to an elevation, from which it may be conducted over the plain to the city. We made several inquiries upon this and other points, of the inhabitants of the little village which lies around and among these cisterns. One very aged man, with a venerable white beard, assured us that the water comes from Bagdad, for a bottle thrown into the parent fountain in that distant city, reappeared, in due time, in the Cisterns of Solomon. This patriarch of the cisterns says that they were built by Solomon the son of David, though the rest of the people ascribed them to Scander (Alexander) the Great.

From these very ancient remains of Tyre, the proudest monuments extant of her early civilization, we proceeded to the site of the fallen city. It took about an hour. Our way led through the deep sand which occupies the beach, to the distance of a furlong from the water. Beyond this is a fruitful plain. The direction of the coast is nearly north and south. The town is built on a peninsula, a mile or more in length from north to south, and extending westward nearly half a mile into the sea. It was an island, till Alexander built a mole from the mainland to facilitate his attack upon the city. Accumulations of sand have since made this causeway an isthmus more than a quarter of a mile in width. The first city was upon the mainland. That destroyed by Alexander was upon the island. The present miserable town stands upon a small part of the east side of the peninsula the former island. The site is low, and the houses, from whatever point seen, appear to rise out of the sea. In approaching from the south, we passed over a part of the presumed site of the first city, which is marked by heaps of rubbish, now mostly covered with sand. These may be the remains of the fortifications erected by or against the crusaders. They might, in another place, be taken for mere sand-hills. In our approach to the city we passed near a tower on our left, forty or fifty feet square by a height

rather greater, and, proceeding nearly to the north side of the isthmus, entered the modern town. It is a poor-looking place, made up of low, flat-roofed houses, has but little business, and, perhaps, 3000 or 4000 inhabitants. The most interesting object that met my eye on reaching the city was the American flag, waving above the consul's house. It was an agreeable sight, but I could but wonder at the residence of an American consul in such a place, where, probably, an American ship was never seen. Some of the party called to pay their respects to this functionary. I walked to the harbour, which is near his residence on the north. There were then only four small craft in this little port—rather boats than ships, As many more were drawn ashore for repairs. The water is shoal. Mr. Stukes and I took a small boat to perform the circuit of the old city. It could not come to land, and we were carried on board by the waterman. do not think there is eight feet water in any part of the harbour. This is the ancient port, and it is still enclosed by the remains of an ancient wall, which formed, at the same time, the wall of the town. Passing to the outside of this wall, and beginning near the gate by which we had entered the city, we passed quite round the peninsula to the south side of the isthmus. The massive foundations of the ancient

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pier rise several feet above the shallow water, and some superstructures, for what purpose I know not, have been reared upon them in later times. The stones of the foundations are very massive. The work consisted of a succession of strong towers, connected by thick walls reaching across the mouth of, or rather forming, the harbour. About midway, a passage was left open for the ingress and egress of vessels. In one of the towers, of which the ancient masonry rises several feet above the water, and which has been raised to the height of thirty feet or more, I saw an old, rusty cannon, looking out of a window towards the sea Parts of this pier have suffered from violent storms, and im

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mense blocks of stone are visible through the transparent water, scattered over the bottom of the sea in great confusion. At different points along this sea wall are large numbers of ancient columns and fragments of columns, lying mostly in the water. They are of all sizes and materials, red and gray granite, marble, &c., and seem to have been collected here from the field of ruins for the purpose of being transported to some rising city, a design which was for some cause abandoned. I counted above fifty of these in one place, many of a very large size. What is very curious, large pillars are in several places built into this ancient sea wall. In one instance, the stones which lie upon them are of immense size, and have evidently not been disturbed for many ages. It is probable that, after the destruction of the city by Alexander, these fragments were employed in the building or re-edification of the pier. A similar instance is seen in the Acropolis of Athens, ascribed to Themistocles, where immense white marble columns project from the base of the towering fortress. At the distance of more than a quarter of a mile from the pier is a ridge of rock rising above the water, which we examined, but found no constructions upon it. Returning thence to the old wall, we traced it around the western side of the peninsula. It here follows the edge of the water as nearly as circumstances allow. The whole line is easily traceable by considerable remains. We saw here, also, several columns and fragments along the beach and in the water. On the southern end of the peninsula: the remains of the old wall are still more considerable. It was strengthened by towers, distributed at short intervals, of which the massive foundations remain. Here also many columns broken and entire are scattered along the beach and in the water. In one

place they are arranged so as to form a causeway, just covered by the water, to pass from the shore to a rock at a small distance in the sea.

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Near by are several fine columns of gray granite built into the wall, as they are into the sea wall on the opposite side of the city. Some appear to have been buried in masses of rubbish, upon which the wall was constructed, and the ends of them have been uncovered by the elements or by excavations. One large column is seen rising two or three feet above the earth, and it probably stands in its original place being buried so deep by rubbish.

Having traced the wall nearly to the tower on the southern side of the isthmus, we walked across the field of ruins towards the southeast angle of the present wall, attracted by a granite column, which rose some feet above the surface, in the midst of a field of wheat. The whole peninsula, where not occupied by the houses of the present city, is covered with foundations, broken arches, and heaps of stone and rubbish. Near the standing column is a pit twelve or fifteen feet deep, at the bottom of which lie two noble columns of marble, partly disinterred. They are of a very large size, and of the most exquisite whiteness. The chiselling and polish are beautiful, and appear perfectly fresh.

I counted not less than 200 columns, entire or mutilated, scattered over the site of the ancient city, chiefly along the old wall. They were of all sizes and of various materials, but, for the most part, large and handsome. These are unquestionable remains of the ancient Tyre, and their number and sumptuousness are well calculated to fill us with lofty ideas of the grandeur and wealth of the former mistress of the sea. The other materials of the splendid structures to which these columns belonged were less massive, and have been removed for the construction of other cities, which have risen and disappeared since the fall of Tyre. The appearance of so many ancient stones in the substructions of the ruined wall bears testimony to the changes and calamities that have visited this place in different ages, and of repairs or reconstructions, made, prob

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ably, in the age of Alexander, or, perhaps, in those of the crusaders, when Tyre was an important town and fortress. The massiveness of the stones employed in building the sea wall is, I think, pretty conclusive evidence that this noble bulwark, obviously made for security against the violence of the elements, belongs to the early and prosperous days of Tyrian commerce. The breaches made by storms or earthquakes were probably repaired in the Middle Ages. The towers, too, have probably been built, and some of them have obviously been added to, long since the original wall was constructed. That has a character of solidity and massiveness never found in Saracen mural architecture, nor in that of any other people who have been masters of Tyre since the prosperous days of the Roman Empire.

Near the southeast corner of the present city are extensive remains of what seems to have been a Christian church. It was an edifice of vast extent, but is now completely ruinous, and its area is occupied by some of the meanest hovels in Sur.

The modern walls extend only on two sides of the town, the sea answering instead of artificial ramparts on the north and west. The harbour is evidently filling up with sand. It could never have been a convenient or safe one, though well enough adapted to the light, shallow barques employed in ancient commerce, which were probably drawn up on the beach instead of riding at anchor, like the Grecian fleet on the shores of Troy. An ordinary North River sloop would inevitably ground in attempting to approach this part of the coast. The sea around the city is obstructed by rocks, which rise several feet above the surface, and are lashed by the waves.

The modern village, which has inherited the venerable name of the ancient queen of commerce, in its Arabic form of Sur, has almost no importance of any kind, and it is only wonderful that 3000 miserable people should have assem