for an hour or two over a plain
near the sea, and then came down to a valley which ran up among the hills,
terminating in a natural amphitheatre. An ancient barrow, or tumulus,
nobody knows of whom, stands near the sea. During the day I noticed two
charming little pictures. One, a fountain gushing into a broad square
basin of masonry, shaded by three branching cypresses. Two Turks sat on
its edge, eating their bread and curdled milk, while their horses drank
out of the stone trough below. The other, an old Mahommedan, with a green
turban and white robe, seated at the foot of a majestic sycamore, over the
high bank of a stream that tumbled down its bed of white marble rock to
the sea.

The plain back of the narrow, sandy promontory on which the modern Soor
is built, is a rich black loam, which a little proper culture would turn
into a very garden. It helped me to account for the wealth of ancient
Tyre. The approach to the town, along a beach on which the surf broke with
a continuous roar, with the wreck of a Greek vessel in the foreground, and
a stormy sky behind, was very striking. It was a wild, bleak picture, the
white minarets of the town standing out spectrally against the clouds. We
rode up the sand-hills, back of the town, and selected a good
camping-place among the ruins of Tyre. Near us there was an ancient square
building, now used as a cistern, and filled with excellent fresh water.
The surf roared tremendously on the rocks, on either hand, and the boom of
the more distant breakers came to my ear like the wind in a pine forest.
The remains of the ancient sea-wall are still to be traced for the entire
circuit of the city, and the heavy surf breaks upon piles of shattered
granite columns. Along a sort of mole, protecting an inner harbor on the
north side, are great numbers of these columns. I counted fifteen in one
group, some of them fine red granite, and some of the marble of Lebanon.
The remains of the pharos and the fortresses strengthening the sea-wall,
were pointed out by the Syrian who accompanied us as a guide, but his
faith was a little stronger than mine. He even showed us the ruins of the
jetty built by Alexander, by means of which the ancient city, then
insulated by the sea, was taken. The remains of the causeway gradually
formed the promontory by which the place is now connected with the main
land. These are the principal indications of Tyre above ground, but the
guide informed us that the Arabs, in