, is balanced in a
certain sense by the extreme northern headland of Casius. Mount Casius
is, strictly speaking, the termination of a spur from Bargylus; but
it has so marked and peculiar a character that it seems entitled to
separate description. Rising up abruptly from the Mediterranean to the
height of 5,318 feet, it dominates the entire region in its vicinity,
and from the sea forms a landmark that is extraordinarily conspicuous.
Forests of fine trees clothe its flanks, but the lofty summit towers
high above them, a bare mass of rock, known at the present day as
Jebel-el-Akra, or “the Bald Mountain.” It is formed mainly of the same
cretaceous limestone as the other mountains of these parts, and like
them has a rounded summit; but rocks of igneous origin enter into
its geological structure; and in its vegetation it more resembles the
mountain ranges of Taurus and Amanus than those of southern Syria and
Palestine. On its north-eastern prolongation, which is washed by the
Orontes, lay the enchanting pleasure-ground of Daphné, bubbling with
fountains, and bright with flowering shrubs, where from a remote
antiquity the Syrians held frequent festival to their favourite
deity--the “Dea Syra”--the great nature goddess.
The elevated tract known to the ancients as Bargylus, and to modern
geographers as the Ansayrieh or Nasariyeh mountain-region, runs at right
angles to the spur terminating in the Mount Casius, and extends from the
Orontes near Antioch to the valley of the Eleutherus. This is a distance
of not less than a hundred miles. The range forms the western boundary
of the lower Coelesyrian valley, which abuts upon it towards the east,
while westward it looks down upon the region, partly hill, partly
lowland, which may be regarded as constituting “Northern Phoenicia.”
The axis of the range is almost due north and south, but with a slight
deflection towards the south-east. Bargylus is not a chain comparable
to Lebanon, but still it is a romantic and picturesque region. The lower
spurs towards the west are clothed with olive grounds and vineyards,
or covered with myrtles and rhododendrons; between them are broad open
valleys, productive of tobacco and corn. Higher up “the scenery becomes
wild and bold; hill rises to mountain; soft springing green corn gives
place to sterner crag, smooth plain to precipitous heights;”[130] and
if in the more elevated region the majesty of the cedar is wanting,
yet forests of fir and pine abound, and creep up the mountain-side, in
places almost to the summit, while here and there bare masses of rock
protrude themselves, and crag and cliff rise into the clouds that hang
about the highest summits. Water abounds throughout the region, which
is the parent of numerous streams, as the northern Nahr-el-Kebir, which
flows into the sea by Latakia, the Nahr-el-Melk, the Nahr Amrith, the
Nahr Kublé, the Nahr-el-Abrath, and many others. From the conformation
of the land they have of necessity short courses; but each and all of
them spread along their banks a rich verdure and an uncommon fertility.
But the _great_ range of Phoenicia, its glory and its boast is
Lebanon. Lebanon, the “White Mountain”[131]--“the Mont Blanc
of Palestine”[132]--now known as “the Old White-headed Man”
(Jebel-esh-Sheikh), or “the Mountain of Ice” (Jebel-el-Tilj), was to
Phoenicia at once its protection, the source of its greatness, and its
crowning beauty. Extended in a continuous line for a distance of above
a hundred miles, with an average elevation of from 6,000 to 8,000 feet,
and steepest on its eastern side, it formed a wall against which the
waves of eastern invasion naturally broke--a bulwark which seemed to say
to them, “Thus far shall ye go, and no further.” The flood of conquest
swept along its eastern flank, down the broad vale of the Buka’a, and
then over the hills of Galilee; but its frowning precipices and its
lofty crest deterred or baffled the invader, and the smiling region
between its summit and the Mediterranean was, in the early times at any
rate, but rarely traversed by a hostile army. This western region it
was which held those inexhaustible stores of forest trees that supplied
Phoenicia with her war ships and her immense commercial navy; here were
the most productive valleys, the vineyards, and the olive grounds, and
here too were the streams and rills, the dashing cascades, the lovely
dells, and the deep gorges which gave her the palm over all the
surrounding countries for variety of picturesque scenery.
The geology of the Lebanon is exceedingly complicated. “While the
bulk of the mountain, and all the higher ranges, are without exception
limestone of the early cretaceous period, the valleys and gorges
are filled with formations of every possible variety, sedimentary,
metamorphic, and igneous. Down many of them run long streams of trap
or basalt; occasionally there are dykes of porphyry and greenstone, and
then patches of sandstone, before the limestone and flint recur.”[133]
Some slopes are composed entirely of soft sandstone; many patches are of
a hard metallic-sounding trap or porphyry; but the predominant formation
is a greasy or powdery limestone, bare often, but sometimes clothed with
a soft herbage, or with a thick tangle of shrubs, or with lofty forest
trees. The ridge of the mountain is everywhere naked limestone rock,
except in the comparatively few places which attain the highest
elevation, where it is coated or streaked with snow. Two summits are
especially remarkable, that of Jebel Sunnin towards the south, which is
a conspicuous object from Beyrout,[134] and is estimated to exceed the
height of 9,000 feet,[135] and that of Jebel Mukhmel towards the north,
which has been carefully measured and found to fall a very little short
of 10,200 feet.[136] The latter, which forms a sort of amphitheatre,
circles round and impends over a deep hollow or basin, opening out
towards the west, in which rise the chief sources that go to form the
romantic stream of the Kadisha. The sides of the basin are bare and
rocky, fringed here and there with the rough knolls which mark the
deposits of ancient glaciers, the “moraines” of the Lebanon. In this
basin stand “the Cedars.” It is not indeed true, as was for a long time
supposed, that the cedar grove of Jebel Mukhmel is the sole remnant
of that primeval cedar-forest which was anciently the glory of the
mountain. Cedars exist on Lebanon in six other places at least, if not
in more. Near Tannurin, on one of the feeders of the Duweir, a wild
gorge is clothed from top to bottom with a forest of trees, untouched
by the axe, the haunt of the panther and the bear, which on examination
have been found to be all cedars, some of a large size, from fifteen to
eighteen feet in girth. They grow in clusters, or scattered singly,
in every variety of situation, some clinging to the steep slopes,
or gnarled and twisted on the bare hilltops, others sheltered in the
recesses of the dell. There are also cedar-groves at B’sherrah; at El
Hadith; near Dûma, five hours south-west of El Hadith; in one of
the glens north of Deir-el-Kamar, at Etnub, and probably in other
places.[137] But still “the Cedars” of Jebel Mukhmel are entitled to
pre-eminence over all the rest, both as out-numbering any other cluster,
and still more as exceeding all the rest in size and apparent antiquity.
Some of the patriarchs are of enormous girth; even the younger ones have
a circumference of eighteen feet; and the height is such that the birds
which dwell among the upper branches are beyond the range of an ordinary
fowling-piece.
But it is through the contrasts which it presents that Lebanon has its
extraordinary power of attracting and delighting the traveller. Below
the upper line of bare and worn rock, streaked in places with snow, and
seamed with torrent courses, a region is entered upon where the freshest
and softest mountain herbage, the greenest foliage, and the most
brilliant flowers alternate with deep dells, tremendous gorges, rocky
ravines, and precipices a thousand feet high. Scarcely has the voyager
descended from the upper region of naked and rounded rock, when he
comes upon “a tremendous chasm--the bare amphitheatre of the upper basin
contracts into a valley of about 2,000 feet deep, rent at its bottom
into a cleft a thousand feet deeper still, down which dashes a river,
buried between these stupendous walls of rock. All above the chasm is
terraced as far as the eye can reach with indefatigable industry. Tiny
streamlets bound and leap from terrace to terrace, fertilising them as
they rush to join the torrent in the abyss. Some of the waterfalls are
of great height and of considerable volume. From one spot may be counted
no less than seven of these cascades, now dashing in white spray over a
cliff, now lost under the shade of trees, soon to reappear over the
next shelving rock.”[138] Or, to quote from another writer,[139]--“The
descent from the summit is gradual, but is everywhere broken by
precipices and towering rocks, which time and the elements have
chiselled into strange fantastic shapes. Ravines of singular wildness
and grandeur furrow the whole mountain-side, looking in many places like
huge rents. Here and there, too, bold promontories shoot out, and
dip perpendicularly into the bosom of the Mediterranean. The ragged
limestone banks are scantily clothed with the evergreen oak, and
the sandstone with pines; while every available spot is carefully
cultivated. The cultivation is wonderful, and shows what all Syria might
be of under a good government. Miniature fields of grain are often seen
where one would suppose that the eagles alone, which hover round them,
could have planted the seed. Fig-trees cling to the naked rock; vines
are trained along narrow ledges; long ranges of mulberries on terraces
like steps of stairs cover the more gentle declivities; and dense groves
of olives fill up the bottoms of the glens. Hundreds of villages are
seen, here built amid labyrinths of rock, there clinging like swallows’
nests to the sides of cliffs, while convents, no less numerous, are
perched on the top of every peak. When viewed from the sea on a morning
in early spring, Lebanon presents a picture which once seen is never
forgotten; but deeper still is the impression left on the mind, when one
looks down over its terraced slopes clothed in their gorgeous foliage,
and through the vistas of its magnificent glens, on the broad and bright
Mediterranean.”
The eastern flank of the mountain falls very far short of the western
both in area and in beauty. It is a comparatively narrow region, and
presents none of the striking features of gorge, ravine, deep dell, and
dashing stream which diversify the side that looks westward. The steep
slopes are generally bare, the lower portion only being scantily clothed
with deciduous oak, for the most part stunted, and with low scrub of
juniper and barberry.[140] Towards the north there is an outer barrier,
parallel with the main chain, on which follows a tolerably flat and
rather bare plain, well watered, and with soft turf in many parts, which
gently slopes to the foot of the main ascent, a wall of rock generally
half covered with snow, up which winds the rough track whereby
travellers reach the summit. Rills of water are not wanting; flowers
bloom to the very edge of the snow, and the walnut-tree flourishes in
sheltered places to within two or three thousand feet of the summit; but
the general character of the tract is bare and bleak; the villages are
few; and the terraced cultivation, which adds so much to the beauty
of the western side, is wanting. In the southern half of the range the
descent is abrupt from the crest of the mountain into the Buka’a, or
valley of the Litany, and the aspect of the mountain-side is one of
“unrelieved bareness.”[141]
There is, however, one beauty at one point on this side of the Lebanon
range which is absent from the more favoured western region. On the
ascent from Baalbek to the Cedars the traveller comes upon Lake Lemone,
a beautiful mountain tarn, without any apparent exit, the only sheet
of water in the Lebanon. Lake Lemone is of a long oval shape, about
two miles from one end to the other, and is fed by a stream entering at
either extremity, that from the north, which comes down from the village
of Ainât, being the more important. As the water which comes into
the lake cannot be discharged by evaporation, we must suppose some
underground outlet,[142] by which it is conveyed, through the limestone,
into the Litany.
The eastern side of Lebanon drains entirely into this river, which is
the only stream whereto it gives birth. The Litany is the principal
of all the Phoenician rivers, for the Orontes must be counted not to
Phoenicia but to Syria. It rises from a small pool or lake near Tel
Hushben,[143] about six miles to the south-west of the Baalbek ruins.
Springing from this source, which belongs to Antilibanus rather than
to Lebanon, the Litany shortly receives a large accession to its waters
from the opposite side of the valley, and thus augmented flows along the
lower Buka’a in a direction which is generally a little west of south,
receiving on either side a number of streams and rills from both
mountains, and giving out in its turn numerous canals for irrigation.
As the river descends with numerous windings, but still with the same
general course, the valley of the Buka’a contracts more and more, till
finally it terminates in a gorge of a most extraordinary character.
Nothing in the conformation of the strata, or in the lie of ground,
indicates the coming marvel[144]--the roots of Lebanon and Hermon appear
to intermix--and the further progress of the river seems to be barred by
a rocky ridge stretching across the valley from east to west, when lo!
suddenly, the ridge is cut, as if by a knife, and a deep and narrow
chasm opens in it, down which the stream plunges in a cleft 200 feet
deep, and so narrow that in one place it is actually bridged over by
masses of rock which have fallen from the cliffs above.[145] In the
gully below fig-trees and planes, besides many shrubs, find a footing,
and the moist walls of rock on either side are hung with ferns of
various kinds, among which is conspicuous the delicate and graceful
maidenhair. Further down the chasm deepens, first to 1,000 and then
to 1,500 feet, “the torrent roars in the gorge, milk-white and swollen
often with the melting snow, overhung with semi-tropical oleanders,
fig-trees, and oriental planes, while the upper cliffs are clad
with northern vegetation, two zones of climate thus being visible at
once.”[146] Where the gorge is the deepest, opposite the Castle of
Belfort (the modern Kulat-esh-Shukif), the river suddenly makes a turn
at right angles, altering its course from nearly due south to nearly
due west, and cuts through the remaining roots of Lebanon, still at
the bottom of a tremendous fissure, and still raging and chafing for
a distance of fifteen miles, until at length it debouches on the coast
plain, and meanders slowly through meadows to the sea,[147] which it
enters about five miles to the north of Tyre. The course of the Litany
may be roughly estimated at from seventy to seventy-five miles.
The other streams to which Lebanon gives birth flow either from its
northern or its western flank. From the northern flank flows one stream
only, the Nahr-el-Kebir or Eleutherus. The course of this stream is
short, not much exceeding thirty miles. It rises from several sources at
the edge of the Coelesyrian valley, and, receiving affluents from either
side, flows westward between Bargylus and Lebanon to the Mediterranean,
which it enters between Orthosia (Artousi) and Marathus (Amrith) with a
stream, the volume of which is even in the summer-time considerable. In
the rainy season it constitutes an important impediment to intercourse,
since it frequently sweeps away any bridge which may be thrown across
it, and is itself unfordable. Caravans sometimes remain encamped upon
its banks for weeks, waiting until the swell has subsided and crossing
is no longer dangerous.[148]
From the western flank of Lebanon flow above a hundred streams of
various dimensions, whereof the most important are the Nahr-el-Berid
or river of Orthosia, the Kadisha or river of Tripolis, the Ibrahim
or Adonis, the Nahr-el-Kelb or Lycus, the Damour or Tamyras, the Auly
(Aouleh) or Bostrenus, and the Zaherany, of which the ancient name is
unknown to us. The Nahr-el-Berid drains the north-western angle of the
mountain chain, and is formed of two main branches, one coming down from
the higher portion of the range, about Lat. 34º 20´, and flowing to
the north-west, while the other descends from a region of much less
elevation, about Lat. 34º 30´, and runs a little south of west to the
point of junction. The united stream then forces its way down a gorge
in a north-west direction, and enters the sea at Artousi, probably
the ancient Orthosia.[149] The length of the river from its remotest
fountain to its mouth is about twenty miles.
The Kadisha or “Holy River” has its source in the deep basin already
described, round which rise in a semicircle the loftiest peaks of the
range, and on the edge of which stand “the Cedars.” Fed by the perpetual
snows, it shortly becomes a considerable stream, and flows nearly due
west down a beautiful valley, where the terraced slopes are covered with
vineyards and mulberry groves, and every little dell, every nook and
corner among the jagged rocks, every ledge and cranny on precipice-side,
which the foot of man can reach, or on which a basket of earth can be
deposited, is occupied with patch of corn or fruit-tree.[150] Lower down
near Canobin the valley contracts into a sublime chasm, its rocky walls
rising perpendicularly a thousand feet on either side, and in places not
leaving room for even a footpath beside the stream that flows along
the bottom.[151] The water of the Kadisha is “pure, fresh, cool, and
limpid,”[152] and makes a paradise along its entire course. Below
Canobin the stream sweeps round in a semicircle towards the north, and
still running in a picturesque glen, draws near to Tripolis, where it
bends towards the north-west, and enters the sea after passing
through the town. Its course, including main windings, measures about
twenty-five miles.
The Ibrahim, or Adonis, has its source near Afka (Apheca) in Lat. 34º 4´
nearly. It bursts from a cave at the foot of a tremendous cliff, and its
foaming waters rush down into a wild chasm.[153] Its flow is at first
towards the north-west, but after receiving a small tributary from
the north-east, it shapes its course nearly westward, and pursues
this direction, with only slight bends to the north and south, for the
distance of about fifteen miles to the sea. After heavy rain in Lebanon,
its waters, which are generally clear and limpid, become tinged with the
earth which the swollen torrent detaches from the mountain-side,[154]
and Adonis thus “runs purple to the sea”--not however once a year only,
but many times. It enters the Mediterranean about four miles south of
Byblus (Jebeil) and six north of Djouni.
The Lycus or Nahr-el-Kelb (“Dog River”) flows from the northern and
western flanks of Jebel Sunnin. It is formed by the confluence of three
main streams. One of these rises near Afka, and runs to the south of
west, past the castle and temples of Fakra, to its junction with the
second stream, which is formed of several rivulets flowing from the
northern flank of Sunnin. Near Bufkeiya the river constituted by the
union of these two branches is joined by a third stream flowing from the
western flank of Sunnin with a westerly course, and from this point the
Lycus pursues its way in the same general direction down a magnificent
gorge to the Mediterranean. Both banks are lofty, but especially that to
the south, where one of Lebanon’s great roots strikes out far, and dips,
a rocky precipice, into the bosom of the deep.[155] Low in the depths of
the gorge the mad torrent dashes over its rocky bed in sheets of foam,
its banks fringed with oleander, which it bathes with its spray. Above
rise jagged precipices of white limestone, crowned far overhead by many
a convent and village.[156] The course of the Nahr-el-Kelbis about equal
to that of the Adonis.
The Damour or Tamyras drains the western flank of Lebanon to the south
of Jebel Sunnin (about Lat. 33º 45´), the districts known as Menassif
and Jourd Arkoub, about Barouk and Deir-el-Kamar. It collects the waters
from an area of about 110 square miles, and carries them to the sea in
a course which is a little north of west, reaching it half-way between
Khan Khulda (Heldua) and Nebbi Younas. The scenery along its banks is
tame compared with that of the more northern rivers.
The Nahr-el-Auly or Bostrenus rises from a source to the north-east of
Barouk, and flows in a nearly straight course to the south-west for a
distance of nearly thirty-five miles, when it is joined by a stream
from Jezzin, which flows into it from the south-east. On receiving this
stream, the Auly turns almost at a right angle, and flows to the west
down the fine alluvial track called Merj Bisry, passing from this point
through comparatively low ground, and between swelling hills, until it
reaches the sea two miles to the north of Sidon. Its entire course is
not less than sixty miles.
The Zaherany repeats on a smaller scale the course of the Bostrenus. It
rises near Jerjû’a from the western flank of Jebel Rihan, the southern
extremity of the Lebanon range, and flows at first to the south-west.
The source is “a fine large fountain bursting forth with violence, and
with water enough for a mill race.”[157] From this the river flows in
a deep valley, brawling and foaming along its course, through tracts of
green grass shaded by black walnut-trees for a distance of about five
miles, after which, just opposite Jerjû’a, it breaks through one of the
spurs from Rihan by a magnificent chasm. The gorge is one “than which
there are few deeper or more savage in Lebanon. The mountains on each
side rise up almost precipitously to the height of two or three thousand
feet above the stream, that on the northern bank being considerably the
higher. The steep sides of the southern mountain are dotted with shrub,
oak, and other dwarf trees.”[158] The river descends in its chasm still
in a south-west direction until, just opposite Arab Salim, it “turns
round the precipitous corner or bastion of the southern Rihan into a
straight valley,” and proceeds to run due south for a short distance.
Meeting, however, a slight swell of ground, which blocks what would seem
to have been its natural course, the river “suddenly turns west,” and
breaking through a low ridge by a narrow ravine, pursues its way by
a course a little north of west to the Mediterranean, which it enters
about midway between Sidon and Sarepta.[159] The length of the stream,
including main windings, is probably not more than thirty-five miles.
We have spoken of the numerous promontories, terminations of spurs from
the mountains, which break the low coast-line into fragments, and go
down precipitously into the sea. Of these there are two between Tyre and
Acre, one known as the Ras-el-Abiad or “White Headland,” and the
other as the Ras-en-Nakura. The former is a cliff of snow-white chalk
interspersed with black flints, and rises perpendicularly from the sea
to the height of three hundred feet.[160] The road, which in some places
impends over the water, has been cut with great labour through the rock,
and is said by tradition to have been the work of Alexander the Great.
Previously, both here and at the Ras-en-Nakura, the ascent was by steps,
and the passes were known as the Climaces Tyriorum, or “Staircases of
the Tyrians.” Another similar precipice guards the mouth of the Lycus on
its south side and has been engineered with considerable skill, first by
the Egyptians and then by the Romans.[161] North of this, at Djouni, the
coast road “traverses another pass, where the mountain, descending to
the water, has been cut to admit it.”[162] Still further north, between
Byblus and Tripolis, the bold promontory known to the ancients as
Theu-prosopon, and now called the Ras-esh-Shakkah, is still unconquered,
and the road has to quit the shore and make its way over the spur by
a “wearisome ascent”[163] at some distance inland. Again, “beyond the
Tamyras the hills press closely on the sea,”[164] and there is “a rocky
and difficult pass, along which the path is cut for some distance in the
rock.”[165]
The effect of this conformation of the country was, in early times, to
render Phoenicia untraversable by a hostile army, and at the same time
to interpose enormous difficulties in the way of land communication
among the natives themselves, who must have soon turned their thoughts
to the possibility of communicating by sea. The various “staircases”
were painful and difficult to climb, they gave no passage to animals,
and only light forms of merchandise could be conveyed by them. As
soon as the first rude canoe put forth upon the placid waters of the
Mediterranean, it must have become evident that the saving in time and
labour would be great if the sea were made to supersede the land as the
ordinary line of communication.
The main characteristics of the country were, besides its
inaccessibility, its picturesqueness and its productiveness. The former
of these two qualities seems to have possessed but little attraction for
man in his primitive condition. Beauties of nature are rarely sung of
by early poets; and it appears to require an educated eye to appreciate
them. But productiveness is a quality the advantages of which can be
perceived by all. The eyes which first looked down from the ridge of
Bargylus or Lebanon upon the well-watered, well-wooded, and evidently
fertile tract between the mountain summits and the sea, if they took no
note of its marvellous and almost unequalled beauty, must at any
rate have seen that here was one of earth’s most productive
gardens--emphatically a “good land,” that might well content whosoever
should be so fortunate as to possess it. There is nothing equal to it in
Western Asia. The Damascene oasis, the lower valley of the Orontes, the
Ghor or Jordan plain, the woods of Bashan, and the downs of Moab are
fertile and attractive regions; but they are comparatively narrow
tracts and present little variety; each is fitted mainly for one kind of
growth, one class of products. Phoenicia, in its long extent from Mount
Casius to Joppa, and in its combination of low alluvial plain, rich
valley, sunny slopes and hills, virgin forests, and high mountain
pasturage, has soils and situations suited for productions of all manner
of kinds, and for every growth, from that of the lowliest herb to
that of the most gigantic tree. In the next section an account of its
probable products in ancient times will be given; for the present it is
enough to note that Western Asia contained no region more favoured or
more fitted by its general position, its formation, and the character of
its soil, to become the home of an important nation.