Page:Syria, the land of Lebanon (1914).djvu/24

SYRIA, THE LAND OF LEBANON cape and looked for the first time upon what those of us who have called Beirut our home may be pardoned for believing to be the loveliest prospect in all this beautiful world. From this point can be viewed eighty miles of a coast which in the time of Abraham had already seen the rise and fall of many a proud civilization. To the south is the ancient city of Sidon, thirty miles away, and the rocky point of Sarepta and, in the dim distance, the bold headland of the "Ladder of Tyre." To the north, beyond the gorges of the River of Death and the Dog River, is the River of Adonis, where the loves of heaven and earth were celebrated many centuries before there were Greeks in Greece. Still farther north, Jebail — ancient Byblos — disputes Damascus' claim to be the oldest of cities; and thirty-five miles away the view of the coast is closed by the cape which the Greeks called Theoprosopon, the "Face of God." The Syrians, however, have named this Ras esh-Shukkah or the "Split-off Point," and say that it was torn away from the mountain and thrown bodily into the sea during the great earthquake of July 9, 551, A. D. In this land of fearful cataclysms, the story is quite possible of belief.

At the west is the expanse of the "Great Sea." At the east, just back of the cape, are the great mountains. Everything along the shore of the Mediterranean is warm, almost tropical in its verdure,