we had accomplished those days, we departed, and went our way; and the disciples all brought us on our way, with wives and children, till we were out of the city, and we kneeled down on the shore and prayed; and when we had taken our leave one of another, we took ship, and they returned home again.' Tyre was a metropolitan see at an early period, and possessed a famous temple," erected by Paulinus. On this occasion,

Eusebius wrote a 'solemn sermon,' which is yet extant. It was perhaps at this period that the brighter predictions of the prophets received their accomplishment. The daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gifthe that remaineth, even he, shall be for our God-her merchandize and her hire shall be holiness unto the Lord.' The historian of Cæsarea gives this delightful character of the church theu in existence :'Comely rites and ceremonies of the church were celebrated... Men and women of every age, with all the might that in them lay, with cheerful mind and will, in prayer and thanksgiving, honoured God.' In the persecutions, many spirits fled triumphantly from Tyre to join the noble army of martyrs.'

Tyre, as has been already observed, early became a christian bishopric, and under the Crusaders, the first archbishop was an Englishman, William of Tyre.. Tyre continued a noble and beautiful city till the time of the Crusades, when it underwent many reverses. It was not, however, until the Crusaders had been for twenty-five years in possession of the Holy City, that they were able to lay siege successfully to Tyre, then under the dominion of the Saracens, and the strong-hold of Muslem power. William of Tyre, writing upon the spot, describes the city at the time as very strongly fortified; being enclosed toward the sea, in most parts, by a double wall with towers; on the north, within the city, was the walled port, with an

1 Maundrell suggests that the remains of the ancient church, now visible at Tyre, may be those of this very temple.

entrance between double towers; and on the east, where it was accessible by land, it was protected by a triple wall, with lofty towers close together, and a broad ditch, which might be filled from the sea on both sides. On the 11th February, A.D. 1124, the christian host sat down before Tyre; and on the 27th of the following June, the city was delivered into their hands. On entering the wealthy emporium, the pilgrims were surprised at the strength of its fortifications, the size and splendour of the houses, the loftiness of the towers, the solidity of the walls, and the beauty of the port, with its difficult entrance. For more than a century and a half, Tyre appears to have remained in the possession of the Christians, and maintained its prosperity. The entrance of the port was closed every night by a chain between the towers; and the city was celebrated for the manufacture of glass, and the production of sugar. At length, however, this important city was abandoned, to the Saracens, and its fortifications of strong quadruple walls, and citadel with seven towers, regarded as impregnable, were, it appears, razed by them. Not many years afterwards, Tyre is described as being desolate and in ruins-it never recovered from the blow, but sunk deeper and deeper in abandonment and desolation. Travellers of the sixteenth and seventeenth certuries describe it as only a heap of ruins-broken arches and vaults, tottering walls and fallen towers, with a few miserable inhabitants housing in the vaults amid the rubbish. Attempts were made to raise it from its degradation, but they failed; and one traveller relates, that the little that remained of a spacious palace, which was once erected there, served as a khân for travellers. Maundrell, in 1697, observes, "This city, standing in the sea, upon a peninsula, promises, at a distance, something very magnificent. But when you come to it, you find no similitude of that glory for which it was so renowned in ancient times, and which the prophet Ezekiel describes. On the north side it has an old

Turkish ungarrisoned castle; besides which, you see nothing here but a mere Babel of broken walls, pillars, vaults, &c. there being not so much as one entire house left. Its present inhabitants are only a few poor wretches, harbouring themselves in the vaults, and subsisting chiefly upon fishing, who seem to be preserved in this place by Divine providence, as a visible argument how God has fulfilled His word concerning Tyre, viz. that it should be as the top of a rock,—a place for fishers to dry their nets on.

In Pococke's day (1738), the French factory at Sidon exported large quantities of grain from Tyre; and Volney says that the only merchant in Tyre was a Greek factor in the service of that establishment, who scarcely made sufficient profit to maintain his family! Another traveller describes Tyre as "a rock whereon fishers dry their nets ;" and Volney speaks of the “trifling fishery of Tyre," and, although in later days this fallen city has in some small degree risen from its ruins, yet the latest accounts describe it as "hardly deserving the name of city"-See ROBINSON'S Researches, pp. 401-407. MAUNDRELL's Journey, pp. 48, 49. HARDY'S Notices, pp. 110, 111.

After leaving the beautiful plain by which Acre is bounded on the west, "we began," writes Mr. Paxton, "to ascend a high promontory, called White Cliff, from the whiteness of the rock of which it is composed. This is made up of the softest limestone I have ever seen, interspersed with nodules of flint. It was well for our nerves that a barrier had been left between us and the precipice, for sometimes there was a perpendicular descent from the road above, to the sea below, which was dashing and foaming at its base. From this point, or ridge of hills, we entered the plain of Soor. This plain is narrow at first, but gradually spreads out, and presently has a wide extent, with a gentle rising of its eastern side into hills, with mountains towering beyond. The soil is rich and productive. There are

some villages on the hills, but none of any size. We passed several places near the shore, where there had evidently once been villages; in one or two of these there were remains of walls, and other relics of former habitations. As we approached Soor, the mountains and hills fell back, making a kind of amphitheatre, rising, more or less, as it approached the mountains, but forming a rich and valuable back country to this former mistress of the sea . .

Travelling from Safed to Tyre, and when some few hours' distance from the latter, Dr Robinson writes, "We came out upon the brow of a steep and long descent, leading down from the high, broad region of mountainous country, over which we had hitherto been travelling, to a lower tract of hills and valleys lying intermediate between this upper region and the plain of Tyre . . . Here was a most extensive and magnificent view of the hills and plains, the coast, and sparkling waters of the Mediterranean; on which last we could distinguish several vessels under sail, like white specks, in the distance. Directly before us, and the only object to break the monotony of the flat coast itself, was Sûr and its peninsula; while its plain, and the lower region of hills, teeming with villages, and variegated with cultivated fields and wooded heights, were spread out before us in great distinctness and beauty; it ranked high among the many beautiful prospects we had The path now led us down, after a great descent, into the head of a deep and narrow wady, which we followed for a long distance directly on our course. It is called Wady 'Ashûr, and was now without water; but the steep sides are thickly wooded with prickly oak, maple, arbutus, sumach, and other trees and bushes, reaching quite down to the bottom; so that we often travelled among the trees. It reminded me strongly of some of the more romantic valleys among the Green Mountains in Vermont. Beneath the fine shades of this sequestered dell we stopped, at a quarter past eight

seen

o'clock, for breakfast. The morning was serene and beautiful, and, as the journey of the day was to be short, we gave ourselves up for a time to the luxury of repose.

"The hill country, as we here approached Sûr, is fully tilled; and a peculiar characteristic of it is the production of great quantities of tobacco. Throughout all Palestine, this plant is cultivated, more or less, for home consumption, in small patches, around most of the villages, where the soil permits; but here it is largely raised for exportation, and actually forms one of the main exports of Sûr, if not the chief; being carried mostly to Damietta.

"Proceeding over the hilly tract, with a gradual descent . . . we came to one of the most remarkable monuments of antiquity yet remaining in the Holy Land. It is an immense sarcophagus of limestone, resting upon a lofty pedestal of large hewn stones; a conspicuous ancient tomb, bearing, among the common people, the name of . . . 'Sepulchre of Hiram.' The sarcophagus measures twelve feet long by six feet in height and breadth; the lid is three feet thick, and remains in its original position; but a hole has been broken through the sarcophagus at one end. The pedestal consists of three layers of the like species of stone, each three feet thick, the upper layer projecting over the others; the stones are large, and one of them measures nine feet in length. This gray, weatherbeaten monument stands here alone and solitary, bearing the marks of high antiquity; but the name and the record of him by whom or for whom it was erected, have perished, like his ashes, for ever. It is indeed possible, that the present name may have come down by tradition; and that this sepulchre once held the dust of the friend and ally of Solomon; more probably, however, it is merely of Muhammedan application, like so many other names of Hebrew renown, attached to their welys and monuments in every part of Palestine. I know of no historical trace having reference to this