THE TOMB OF ST. GEORGE, BAY OF KESROUAN.

ON THE ROUTE FROM BEIROUT TO TRIPOLI.

This romantic spot is on the route from Beirout to Tripoli, in the bay of Kesrouan, the shores of which display an exquisite verdure, and cultivation, and cheerfulness; the villages and convents, one situated above another up the declivities, have a most romantic appearance. This strange excavation appears to have been once a chapel, and is commonly called the Tomb of St. George, our tutelar saint, whose combat with the dragon is said to have taken place at no great distance. On the opposite side of the bay is a Roman arch, and a beautiful rocky promontory. This spot is between Nahrel-kelb and Batroun. The villages on the hills are neatly built, all flat-roofed, with little latticed windows; two or three of the larger edifices are convents, with a pleasant aspect towards the sea, each having its garden and vineyard: the soil is very fruitful. In the hills in the interior of Asia Minor, the rocks are not unfrequently excavated into a kind of chambers, anciently sepulchral, but now inhabited by peasants and shepherds, and which offer to the traveller a warmer shelter than a ruined khan; the woods supply a good fire, and neither wind nor rain find a passage. Many of these rocks, pierced with ancient catacombs, present, at a small distance, the exact appearance of towers and castles: the people, as in the time of Job, "embrace the caverns of the rock for shelter, and dwell in the cliffs of the valley, fleeing into the wilderness desolate and waste."

TORTOSA, WITH THE ISLAND OF RUAD.

Leaving Beirout with the night-breeze, the boat was off Tortosa next morning, and ran into Ruad, whose pier and old Moorish castle are admirably engraved in this plate. There was an amusing old man of a consul here, who kept a little snuff-shop, which was decorated with the arms of England, and shewed all the civilities which his isolated and barren situation allowed him. The isle of Ruad is a most dull and melancholy sojourn; the inhabitants are all Turks, who have been occupied from time immemorial as shipwrights. Tortosa is seen opposite, with its village, and gothic ruin of a Christian church (given in a former plate,) on the beach; the morning was fine and clear, the sea almost calm, each distant hill, and even rock, were so distinct in that pure atmosphere and lovely light. It was a solitary land, in which no charm of climate could long sustain the traveller's vivacity; few were the abodes on the mainland, and they were ruinous and poor the people had the wild and unsocial air of those who see but seldom their fellow-men. The Anzeyry hills are seen behind, which are much lower than