PART I. Cemeteries. Old tombs. Machpe lah. Tombs of the Judges. ceive, has its separate grave-yard. That of the Moslems, under these pretty China trees, is the largest and most striking. Both they and the Christians seem to have a disposition to place the foot of the grave toward the east. Those of the Jews all turn toward Jerusalem; but the Metwalies bury as it happens, and appear to take very little care of their graves. As a general fact, I suppose the ancients expended far more upon their tombs than the moderns. Are there no old sepulchres about Sidon? Countless numbers. All those eastern hills are full of them. They are of all sizes, and the internal arrangements are very various. Most of them consist of a square or oblong room, perpendicular to the sides of which the niches for the bodies extend six or seven feet into the rock. I have counted sixteen of these in a single room; but we need not suppose that they were all hewn at the same time, or even in the same age. A family selected a cave, if one could be found, which they trimmed and squared, and cut in it as many niches as they expected to need. Their posterity would hew new ones as occasion required; and when the original room was full, they cut out another behind, or at the side of it, and thus went on enlarging from generation to generation, as long as the family existed. This was done, as I understand the matter, in the cave of Machpelah, which Abraham purchased for a family burying-place. Jacob, when about to die in Egypt, made Joseph swear to bury him: "In my grave which I have digged for me in the land of Canaan, there shalt thou bury me."1 Now Jacob could only dig a grave for himself in the cave of Machpelah by cutting out a separate niche. Abraham made one for Sarah, and another was prepared for himself. Isaac prepared one for himself and Rebekah, and there Jacob says he buried Leah.2 In some sepulchral rooms there are double tiers of niches, one above the other. This appears to have been a favourite plan with the northern Phoenicians, as you find them not far from Tortosa, Gebile, Ladakîyeh, and Seleucia. The entire system of rooms, niches, and passages, may be comprehended at once by an inspection of the plan of the Tombs of the Judges, near Jerusalem, which I borrow from Mr. Williams's valuable work on the Holy City. The entrance faces the west, and has a vestibule (A) thirteen feet by nine. Chamber (B), nearly twenty feet square, and eight high. The north side is seen in elevation in Fig. 2, and shows two tiers of niches, one over the other,—not often met with in tombs. There are seven in the lower tier, each seven feet long, twenty inches wide, and nearly three feet high. The upper tier has three arched recesses, and each recess has two niches. From this room (B) doors lead out into chambers (C and D), which have their own peculiar system of niches, or loculi, for the reception of the bodies, as appears on the plan. I have explored scores of Sepulchres at Ladakîyeh closely resembling this at Jerusalem, and there are many in the plain and on the hill sides above us here at Sidon of the same general form-chambers within chambers, and each with CHAPTER niches for the dead, variously arrranged, according to taste or necessity. The VIII. interior of not a few of those about Sidon was plastered originally, or in after ages, with a hard cement or stucco, which is still quite perfect in some of them. In one I found a Greek inscription, drawn in the stucco before it Tombs in hardened. In others there were such inscriptions written on the plaster with Sidon. red ink. One large one is adorned with wreaths of flowers and small birds, with palm, orange, and other trees, such as are now found in the gardens below. These would seem to prove that the orange had been cultivated at PART I. Sidon from a very remote age. But I am inclined to believe that this stuccoing, writing in Greek, and painting upon the tombs, took place long after they were first hewn in the rock, probably after the original occupants had returned to utter dust. I am confirmed in this suspicion from examining a large tomb which was uncovered last winter on the plain. The surface above it had been used from time out of mind as a summer threshing-floor. A shaft, sunk about ten feet through the soil, exposed a low door in the face of the rock opening into a room thirty feet long by twelve broad. The ceiling and walls are stuccoed and ornamented with various figures in red paint; and a Greek inscription, written with the same paint, runs quite round the room, as a sort of ornamental border. It is much the longest inscription I have seen, and the letters are large, well formed, and as perfect as the day they were laid on. This was not the first time that this tomb had been opened, for all the antiquities it contained had been removed, and it was nearly full of earth, thrown there from other tombs connected with it. Something about this chamber suggested the idea that it was a kind of subterraneous oratory, and not a sepulchre,-in short, that it was one of those underground sanctuaries among the tombs, where the early Christians are said to have met for worship in times of cruel persecution. The whole area in this neighbourhood is undermined by tombs, and, if one had funds to excavate them, many curious discoveries might be made. I need hardly remind you that sepulchres hewn in the rock are mentioned in many passages in the sacred record. CHAPTER IX. SIDON-Continued. Popula. tion. 11th. We have had a delightful ramble along the aqueduct and through the vast fruit-orchards, and my respect for old Sidon has decidedly risen by the excursion. What may be the present population of the city and her gardens ? It is not possible to arive at perfect accuracy, as there are no statistics kept by the government. The number of inhabitants is said to be about 9000. Of these, 6800 are Moslems, including the Metawelies, 850 Greek Catholics, 750 Maronites, 150 Greeks, and 300 Jews. These are ecclesiastical returns, and they are always under-stated, in order to diminish the taxation, which is assessed according to the people's ecclesiastical relations. The entire population is therefore not far from 10,000. This is a small figure for a city called "great" IX. even by Joshua. Nor is she increasing, or likely to increase much for years to CHAPTER come. Beirût is too near, and draws everything into her all-absorbing vortex. Sidon exports tobacco, oil, fruit, and silk, but the amount is small, except in tobacco, which is, in fact, the main dependence of her merchants. It is all sent to Egypt. Are there no antiquities about Sidon? ties. Not many, and none very striking. She is too old. Her decline commenced Antiqui"before antiquity began." There are a few things, however, besides the tombs, in which her greatness was buried thousands of years ago, which are worthy of attention. The immense stones which form the north-west angle of the inner harbour, each one being some ten feet square, were no doubt put there in the days of Sidon's early prosperity; but it is surprising that the ancient inhabitants allowed the ledge of rocks on the seaward side to be quarried away for building-stone. This invaluable barrier has thus been so much lowered that the sea breaks over into the harbour in every storm, not only endangering the ships and boats, but causing a strong current to set eastward under the arches of the causeway which leads to the castle. These arches will, ere long, give way, as others have before, and thus the castle will be cut off from communication with the city. This castle itself, though mostly in Castle. ruins, has something to interest the antiquary. The oldest part is built nearly solid, with a large number of granite columns placed at regular intervals in the wall;-this shows, of course, that it was not erected until after the columns had become part of Sidon's ancient ruins; nevertheless, it is built of very heavy stones, having the Phoenician bevel, and probably dates back to the beginning of our era. The slightly-pointed arch in the most ancient part does not prove it to be modern, for I have seen this kind of arch in buildings undoubtedly older than the Saracens ; nor do I believe that these barbarians ever invented any arch. They found one to their taste, which they modified and appropriated to their own structures. I called your attention to the old old wall. wall which extended along the shore north-east to the little brook Kumly; from thence southward it is not easy to trace it for some distance, but it kept along the terrace which rises above the general level of the plain, and bent round west to the sea, about twenty rods to the south of the present upper castle. The Tell on which this castle stands is artificial, and, what is more remarkable, is made up, in a great measure, of old pottery, rubbish of houses, and thick beds of broken purpura, thrown out from Sidon's ancient manufactories of purple dye. The bluff facing the sea shows this conglomeration at least twenty feet thick. South-east of the upper castle is a mazar, frequented mostly by Jews, and called Sidōne. The people do not know who he was; and if it were a shrine dedicated to old Sidon himself, there would be nothing strange in the fact that the Jews frequent it. So they do Neby Seijûd yonder, on the top of Jebel Rihan, and many other places of the same character, although they are held by Moslems. Columns, sarcophagi, broken statuary, and other evidences of a great city, are found everywhere in these gardens, PART I. Disap of the stone. with the oldest trees growing in fertile soil many feet thick above them. These are the most remarkable remnants of Sidon's original greatness which the tooth of Time has left us. They do not contradict her ancient renown, though they throw very little light upon her history. If the city was anciently so large, what has become of the vast amount of stone? I see nothing of it on all the plain. You do well to commence your study of ruined cities with this inquiry. The pearance thing puzzled me greatly at first, but the disappearance of the stone can easily be accounted for in all cases. In fact, a large part of many old cities was built of sun-burnt brick, and these, of course, need not be sought for. In many cities the building material was a soft cretaceous stone, which crumbled back to soil almost as rapidly as sun-burnt brick. Most of the towns along the Syrian coast, however, are built of an argillaceous sandstone, mixed with comminuted shell; which, though porous and easily cut, will yet, if protected from the weather, last for ages; but, when exposed, it disintegrates rapidly, and soon melts away to dust. This process is hastened every time the ruins are worked over for new buildings. The stones must always be re-cut before they are put into a wall, and, after being thus reduced two or three times, they become too small for use, are thrown out into the fields, and quickly dissolve. A ruined city of this kind along the coast, or in any position from which the stone can be easily transported, is quarried over and over again until nothing remains but shapeless heaps of rubbish. Thus the stones of Sarepta, Athlîte, Cæsarea, and even of Tyre and Sidon, have recently been carried to Acre, Beirût, and Joppa, by boat, in immense quantities, and, after being cut afresh, and much reduced in size, are placed in buildings, which, in turn, will fall to ruin in a hundred years, when the same process will be repeated, until they are found no more. In other places, where the material is compact limestone, and not subject to these causes of destruction, it is broken up and burnt to lime. We saw how the sarcophagi at Khŭldeh are thus destroyed. At Kedes, an old city near the head of the Lake of Hums, I found the peasants breaking up beautiful marble columns with sledge-hammers for the same purpose. When I remonstrated with them, they replied that they had no other use for these columns, and that this had been the limequarry for all the region time out of mind. The whole country about that lake is volcanic, and these marble columns had been brought there from a great distance for their special accommodation. Need we wonder, therefore, at the disappearance of ruins, after the long lapse of twenty centuries of such Vandalism? I once saw the fragments of a beautiful marble statue which had been broken up for the lime-kiln! And if a sarcophagus is discovered, no matter how admirable the workmanship, you must be very expeditious if you hope to rescue it from their destructive hands. Such a one was lately uncovered here at Sidon, adorned with beautiful devices, wrought with exquisite skill. One of our friends heard of it, and went the very next morning to secure it, but too late. The owner of the ground had broken it to fragments to build into his Marble columns burnt for lime. |