=Plain of Tyre.= Throughout the Plain of Tyre the low foot-hills come down within a mile of the sea; but for five or six miles back from the coast they must be reckoned as a part of the same division, for their natural and political associations are all with the coast rather than with the uplands. The city of Tyre was originally built on an island ^{(2)} and was supplied with water from the Spring of Tyre, near the shore about five miles to the south. The four great perennial rivers of Phœnicia were the Litany (the present Nahr el-Kasimiyeh, a few miles north of Tyre), the Zaherâni, south of Sidon, the Nahr el-Auwali, which was the ancient Bostrenus that watered the plain to the north of Sidon, and the Nahr ed-Damur which was the Tamyras of the ancients. Many springs in the plain and on the hillsides contribute to the fertility of this land, which was the home of the Phœnicians. At the best the narrowness of the territory, which supported only a very limited population, made it necessary for this enterprising race to find an outlet elsewhere. Long before the days of the Hebrews their colonies had extended down the coast plains to Joppa and northward to the Eleutherus (the present Nahr el-Kebir, north of Tripoli). The nineteenth chapter of Judges refers to the Sidonian colony at Laish (later the Hebrew Dan) at the foot of Mount Hermon; but, with this exception, there is no evidence that they ever attempted to plant colonies inland. Instead they found their great outlet in the sea to the west. Launching their small craft from the smooth sands that extend crescent-shaped to the north and to the south of their chief cities, Tyre and Sidon, they skirted the Mediterranean, colonizing its islands and shores until a line of Phœnician settlements extended from one end of the Great Sea to the other. Thus they were the first to open that great door to the western world through which passed not only the products of Semitic art and industry, but also in time the immortal messages of Israel's inspired prophets, priests, and sages, and of him who spoke as never man spoke before.