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ARTHUR W. SUTTON, ESQ., J.P., F.L.S., ON 



THE RUINED CITIES OF PALESTINE, EAST AND WEST 

 OF THE JORDAN. By Arthur W. Sutton, Esq, J.P., 

 F.L.S. (Illustrated by lantern slides.) 



THE view of Beyrout as we enter the harbour is most 

 beautiful. The foreshore, covered with red-tiled houses, 

 is backed by groves of mulberry and pomegranate 

 trees ; and behind these are the sloping hillsides terraced with 

 the cultivation of vines and olives, with the mountains of 

 Lebanon in the distance covered with snow. 



After crossing for some miles very soft plains, once vineyards 

 and oliveyards, but now a sandy desert with a few pines, planted a 

 hundred years ago by the Governor of Beyrout to consolidate the 

 soil, we come to the River Damur and then to the orange groves 

 round Sidon, second only to those at Jaffa. Sidon is not only 

 the most ancient city of Phoenicia, but one of the oldest of the 

 known cities of the world, and is said by Josephus to have been 

 built by Sidon, the eldest son of Canaan, and is mentioned 

 with high praise by Homer in the Iliad, where he says that 

 as early as the Trojan War the Sidonian mariners, having 

 provoked the enmity of the Trojans, were by them despoiled 

 of the gorgeous robes manufactured by Sidon's daughters, 

 these being considered so valuable and precious as to propitiate 

 the goddess of war in their favour. Sidon was renowned for 

 its skill in arts, science and literature, maritime commerce, 

 and architecture ; and according to Strabo the Sidonians 

 were celebrated for astronomy, geometry, navigation and 

 philosophy. 



Sidon was captured by Shalmaneser in 720 B.C., and it was 

 again taken in 350 B.C. by Artaxerxes Ochus. It fell to Alexander 

 the Great without a struggle, and afterwards came into possession 

 successively of the Seleucidse and the Ptolemies. During the 

 time of the Crusaders Sidon was four times taken, plundered, 

 and dismantled. Excavations have revealed several rock-hewn 

 tombs, with elaborately carved sarcophagi. The most celebrated 

 is the sarcophagus of Alexander, which before the war was 

 in the mosque at Constantinople. He was certainly never 

 buried in it. A sarcophagus was opened the other day at Sidon, 

 full of fluid and containing a beautiful body in perfect pre- 

 servation, but immediately it was lifted from the fluid it lost 

 all shape- 



