History of Phoenicia

PREPARER’S NOTE The original text contains a number of characters that are not available even in 8-bit Windows text. Where possible these have been represented with a similar letter, but some things, e.g. Hebrew script, have been omitted. The 8-bit version of this text includes Windows font characters. These may be lost in 7-bit versions of the text, or when viewed with different fonts. Greek text has been transliterated within brackets “{}” using an Oxford English Dictionary alphabet table. Diacritical marks have been lost. Phoenician or other Semitic text has been replaced with an ellipsis in brackets, i.e. “{...}”. The numerous sketches and maps in the original have also been omitted.
CANTERBURY: August 1889.
Phoenicia—Origin of the name—Spread of the name southwards—Real length of Phoenicia along the coast— Breadth and area—General character of the region—The Plains—Plain of Sharon—Plain of Acre—Plain of Tyre—Plain of Sidon—Plain of Berytus—Plain of Marathus—Hilly regions—Mountain ranges—Carmel—Casius—Bargylus—Lebanon— Beauty of Lebanon—Rivers—The Litany—The Nahr-el-Berid— The Kadisha—The Adonis—The Lycus—The Tamyras—The Bostrenus—The Zaherany—The Headlands—Main characteristics, inaccessibility, picturesqueness, productiveness.
Phoenicé, or Phoenicia, was the name originally given by the Greeks—and afterwards adopted from them by the Romans—to the coast region of the Mediterranean, where it faces the west between the thirty-second and the thirty-sixth parallels. Here, it would seem, in their early voyagings, the Pre-Homeric Greeks first came upon a land where the palm-tree was not only indigenous, but formed a leading and striking characteristic, everywhere along the low sandy shore lifting its tuft of feathery leaves into the bright blue sky, high above the undergrowth of fig, and pomegranate, and alive. Hence they called the tract Phoenicia, or “the Land of Palms;” and the people who inhabited it the Phoenicians, or “the Palm-tree people.”
The entire length of the coast between the limits of Cape Possidi and Rhinocolura is, without reckoning the lesser indentations, about 380 miles, or nearly the same as that of Portugal. The indentations of the coast-line are slight. From Rhinocolura to Mount Carmel, a distance of 150 miles, not a single strong promontory asserts itself, nor is there a single bay of sufficient depth to attract the attention of geographers. Carmel itself is a notable headland, and shelters a bay of some size; but these once passed the old uniformity returns, the line being again almost unbroken for a distance of seventy-five miles, from Haifa to Beyrout (Berytus). North of Beyrout we find a little more variety. The coast projects in a tolerably bold sweep between the thirty-fourth parallel and Tripolis (Tarabulus) and recedes almost correspondingly between Tripolis and Tortosa (Antaradus), so that a deepish bay is formed between Lat. 34º 27´ and Lat. 34º 45´, whence the line again runs northward unindented for fifty miles, to beyond Gabala (Jebili). After this, between Gabala and Cape Posideium there is considerable irregularity, the whole tract being mountainous, and spurs from Bargylus and Casius running down into the sea and forming a succession of headlands, of which Cape Posideium is the most remarkable.