Page images
PDF
EPUB

relief, as it had already been noised abroad that we were neither merchants nor pilgrims; and it was therefore concluded that we must be hakeemi, or physicians. And, lastly, the servants of the house in which we were lodged completed the throng, by soliciting us to favor them with our commands.

My old servant, who, though a native of Tokat, was dressed in European garments, was not suffered to perform any of those offices appertaining to his duty all were forward and ready to do us service; and nothing remained but to sit over our pipes and swallow rakee* and coffee until we were almost intoxicated with the combined effects of smoking, drinking, and talking, in a thronged assembly of enquirers.

At sunset, when both the idle and the curious began to be as weary as ourselves, a meal of rice and stewed meat was served to us, of which about half-a-dozen of our visitors remained to partake. Cups of strong drink again followed in rapid succession, and refusal was either considered as an insult, or thought to express a suspicion against the hand that offered it; so that at ten o'clock, when the party dispersed, we sunk upon the mat without undressing, as much oppressed by this excessive hospitality, as wearied by the fatigues that preceded it.

A name applied throughout Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, to a strong spirit distilled from dates; from the Arabic word literally, sweat, juice; and metaphorically used of wine and spirituous liquors.

[merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small]

JANUARY 7th, 1816.

AFTER the sweetest sleep I had for a long time enjoyed, we arose at day-light, and being joined by a party who had undertaken to superintend the necessary arrangements for our accommodation, we repaired to the bath. Mean and ill provided as this was, its refreshing effects were sufficiently agree

able to detain us there for several hours, when clean inner garments, and a temperate repast enjoyed in tranquillity, completed this powerful and welcome restorative.

On quitting the bath we mounted mules prepared for us, and rode through every part of the town, as well as to a sufficient distance without it, to obtain a commanding view of the whole. In this excursion we were assisted by the communications of several respectable inhabitants who accompanied us, and from whose confronted reports added to our own personal observation, the following particulars were collected.

The town of Soor is situated at the extremity of a sandy peninsula, extending out to the north-west for about a mile from the line of the main coast. The breadth of the isthmus is about one third of its length; and at its outer point, the land on which the town itself stands becomes wider, stretching itself nearly in right angles to the narrow neck which joins it to the main, and extending to the north-east and south-west for about a third of a mile in each direction. The whole space which the town occupies may be, therefore, about a mile in length, and half a mile in breadth, measuring from the sea to its inland gate.

It has all the appearance of having been once an island, and at some distant period was, perhaps, of greater extent in length than at present, as from its north-east end extends a range of fragments of former buildings, beaten down and now broken over by the waves of the sea. Its south-western extreme is of natural rock, as well as all its edge facing outward to the sea; and the soil of its central parts, where it is visible by being free of buildings, is of a sandy nature.

While this small island preserved its original character, in being detached from the continent by a strait of nearly half a mile in breadth, no situation could be more favourable for maritime consequence; and with so excellent a port as this strait must have afforded to the small trading vessels of ancient days, a city built on it might, in time, have attained the high degree of splendour

F

and opulence attributed to Tyrus, of which it is thought to be the site.

The question whether the Tyre of the oldest times stood on the continent or on the island, is involved in some obscurity by the ambiguous nature of testimonies drawn even from the same source.

The original city is considered as posterior to Sidon, of which it is sometimes called the daughter; but it is still of very high antiquity, as may be seen by the authorities which Cellarius has so industriously collected from the prophets, the historians, and the poets, by whom it is so often mentioned. *

In the sacred writings it is often spoken of as an island. The inhabitants

prophet Isaiah says in addressing Tyre, "Be still, ye

[ocr errors]

of the isle; thou whom the merchants of Zidon that pass over the sea have replenished. Pass over to Tarshish; howl, ye inhabitants of the isle. Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days?" † And in the exulting language attributed to it by Ezekiel, the expression is, "I sit in the midst," or as it is in the original," in the heart of the seas.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

In the copy of Hiram's reply to Solomon, regarding the preparation of materials for the building of the Temple at Jerusalem, as preserved by Josephus, the insular situation of Tyre is unequivocally expressed, when he says, "But do thou take care to procure us corn in return for this timber, which we stand in need of, because we live in an island." §

On the other hand, there are circumstantial details seemingly more applicable to a continental than to an insular situation. In the divisions of the conquered lands of Canaan among the vic

*

Geographic Antiquæ, lib. iii. c. 12. 4to. 1706. See also Reland, cap. 3. de urbibus et vicis Palæstinæ, p. 1046.; and Bochart, Phaleg et Canaan, Pars post. lib. ii. c. 17. p. 860.

Isaiah, c. xxiii. v. 2. 6, 7.

Ezekiel, c. xxviii. v. 2.

§ Josephus, Antiq. Jud. 1. 8. c. 2. 7. Mr. Volney accuses Josephus of being mistaken in this particular of its being an island in the time of Hiram, and accuses him of confounding its ancient with its modern state. Volney's Travels in Egypt and Syria, 8vo. vol. ii. p. 219.

torious tribes of Israel, the strong city of Tyre is made one of the boundaries of possession on the coast, in the fifth lot of the lands assigned to the tribe of Asher and their families; seeming thus to be enumerated among the places lying on the coast itself. * In the threatening message sent against the city by the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, the details of the warfare proclaimed seem applicable only to a continental city. †

The commentators differ, however, in their application of these local features to Palætyrus and Tyrus, which succeeded each other; though it is evident that they could be intended by the writers of them to apply but to one place only.

The learned translator of Josephus hesitated in his decision, more particularly as he found that the accurate Reland, who had laboured with so much diligence towards illustrating the geography of Palestine and Phoenicia, was not able to clear up this difficulty. He inclines to think that Palætyrus, or Old Tyre, the city spoken of by Joshua, was seated on the continent, and that its inhabitants were driven from thence to the island opposite to them by the Israelites; that this island was then joined to the continent by an artificial isthmus, and watered by pipes from fountains on the main land. After a series of events, the same writer conceives it to have been utterly destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, in conformity to the prophecy; but a smaller island near it being inhabited, in the days of Alexander, that conqueror connected this second insular city to the continent, by a new bank or causeway, as we now see it. ‡

A desire to reconcile discordant passages seems to have suggested this accommodation, which is unsupported either by sacred or profane history, and still less so by the testimony of Maundrell, whose account of the modern Soor is cited by Whiston to support his theory of these manifold changes.

Joshua, c. xix. v. 29.

+ Ezekiel, c. xxvi. v. 7—10.

+ Whiston's Josephus. Antiq. Jud. 1. 8. c. 2. s. 8.

« PreviousContinue »