Obrazy na stronie
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ceeding to within an hour's distance from Beirout the road rises among mountains of red sand, strongly impregnated with iron.

There is a grove of beautiful Italian pines in the environs of the town, from which you descend to the walls.

After a journey of eight hours from the khan, which we left in the morning, and a month's journeying from Jerusalem, I was glad to find accommodation at a small hotel kept by an Italian.

The name of Beirout is nothing but a corruption of the ancient word Berytus, which is supposed to have been hellenicised from Berith, the appellation of an idol or Baal worshipped here. It was treated with great favour by the Emperor Augustus, who altered its name to Julia Felix.

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At present," as Maundrell says, "it retains nothing of its ancient felicity, except, indeed, the happiness of its situation. It is seated on the sea-side, in a soil fertile and delightful, raised only so high above the salt water as to be secure from its overflowings, and all other noxious and unwholesome effects of that element. It has the benefit of good fresh springs flowing down to it from the adjacent hills, and dispensed all over the city, in convenient, and not unhandsome, fountains.

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On the south side, the town wall is still entire, but built out of the ruins of the old city, as appears by pieces of pillars and marble which help to build it."

Thus, then, finished my wanderings over the most interesting country on the earth; a country which has excited alike the curiosity of the philosopher, the historian, and the Christian; which has been so deeply, and yet so imperfectly, explored.

The reflections which filled my mind at the conclusion of my labours, may be easily imagined. Though conscious of my inability to add anything to the treasures of information already accumulated respecting what may be called the scholastic, or antiquarian, views of this wonderful and sacred land; I will not deny that I entertained a hope of being able, by faithful and unflattering delineation of the various spots which I was about to

present to my readers, to dispel the erroneous notions which have been frequently propagated, both by pen and pencil, respecting the actual present appearance of the scenes of Holy Writ.

If I have in any measure succeeded in this attempt, I shall be amply rewarded; and I trust that what my poor efforts want in pictorial beauty will be compensated by that strict fidelity which it was my first study to secure. Again begging to express my acknowledgments to the various authors to whose learning, perseverance, and courage, I, in common with all who, since the publication of their works, have visited Palestine, have been so much indebted, I conclude by entreating all the reader's indulgence for the errors, as well of commission as omission, which he must inevitably find in the foregoing pages; accompanying this prayer by an assurance, that I was prompted to give these sheets to the public, solely, by a sincere and unaffected wish to add my mite to the information already possessed by the world.

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