Ed.]

According to the opinion of M. Guys, the French consul at Tripoli, which seems well founded, the Emperor mentioned in the above inscriptions is not Antoninus Pius, but Caracalla; as the epithet Britannus cannot be applied to the former, but very well to the latter.

Opposite to the bridge is an Arabic inscription, but for the greater part illegible.

The road continues for about half an hour through the rock over the sea, above which it is no where higher than fifty feet. At the southern extremity is a square basin hewn in the rock close by the sea, called El Mellaha, in which the salt water is sometimes collected for the purpose of obtaining salt by evaporation. On the summit of the mountain, to the left of the rocky road, lies the Deir Youssef el Berdj [Arabic]; half an

PLAIN OF BEIROUT.

[p.191]hour south of it, in the mountain, is the village Dhobbye [Arabic], and behind the latter the village Soleima [Arabic], with a convent of the Terra Santa. The road from El Mellaha continues for an hour and a half on the sandy beach; about three quarters of an hour from the basin we passed the rivulet Nahr Antoun Elias, so called from a village and convent of that name, to the left of the road. Near the latter lies the village of Abou Romman [Arabic], in the narrow plain between the mountain and the sea, and a little farther south, El Zeleykat [Arabic]. The district of Kesrouan [Arabic], extends, to the south, as far as a small Khan, which stands a little beyond the Mellaha; farther south commences the Druse country of Shouf [Arabic]. At the termination of the sandy beach are seen ruins of Saracen buildings, with a few houses called Aamaret Selhoub [Arabic].

We now left the sea shore to our right, and rode across the riangular point of land on the western extremity of which the town of Beirout is situated. This point projects into the sea about four miles beyond the line of the coast, and there is about the same distance in following that line across the base of the triangle. The road we took was through the fine cultivated plain called El Boudjerye [Arabic], in a direction S. by W. Two hours and three quarters from El Mellaha is the village Hadded [Arabic]. Before we came to it, we crossed the Nahr Beirout, at a place where I saw, for the first time, a grove of date trees. Beyond the river the country is called Ard el Beradjene, from a tower by the sea side called Berdj el Beradjene [Arabic]; the surrounding country is all planted with olive trees. In three hours and a quarter we crossed the Wady Ghadiry [Arabic], on the other side of which lies the village Kefr Shyna [Arabic]. Upon the hills about three quarters of an hour S.E. of the place where the Ghadiry falls into the sea, stands the convent Mar Hanna el Shoeyfat.

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