the town, in this respect, presents a strong contrast to modern Tyre. Those especially along the eastern wall are distinguished for their size and height; they are built directly on the wall, so as to constitute a part of it; and enjoy a pure air and a pleasing prospect of the fields and country. Within the city are six khâns, called by the Arabs 'Wekâlehs,' for the use of merchants and travellers. The largest of these is the wekâleh formerly belonging to the French khân; a large quadrangle of about one hundred and fifty feet on a side, with a fountain and basin in the middle, and covered galleries all around . . . The commerce of Saida, which five-and-twenty years ago was still considerable, has of late years fallen off, in consequence of the prosperity of Beirut; the latter having become exclusively the port of Damascus. The chief exports from Saida are silk, cotton, and nutgall. Indeed, we had now begun to enter upon the region in which silk is extensively cultivated; as is indicated by the orchards of mulberrytrees around the villages. The earthquake of 1837 threw down several houses in Saida, and injured many others; but only a few persons were killed. The beauty of Saida consists in its gardens and orchards of fruittrees, which fill the plain and extend to the foot of the mountains. The city and the tract around are abundantly supplied with water, by aqueducts and channels which conduct it from (the streams).. as they issue from the mountains. The environs exhibit everywhere a luxuriant verdure; and the fruits of Saida are reckoned among the finest of the country. Hasselquist enumerates pomegranates, apricots, figs, almonds, oranges, lemons, and plums, as growing here in such abundance as to furnish annually several ship-loads for export; to which D'Arvieux adds also pears, peaches, cherries, and bananas, as at the present day. At the foot of the mountains are many ancient excavated sepulchres."-ROBINSON'S Researches, vol. iii. pp. 417

420.

(The plain of Saida) " is one of the finest that I have seen on the coast. The mulberry-tree, which we had but seldom seen to the south, here made its appearance. Saida, like most of the towns on this coast, stands on a sandy point that projects out a short distance into the sea. It is surrounded with gardens, and has more fruit-trees about it, and a greater extent of groves, than any of the towns on the coast south of this, that I have visited. The plain about it appears peculiarly adapted to fruits . . . The houses are old, as you may suppose; the streets narrow, crooked, and dark, from the fact that many of them are, in many places, arched over; so much so, that you are nearly one-half of your time passing under arches, which shut out all the light but that which comes in from the end of these crooked, narrow streets... The markets are much as those at Soor... poor, and badly supplied. On the whole,

while the outside of the town had a most lovely appearance, the inside was the reverse. The harbour appeared mean, and not such as would give any recommendation to the place."-PAXTON's Letters, pp. 190— 197.

The population of Saida is about seven thousand souls.

LAND AND MOUNTAINS OF GILEAD-RIVER, OR BROOK JABBOK.

SCRIPTURE NOTICES.

"THEN Laban overtook Jacob . . . and Laban pitched in the Mount of Gilead."-Genesis xxxi. 25. "... And behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt."-Genesis Xxxvii. 25.

"Now the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, had a very great multitude of cattle: and when they saw the land of Jazer, and the land of Gilead, that, behold, the place was a place for cattle... (they) spake unto Moses, saying . . . let this land be given unto thy servants for a possession, and bring us not over Jordan." Numbers xxxii. 1, &c.

...

"And this land. . . from Aroer, which is by the river Arnon, and half Mount Gilead . . . gave I unto the Reubenites and to the Gadites. And the rest of Gilead, and all Bashan... gave I unto the half tribe of Manasseh . . . and unto the Reubenites, and unto the Gadites, I gave from Gilead even unto the river Arnon, half the valley, and the border, even unto the river Jabbok, which is the border of the children of Ammon." (Read in Josh. xxii. the account of the Reubenites, &c. going up to possess their land.) - Deuteronomy iii. 12, 13.

"Now these are the kings of the land, which the children of Israel smote, and possessed their land on the other side Jordan, toward the rising of the sun; from the river Arnon unto Mount Hermon, and all the plain on the east; Sihon king of the Amorites, who dwelt in Heshbon, and ruled from Aroer, which is upon the bank of the river Arnon, and from the middle of the river, and from half Gilead, even unto the river Jabbok, which is the border of the children of Ammon "-Joshua xii. 1, &c.

...

"... Machir, the first-born of Manasseh, the father of Gilead; because he was a man of war, therefore he had Gilead and Bashan."-Joshua xvii. 1.

...

"And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the Lord. . . and he sold them... into the hands of the children of Ammon . . . And ... they vexed and oppressed the children of Israel eighteen years, all the children of Israel that were on the other side Jordan, in the land of the Amorites, which is in Gilead." (For an account of their deliverance by means

of Jephthah the Gileadite, see chap. xi. xii.)-Judges x. 6-8.

66

goats that appear from

Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead..."-1 Kings xvii. 1. "... Thy hair is as a flock of Mount Gilead."- Canticles iv. 1. "Is there no balm in Gilead? sician there?"-Jeremiah viii. 22.

Is there no phy(See xlvi. 11.)

“... Thus saith the Lord unto the king's house of Judah. Thou art Gilead unto me, and the head of Lebanon: yet surely I will make thee a wilderness."Jeremiah xxii. 6.

"And I will bring Israel again to his habitation, and he shall feed on Carmel and Bashan, and his soul shall be satisfied upon Mount Ephraim and Gilead."-Jeremiah 1. 19.

"Gilead is a city of them that work iniquity, and is polluted with blood."-Hosea vi. 8.

"Thus saith the Lord, For three transgressions of Damascus, and for four, I will turn away the punishment thereof; because they have threshed Gilead with threshing instruments of iron.”—Amos i. 3.

[Deut. ii. 36, xxxiv. 1; Josh. xiii. 11, &c.; Judg. v. 17, x. 4, &c.; 1 Sam. xiii. 7; 2 Sam. ii. 9, xvii. 26; xxiv. 6; 1 Kings iv. 13, 19; 2 Kings x. 33, xv. 29; 1 Chron. v. 9, &c.; Psalm lx. 7, cviii. 8; Hos. xii. 11; Mic. vii. 14; Zech. x. 10.]

LAND AND MOUNTAINS OF BASHAN.

SCRIPTURE NOTICES.

...

"THEN we turned, and went up the way to Bashan: and Og the king of Bashan came out against us and we smote him . . . and we took all his cities threescore cities . . . fenced with high walls, gates, and bars... Only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of the giants; behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of