This Railway Company (French) has its own rate of exchange: 1 napoleon = 87 pias.; 1 sovereign = 110 pias.; 1 mejidieh = 18½ pias.
The train runs from the harbour to the E., close to the sea, to the (1½ M.) Chief Station, and through the valley of the Nahr Beirût at the E. base of Mt. St. Dimitri, soon turning to the S. to (4½ M.) El-Hadet. It then rapidly ascends the slopes of Lebanon.
10½ M. Areiya, 13 M. Aleih (2460 ft.), two summer resorts in the Lebanon. The train threads a tunnel to the highest point of the line (4879 ft.). We then descend, enjoying fine views, to the right and left, of Jebel el-Barûk (6749 ft.) and Jebel Keneiseh (6660 ft.), to (35 M.) El-Muallaka, a large village, and station for the Christian town of Zahleh (3101 ft.) on the S. spurs of Jebel Sannîn (8556 ft.; snow-capped in early summer).
We next traverse the lofty valley of El-Bikâ, the ancient Bucca Vallis, watered by the Nahr el-Lîtânî (Leontes), once the most fertile part of Coelesyria (‘hollow Syria’).
41 M. Reyâk or Rayak (Buffet; halt of ½ hr.), junction for Baalbek (Heliopolis) and Aleppo (Haleb).
Passing through the narrow Wâdi Yahfûfeh we next ascend the Anti-Lebanon Mts.; 54½ M. Sarrâyâ or Zerghaya (4610 ft.) lies between their two main ranges, on the watershed between the Bikâ and the plain of Damascus.
Beyond (61 M.) Ez-Zebedâni (3888 ft.) the train enters the valley of that name, famed for its fruit and watered by the Nahr Baradâ (Gr. Chrysorrhoas, ‘gold stream’). 71½ M. Sûk Wâdi Baradâ (‘market of Baradâ vale’), at the end of a defile.
76½ M. Aïn Fîjeh, the chief source of the Baradâ, has remains of a Roman Nymphæum (see p. [241]). 85 M. Dummar, a villa-suburb of Damascus. The city with its minarets soon comes in sight.
The floor of the Baradâ valley, between (left and right) Jebel Kâsyûn (p. [489]) and the hills of Kalabât el-Mezzeh, is well planted with trees. At the mouth of the valley the river divides into seven branches which water the great plain of Damascus.
Skirting large meadows (merj), then orchards, and a Roman Aqueduct, the train reaches (89½ M.) Damascus-Beramkeh (see below), where it is usual to alight, and lastly runs past the W. side of El-Meidân (p. [487]) to (91½ M.) Damascus-Meidân.