Beyrout now possesses 2 tolerable hotels—one in the town, kept by a Greek called André, and rejoicing in the title of “ Hôtel de Belle Vue.” It is near the consulates, near the steamboat offices, and near the port; and is on the whole the most convenient place for such as make but a short stay. The other, which claims the same title, is nearly a mile to the W. of the town, built on the shore; and, being more retired, will be found more agreeable for those who intend making a long sojourn, and who are not particularly interested in consuls or commerce. The charges are the same in both—50 piastres a day for board and lodging—and there is not much difference in the accommodations,
Bankers.—Beyrout is the best place in Syria for negociating bills, circular notes, &c. The rate of exchange is generally higher than elsewhere : and then one meets here with that sterling English honesty and honour, which are sadly wanting in some other places. The firm of Messrs. Wm. And Robert Black and Co. is too well known to require any commendation ; and there are also the highly respectable houses of Mr. Henry Heald, and Messrs. Riddell and Co. A branch of the Ottoman Bank has recently been established in Beyrout. Letters for travellers should be addressed to the care of one or other of these houses,
The Consul-General for Syria, Niven Moore, Esq., resides at Beyrout; and there is also a Vice-Consul, Mr. Noel Moore.
For the arrival and departure of mails and steamers see above, Preliminary Information. In addition to the French and Austrian lines, there are occasional English screw-steamers direct to Liverpool, not oftener than onceamonth. There are also French steamers direct to Marseilles,
The population of Beyrout is now estimated at 45,000; one-third being Muslems, and the rest Christians, Jews, and strangers. The authorities have taken a kind of census; but with true Turkish liberality they refuse to let it be copied or even seen! The number of the inhabitants has more than doubled within the last 20 yrs.; and the town is at the present time the most prosperous in Syria; though only ranking third in point of size. It is assuming something of a European look too, with its bustling little quay, and crowded little port, and large warehouses, and shops, and beautiful suburban villas, All this prosperity is owing to foreign influence; the European mercantile firms having infused some life into the natives. The principal article of export is raw silk, the trade in which is rapidly increasing in extent and importance. In fact, Lebanon is gradually becoming one vast mulberry plantation. The total value of the exports of all kinds from the port of Beyrout in the year 1853 was 413,8391., and that of the imports 780,298/. More than one-half of the former was to Austria; and more than one-third of the latter from England. The imports at Aleppo during the same year were about 800,000l. Beyrout is every year increasing, and is at this moment, so far as foreign commerce is concerned, the first town in Syria. A large proportion of its imports are for the Damascus markets, it being now the port of that city. For the statistics and extent of the pashalic of which Beyrout is the capital, see above.
The situation of Beyrout is exceedingly beautiful, especially as viewed from the sea. The promontory on which it stands is triangular, the apex projecting some 3 m. into the Mediterranean, and the base running along the foot of Lebanon. The south-western side is wholly composed of loose drifting sand, and has all the aspect of a desert. The north-western side is totally different. The shore line is formed of a range of irregular, deeply-indented rocks and cliffs ; worn into a thousand fantastic forms by the waves— here, deep gloomy caverns into which the waters roll with a roar as of distant thunder; there, jagged isolated rocks, and bold precipices, around which the white surf plays like a thing of life, sending up showers of spray that sparkle like diamonds in the bright sunlight. Behind these rocks the ground rises gradually for a mile or more, when it attains the height of about 200 ft. In the middle of the shore-line stands the city—first a dense nucleus of buildings surrounded by an old tottering wall; then a broad nebula of picturesque villas, embowered in rich foliage, running up to the very summit of the heights, and extending far to the rt. and 1. Beyond these are the mulberry groves covering the whole acclivities ; and variegated here and there by a few graceful palms and dark cypresses.
The old town stands on the very beach, and often during a northerly gale gets more of the sea water than is agreeable. The little port, now in a great measure filled up, lies between a projecting cliff and a ruinous insulated tower called Burj Fânzâr, which bears, like the rest of the fortifications, many a mark of British bullets. The walls of the town were never strong, and are of no use at the present day except as impediments to commerce, for which beneficent object the Turks seem inclined to keep them up. The streets are narrow, gloomy, dirty, and badly paved; and so steep and tortuous withal, that almost every bale and package landed at the custom-house has to be carried off on the backs of men! The houses are substantially built of stone; and a few of the villas in the suburbs possess some little pretensions to architectural effect; though it must be admitted the Beyroutines do not excel in this branch of the arts. The view commanded by the higher houses is truly magnificent, embracing the bay of St. George ; the indented coast, retiring, promontory on promontory, till lost in the distance; and the noble ridge of Lebanon, with its wild giens, and dark pine-forests, and clustering villages, and castle-like convents, and snow-capped peaks on which the clouds sleep. It is wonderful, however, how little regard is paid to the means of. locomotion. The narrow lanes that wind through the gardens from villa to villa seem to have been made after the fashion of the streets, as inconvenient as ingenuity could devise. They form a perfect labyrinth, which the stranger tries in vain to thread. In summer they are filled knee-deep with sand, and shut in by tall savage hedges of prickly pear, excluding every breath of wind; so that in passing through them one feels as if walking amid the ashes of a half-extinct furnace. In winter every lane becomes a torrent-bed, sometimes impassable for man, and even dangerous for beast. Yet through these the Beyrout merchants plod along day after day, from their trim villas to their counting-houses in the city—each temporarily equipped as if for an acquatic excursion. It is amusing to mark the merchant’s progress, here taking a flying-leap over a gulf; there making a desperate plunge ; while yonder, where a kind of ferry has been established over a little lake, with half-a-dozen porters on each side as ferrymen, he is suddenly seized by 3 or 4, who keep up a running fight during the passage for their prey, the unfortunate passenger the while grasping energetically the neck and brawny shoulders of some one of them, and trying to keep the others off with the point of his umbrella. Still Beyrout is a thriving town; and it may in time possess the luxury of streets and roads. Until it gets these it is, of course, folly to talk of introducing wheeled vehicles.
The antiquities in and around Beyrout are few, and of little interest. A number of columns of grey granite, forming the foundations of the little quay; 3 others, apparently in situ, within the south-eastern gate, and several on the open space without it; some foundations, pieces of tesselated pavement, and excavations in the rock, probably the remains of baths, 1/2 m. along the shore to the westward; a group of sarcophagi about the middle of the south-western shore of the promontory ; and the ruins of an aqueduct at the base of the mountains on the E., which once brought a supply of pure water from the Nahr Beyrout to the city—such is about a complete list of the antiquities. Almost every year shows that there are many others, far more important, buried beneath the soil and rubbish. Old tombs are frequently laid open by excavation, sometimes containing sarcophagi of pottery, with lachrymatories and other articles of glass. The walls of the town are comparatively modern; and there are no buildings of any importance,
The cause of education has received a great stimulus since the establishment of the American Mission more than a quarter of a centy. ago. Their schools have created a taste for information and literature; and their admirably conducted press has done much to gratify it, by the issue not only of religious books but of good elementary treatises on the various sciences. The director of that press, the late Dr. Eli Smith, was long known not only as a distinguished Oriental scholar, but as one of the most successful investigators of the geography of Syria. The part he supplied in the ‘Researches’ of Dr. Robinson would have been sufficient of itself to establish his fame. Another and still more important work he commenced, but did not live to finish — the translation of the Bible into Arabic. His place is now filled by Dr. Van Dyck, one of the most accomplished Arabic scholars in Syria.
Divine service is conducted every Sunday in the Chapel of the American Mission at 10 1/2 o’clock.
History.—Beyrout, or as it is sometimes written Beirût, occupies the site, as it preserves the name, of the Berytus of the Greeks and Romans. It was probably founded by the Phœnicians, though the first mention of it is in the writings of Strabo, and the first historical notice only extends as far back as the year B.C. 140, when it was destroyed by Tryphon, the usurper of the throne of Syria, during the reign of Demetrius Nicator. After its capture by the Romans it was colonized by veterans of the Fifth Macedonian and Eight Augustan Legions, and called “Colonia Julia Augusta Felix Berytus.” “It was here that Herod the Great procured the flagitious mock trial to be held over his two sons. The elder Agrippa greatly favoured the city, and adorned it with a splendid theatre and amphitheatre, besides baths and porticos, inaugurating them with games and spectacles of every kind, including shows of gladiators. Here, too, after the destruction of Jerusalem, Titus celebrated the birthday of his father Vespasian by the exhibition of similar spectacles, in which many of the captive Jews perished.” But it was chiefly as a seat of learning that ancient Beyrout was celebrated. Its fame drew to it students from distant countries. Law, philosophy, and languages were cultivated. The well-known Gregory Thaumaturgus, after passing through Athens and Alexandria, came here to complete his knowledge of civil law; and Appion the martyr spent a time at Beyrout engaged in the study of Greek literature. From the 3rd to the 6th centy. was the golden age of Beyrout’s literary history. In A.D. 551 the town was laid in ruins by an earthquake, and its learned men sought a temporary asylum at Sidon. Ere it had time to revive the wild followers of the False Prophet swept like a tornado over the land, destroying alike literature, commerce, agriculture, and architectural splendour. In the year 1110 Beyrout was captured by the crusaders under Baldwin I.; it remained long in their hands, was made the seat of a Latin bishop, and was celebrated, as it is still, for the richness and beauty of its gardens and orchards. With the exception of a short occupation by Saladin the Christians retained possession of the town till the final overthrow of their power in 1291. From that period till the beginning of the 17th centy. Beyrout scarcely ranked higher than a village; but the celebrated Druze prince Fakhr ed-Dîn, already
so often mentioned in connexion with the towns on the coast, rebuilt it, made it the chief seat of his government, and erected a large palace, a fragment of which still stands near the eastern gate. This prince is also the traditional planter of the great pine-grove on the S. side of the city. He may probably have planted some trees there; but we have the historical evidence of the Arab author Edrîsi that a forest of pines existed here as early as the 12th centy. There are only a few of the old trees remaining; but a large number of young ones are springing up, planted by direction of the Turkish authorities, who have somehow awakened to the necessity of thus checking the advance of the drifting sands.
The last episode in the history of Beyrout was its bombardment by the English fleet in September, 1840. The old walls were riddled with shot, and still remain so; several houses were destroyed ; and the main object, the driving out of the troops of Ibrahim Pasha, was soon accomplished. The town speedily recovered from this disaster, and has since far out-stripped in commercial enterprise and | activity all the other cities of Syria. It is questionable whether at any period during its long history it was as prosperous as it is now. It is true its prosperity has not yet taken an architectural or an engineering turn. Its port remains blocked up with rubbish and stones, just as the fears of Fakhr ed-Dîn left it; there is not a street in the town, nor a road round it, fit for the employment of wheeled vehicles, by the use of which thousands of pounds might be saved annually ; and the caravan track—it does not deserve the name of road—to the great city of Damascus is still among the very worst in Syria. There is some talk now about a French company which has undertaken to construct a carriage-road to Damascus. I have little faith in French companies, though this may succeed.