He asked us to stop and take coffee, and received us with much grace and
dignity. As we rose to leave, a slave brought me a large bunch of choice
flowers from his garden.

We set out from Tyre at an early hour, and rode along the beach around the
head of the bay to the Ras-el-Abiad, the ancient Promontorium Album. The
morning was wild and cloudy, with gleams of sunshine that flashed out over
the dark violet gloom of the sea. The surf was magnificent, rolling up in
grand billows, which broke and formed again, till the last of the long,
falling fringes of snow slid seething up the sand. Something of ancient
power was in their shock and roar, and every great wave that plunged and
drew back again, called in its solemn bass: "Where are the ships of Tyre?
where are the ships of Tyre?" I looked back on the city, which stood
advanced far into the sea, her feet bathed in thunderous spray. By and by
the clouds cleared away, the sun came out bold and bright, and our road
left the beach for a meadowy plain, crossed by fresh streams, and sown
with an inexhaustible wealth of flowers. Through thickets of myrtle and
mastic, around which the rue and lavender grew in dense clusters, we
reached the foot of the mountain, and began ascending the celebrated
Ladder of Tyre. The road is so steep as to resemble a staircase, and
climbs along the side of the promontory, hanging over precipices of naked
white rock, in some places three hundred feet in height. The mountain is a
mass of magnesian limestone, with occasional beds of marble. The surf has
worn its foot into hollow caverns, into which the sea rushes with a dull,
heavy boom, like distant thunder. The sides are covered with thickets of
broom, myrtle, arbutus, ilex, mastic and laurel, overgrown with woodbine,
and interspersed with patches of sage, lavender, hyssop, wild thyme, and
rue. The whole mountain is a heap of balm; a bundle of sweet spices.

Our horses' hoofs clattered up and down the rounds of the ladder, and we