THE CITY OF SATURN
“And behold, I am now in Beirut.” Thus wrote Prince Rib-addi to his
royal master, Pharaoh Amenhotep, thirty-three centuries ago; and when
the Tell el-Amarna Letters were sent from Syria to Egypt, about 1400
B. C., Beirut had long been one of the chief commercial cities of the
eastern Mediterranean. According to a Greek tradition, it was founded in
the Golden Age by the Titan Kronos, or Saturn, the father of Zeus. The
tutelary deity of the seaport, however, was Poseidon (Neptune), another
son of Saturn, who is represented on its coins driving his sea-horses, or
standing on the prow of a ship with his trident in one hand and a dolphin
in the other.
[Illustration: The Bay of Beirut and Mount Sunnin]
[Illustration: Among the pine groves of the Cape of Beirut]
The authentic history of the city begins with the records of its
conquerors. Rameses II. of Egypt and Sennacherib of Assyria commemorated
their successful Syrian campaigns by inscriptions still existing on the
cliffs of the Dog River, just north of Beirut. Centuries later, Alexander
the Great marched his conquering army through the city, Pompey added
it to the Roman Empire, and Augustus visited here his son-in-law, the
local governor. It was in Beirut that Herod the Great appeared as the
accuser of his two sons, who were thereupon convicted of conspiracy
and put to death by strangling. Vespasian passed through its streets
in triumphal progress on his way to assume the imperial crown, and in
its immense amphitheater Titus celebrated his capture of Jerusalem by a
magnificent series of shows and gladiatorial contests. During the First
Crusade, Baldwin, Count of Flanders and ruler of the Latin Kingdom of
Jerusalem, wrested the city from the Moslems after a long siege and
put its inhabitants to the sword. Seventy years later, the greatest of
all Saracen leaders, Saladin, recaptured the city from the Christians.
The names of the mighty warriors who since then have fought for the
possession of this old, old seaport are less familiar to Western readers;
yet few cities have had for so many centuries such intimate association
with the most renowned characters of history. There is a local tradition
that Christ Himself visited Beirut on the occasion of His journey “into
the borders of Tyre and Sidon,” and during the Middle Ages there was
exhibited here a miracle-working picture of Him, which was said to have
been painted by Nicodemus the Pharisee.
The inner harbor, still known as _Mar Jurjus_ or “St. George,” is
associated with what is perhaps the oldest of all myths. This took on
varying forms during the millenniums of its progress westward from the
Euphrates to the Atlantic. We find it first in the Babylonian Creation
Epic, which tells of the destruction of the chaos-monster by the solar
deity, Marduk. When the Greeks took over the ancient Asiatic mythology,
it was Perseus, child of the sun-god, who slew the dragon at Jaffa
and released the beautiful Andromeda. In the sixth century A. D., the
exploit was transferred to St. George, whose victory over the sea-monster
was perhaps an unconscious parable of the overthrow of heathenism by
Christianity.
St. George appears to have been a real person, who suffered martyrdom
about the year 300, possibly at Lydda in Palestine, where his tomb is
still shown. Singularly enough, this Syrian Christian has not only been
the patron saint of England since Richard Cœur de Lion came to the Holy
Land on the Third Crusade, but is also a very popular hero of the Moslems.
The historic character had, of course, nothing to do with any dragon, and
it was only many centuries after his death that he became identified with
the hero of the ancient Semitic myth, under its Perseus form. A mighty
monster, so the story runs, had long terrified the district of Beirut,
and was prevented from destroying the city only by receiving the annual
sacrifice of a beautiful virgin. One year the fateful lot fell upon the
daughter of the governor. When the poor girl was taken to the appointed
place, she knelt in prayer and besought God to send her a deliverer.
Whereupon St. George appeared in shining armor and, after a tremendous
battle, slew the monster, delivered the maiden, and freed the city from
its long reign of terror. Whether, like his prototype Perseus, he married
the rescued virgin, the story does not relate. We are told, however,
that the grateful father built a church in honor of the valiant champion
and also instituted a yearly feast in commemoration of his daughter’s
deliverance. During the Middle Ages, this was celebrated by Christians
and Moslems alike. Beside the Dog River can still be seen the ruins of an
ancient church and a mosque, both of which marked the supposed locality
of the contest; and here also is a very old well, into which the body of
the slain dragon is said to have been thrown.
The word _Beirût_ is doubtless derived from the ancient Semitic
place-name _Beeroth_,[8] which means, “wells,” and throughout the Arab
world such a designation immediately calls up a picture of fertile
prosperity. The triangular cape on whose northern shore the city
is situated projects from the foot of Lebanon five miles into the
Mediterranean and has an area of about sixteen square miles. This level
broadening of the coastal plain appears in striking contrast to the
country just north and south of it, where there is often hardly room
for a bridle-path between the cliffs and the sea. Beirut itself has
a population of nearly 200,000, and within sight are many scores of
flourishing villages. Indeed, with the possible exception of Damascus and
its environs, this is the most densely populated, intensely cultivated
and prosperous district in either Syria or Palestine.
The southwest side of the cape is bordered by great piles of sand, which
is said to have been brought hither by wind and tide all the way from
Egypt. Perhaps it did not travel so far as that; but after every heavy
rain a yellow stream runs northward through the Mediterranean close to
the shore and deposits its sediment when it strikes the edge of the
cape. The rapid shifting of these sand dunes under the influence of
the prevailing west winds is a continual menace to the city, and the
surrounding orchards would soon be overwhelmed if it were not for a
series of closely-planted pine groves which, since the first trees were
set out here in the seventeenth century by the Druse prince Fakhreddin,
have served as a barrier against the inroads of the wind-swept sand.
Back of the dark line of protecting pines, millions upon millions of
olive trees appear as one great mass of shimmering green. When Ibrahim
Pasha, the Egyptian conqueror of Syria, looked down from Lebanon upon the
country about Beirut, he exclaimed that three seas lay beneath him; the
blue Mediterranean, the yellow waste of sand and the silvery surface of
the olive forest which floods the fertile plain.
Near the lighthouse on the point, where perpendicular cliffs rise two
hundred feet out of the Mediterranean, the storm waves have cut a number
of lofty caverns. The water in most of these is so filled with fallen
rocks that, except when the sea is absolutely calm, it is unsafe to take
a boat into them; but the series of deep, gloomy caves is a challenge
to the swimmer. Beneath the surface of the crystal water can be seen
huge boulders covered with brilliant sea-anemones and sharp-spined
sea-urchins. From the liquid pavement the roof arches up into the
darkness like the nave of an old cathedral, or like some ruined palace
of Neptune. Occasional ledges provide convenient resting-places where
one can sit and watch the pigeons flying in and out, or listen to the
twitter of the swallows and the chatter of the frightened bats. The
caves sometimes harbor larger denizens than these. More than once, when
swimming before them, I have been startled to see the dog-like head of a
seal appear in the water close beside me.
Slanting up into the walls of these caverns are narrow tunnels where
the softer rock has been worn away by the seeping of the surface water
from above. If one cares to risk losing a little skin from the elbows
and knees, it is possible to climb many yards up these steep, slippery
shafts. One day, while walking along the top of the cliff, I came
upon the upper end of a natural chimney whose formation appeared so
unusually regular that I became curious to see what it might lead to.
So I slid down twelve or fifteen feet and dropped into the ashes of a
recent fire which had been built in the center of a cozy little cave
high above the water. The rocky point of the cape, honeycombed with dark
passages and secret hiding-places, is a favorite resort of smugglers,
especially on moonless nights; and in the bazaars of the city you can
buy many articles which have not been submitted to the extortions of the
Turkish custom-house. While I was a resident of Beirut, the “king of the
smugglers,” who lived near me, killed three revenue officers who were
interfering with his illicit trade. Bribery and intimidation, however,
soon removed all danger of prosecution for his various crimes; and a
few days later I saw him driving defiantly along the Shore Road in his
elegant carriage.
Beirut has suffered so severely from earthquakes, as well as from
besieging armies, that there remain no traces of very old buildings
except some columns of reddish Egyptian granite. Only a few of these
can now be seen above ground or lying under water at the bottom of the
harbor, where doubtless they were rolled by earthquake shocks; but from
the frequency with which they appear whenever excavations are made,
there must be a multitude of them scattered all over the site of the
ancient city.
Among the mountains just back of the cape are the ruins of a Roman
aqueduct, which supplied the city from a spring in the valley of the
Beirut River, six miles away. The ravine was bridged by a series of six
arches, arranged in four tiers. The lowest of these had two spans; the
highest had twenty-five, and rose a hundred and sixty feet above the
river-bed. On the west bank, the water was carried through a tunnel cut
in the solid rock of the mountainside. This opening is now filled with
fallen stones, and of the aqueduct itself there remain only a few broken
arches at the eastern end; yet the massive ruin, rising high above the
river amid these desolate, lonely surroundings, still suggests the wealth
and enterprise of the centuries long gone by.
During the last forty years Beirut has been abundantly provided with
water piped from the Dog River by an English company. So pure is this
supply that since its use became common the city has not known a single
outbreak of cholera or plague, though the surrounding country has often
been devastated by these diseases. One memorable year we watched a
fearful epidemic creep up the coast toward us, curve inland round the
edge of the district supplied with Dog River water, and then sweep back
again to the seashore and continue its terrible journey northward.
The Dog River was in ancient times known as the _Lycus_ or “Wolf” River.
It is said to have received its present name from a marvelous statue
of a dog set above the cliffs, which opened its stone mouth and barked
lustily at the approach of a hostile ship. Indeed, to this very day a
vivid imagination can discern the likeness of a huge mastiff in a certain
boulder, now submerged in the center of the stream.
The pass up its rocky gorge has been trod by many a great army. The
well-preserved bridge which now spans the stream was built by the
sultan Selim four hundred years ago; but a Latin inscription on the
cliff indicates that a military road was constructed here by Marcus
Aurelius as early as the second century, and on the sheer rocks at the
left bank of the river are cut panels whose records far antedate the
days of Roman supremacy. Ashur-nasir-pal, Shalmaneser, Tiglath-pileser,
Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, Rameses—such are the strange sounding names
given to the forms in bas-relief which still lift above the rushing
stream the scepters of their long-vanished power. The boastings of Greek
and Arabic conquerors are also found along this path of ancient armies
and—what seems in such surroundings a weak anti-climax—upon a panel which
originally bore one of the Egyptian inscriptions now appears the record
of the French expedition of 1860.
Four miles from the mouth of the Dog River, its principal tributary
bursts from a cave which extends far into the heart of Lebanon. Within
this are found stalactites of every shape and color, natural columns
as large and almost as symmetrical as those of the Parthenon, enormous
cathedral-like chambers, labyrinthine passages without number, deep icy
pools, and cascades whose dull thunder reverberates through the dark
depths of the mountain. With the aid of portable rafts, adventurous
explorers have penetrated this wonderful cavern for nearly a mile; but
at that distance there was no diminution of the volume of the stream or
any other indication that they had come at all near to the source of
the mysterious underground river. The light of their torches but dimly
revealed the roaring torrent ceaselessly speeding out from dark, distant
channels like those
“Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.”
Although the Bay of Beirut opens to the Mediterranean at an obtuse
angle, it is so well protected from storms by the long cape that it
provides the safest anchorage between Port Saïd and Smyrna. I remember
only one tempest which blew so strongly that anchors could not hold and
steamers had to leave the port for the open sea. The harbor is crowded
with shipping of all sizes and shapes, from the little coastwise barks
and the queer, low Egyptian boats with their one triangular sail to the
great transatlantic liners which bring multitudes of tourists on cruises
to the Holy Land. About four thousand merchant vessels clear the port
annually. Since the dawn of history, Damascus has sent its exports hither
by the ancient caravan road. For the past eighteen years there has been a
railway across the mountains, and its recently completed branch to Aleppo
will doubtless attract more and more of the trade of northern Syria.
The exports from Beirut amount each year to over $4,000,000. About
one-third of this value is made up of raw silk; other important
commodities are olive oil, licorice and fruit. The character of the chief
imports is determined by the fact that the mountains are almost denuded
of large forest trees. Immense quantities of timber, metal girders,
firewood and petroleum must therefore be brought from abroad. The
dependence of Syria upon other countries for the materials used in modern
construction was illustrated in the building of the American Girls’
School in Beirut. The lumber came from Maine, the doors and windows from
Massachusetts, the desks and chairs from New York, the clay tiles from
France, the zinc roof of the cupola from England, and the glass from
Austria.
[Illustration: Bridge over the Dog River built by Sultan Selim]
[Illustration: Procession in the Serai Square of Beirut in celebration of
the granting of a constitution to the Turkish Empire in 1909]
The cream-colored sandstone for this and a multitude of other structures
was, however, quarried near Beirut. The stone makes a fine building
material, as it is easily worked, attractive in appearance and very
durable. But unfortunately it is at first quite porous, and newly-erected
houses are dangerously damp until the rains of two or three winters have,
on their way through the walls, first dissolved a certain amount of the
stone and then deposited it in the interstices. So the Syrian proverb
says, “When you build a house, rent it the first year to your enemy, the
second year to your friend, and the third year move into it yourself.”
The traveler who journeys to Beirut from the west is naturally impressed
by its scenes of Oriental life; but to one who has come hither from
Lebanon or Damascus or even from Jerusalem, it seems almost a European
city. Here is a French gas company, an English waterworks, a German
hospital and an American college; here are post and telegraph offices, a
harbor filled with shipping, and the terminus of a busy railway system.
Four lines of electric tram-cars furnish quick transportation through
the main streets to the attractive suburbs, and many of the wealthier
residents possess automobiles. A score of printing-presses are at work
and daily newspapers are sold by shouting newsboys. There are a dozen
good hotels; and well-equipped stores, run on European lines, are rapidly
crowding out the tiny shops of the typical Oriental merchant. Gaudy
billboards extol the virtues of French cosmetics, English insurance
companies and American sewing machines, phonographs and shoes, or
announce the subjects of the moving-picture dramas for the coming week.
Carriages throng the principal thoroughfares, the better class of
citizens wear European costumes, and no passenger-steamship drops anchor
in the harbor without being met by the red-shirted boatmen and suave
interpreters of the enterprising tourist-agencies.
To the casual visitor, Beirut seems therefore a very peaceable,
matter-of-fact place. He does not experience the feeling of
half-confessed uneasiness which marked his strolls through the native
quarters of other Oriental cities. Yet the busy every-day life of the
seaport moves upon the thin crust of a seething volcano of hate, which
all too often breaks out into murderous rage.
The Moslem inhabitants are, of course, backed by all the power of the
government, legal and illegal; but they are much inferior in numbers and
in wealth to the Christian population. Religious jealousy is therefore
never far from the boiling-point. Any insult or violence offered by an
adherent of the one faith to a believer in the other is the signal for a
long series of reprisals and counter-reprisals, and there is always the
possibility that these may culminate in general rioting and massacre.
The morning I first landed in Beirut, the Christian watchman of the
American Press was found almost literally cut in pieces. The assassin was
absolutely identified by the print of his bare foot in a mass of soft
mortar; but, being a Moslem, the authorities quickly released him and,
without any evidence whatever, arrested a near relative of the dead man.
The poor fellow had a perfect alibi, yet he was kept in prison until the
family signified their willingness to have the police department refrain
from any further investigation of the murder. This is a favorite method
of procedure when a Moslem is guilty of a crime against a Christian.
It used to be a rare week that we heard of no assassinations, and a rarer
year that knew no general rioting. One winter there was a murder each
night for six weeks, Christians and Moslems being killed alternately.
So regular was the succession of reprisals that a friend whom I had
invited to make an evening visit with me postponed the trip on the
ground that “this is the night for a Christian to be killed.” Frequent
rumors would reach us of impending invasions of the Christian Quarter
by Moslem mobs, and more than once the portentous war-cry of _Din! Din
Mohammed!_—“The Faith! The Faith of Mohammed!”—rang in the ears of the
terrified Christians. The morning I ended my residence in Beirut it was
a prominent Moslem who was assassinated at the door of his own home. A
few days afterwards, murderous mobs swept through the city chanting, “Oh,
how sweet; oh, how joyful to cut the Christians’ throats!” The empty
cartridges picked up after the slaughter were of the make imported
exclusively for the use of the Turkish soldiers at the government
barracks.
The undying religious hatred and frequent violence do not, however,
endanger the lives of European or American residents, and probably never
will do so unless some insane mob should get quite beyond the control of
its leaders. Islam has learned the power of foreign warships. It should
also be added that the native Protestants are hardly ever molested, save
by accident, during these internecine conflicts; for the Moslems realize
that this portion of the population never takes any part in religious
strife. Even in the terrible summer of 1860, when all Syria was drenched
with blood, only nine Protestants were killed.
During the past few months there has developed a new and unexpected phase
of Beirut strife. Since the revolution of the Young Turks, a vigorous
demand for political righteousness and even-handed justice has, in spite
of all set-backs, been growing steadily among every race and faith of
the empire. In Syria the new ideals and hopes found expression in the
organization of a “Committee of Reform,” which demanded such elemental
rights as the appointment of an Arabic-speaking governor of Beirut and
the use of the vernacular in the courts of justice. Up to the present
time, the governor has always been a Turk, and Turkish judges have
understood the language of bribery better than the Arabic pleas of poor
men who appeared before them.
Last spring the differences between the people of Beirut and the
government became so acute that the city was put under martial law by
the pasha, who also issued a proclamation dissolving the local branch of
the Reform Committee and forbidding further gatherings of the citizens
or discussion in the public press. Every newspaper of the city protested
against these despotic acts by printing an issue which was absolutely
blank, save that in the center of the first page there appeared the
odious proclamation. Since then the governor has been recalled and, on
the surface, the city is more quiet. But the startling, unhoped-for
feature of this latest contest is that—for the first time in the
sanguinary history of Beirut—Moslems and Christians and Jews have for
the moment put aside their ancient feuds, that they might present a
united front to the aggressions of the tyrannical local government. This
spirit of union, even more than the desire for political reform which
gave it birth, promises a new era of peace and prosperity for the most
progressive city of beautiful, blood-stained Syria.
As has been said, however, the ordinary traveler sees no evidences
of strife in the streets of Beirut. The largest and most conspicuous
class of people whom he meets are not assassins or revolutionists, but
students. This is no new thing, for the city has long been famous as
a seat of learning. From the third to the sixth centuries A. D., its
law school was the greatest in the Roman Empire, excelling even that
of the capital and numbering its students by the thousand. One of the
three commissioners who prepared the _Institutes_ of Justinian was
Professor Dorotheus of Beirut. In the early Saracen centuries, also, the
city attained much scholarly fame and sent forth many of the foremost
authorities on Moslem law and doctrine.
At the present day it is the greatest educational center in the Near
East. Besides the schools maintained by each of the native churches
and the mosque-schools and government academies, and institutions
supported—presumably for political reasons by Italy and Russia, there
are schools or colleges of the French Sisters of Charity, Sisters of
the Holy Family, Ladies of Nazareth, Lazarists, Franciscans, Capuchins
and Jesuits, the German Deaconesses of Kaiserswerth, the British Syrian
Mission, the Church of Scotland Mission to the Jews, and the American
Presbyterian Mission, not to mention a number of others which have been
organized by private individuals of missionary and philanthropic spirit.
The total number of students who are being educated along modern lines is
over twenty thousand.
Yet in this city of schools and colleges, if the stranger tells his
coachman to drive to _el-Kulliyet_—“the College”—he will be taken without
question to an institution which is incorporated under the laws of
the State of New York; and a short visit here will show why this is
acknowledged to be _the_ college of Beirut. Upon a beautifully situated
campus of fifty acres, twenty imposing stone buildings house the seven
departments of what is really a large, well-equipped university of eighty
instructors and nearly a thousand students, with observatory and library
and scientific laboratories and hospitals, as well as literary, dramatic,
musical and scientific societies and its own printing-press and monthly
magazine.
Many important things are being learned and done at the Syrian Protestant
College; but what strikes the observant visitor as most admirable of all
is the spirit of the institution, a spirit of thoroughness and manliness
and loyal fraternity and encouraging optimism. More than anything else
in Beirut—yes, more than anything else in western Asia—the “S. P. C.,”
as its students and alumni call it, stands for the best gifts of Western
civilization and for a new hope which, lighted first in beautiful
Syria, is already beginning to shine on many a land far out of sight of
heavenward-reaching Lebanon.