Leaving our anchorage early the next morning, we glided up towards Tyre, which lies about thirty miles distant from St. Jean D’Acre, being separated from it by a strip of low but sufficiently fertile land, beyond which the mountains of Samaria commence. Our visit to this country had put our Bibles in more than usual requisition; and I had been pointing out to some friends the prophecies concerning Tyre, and comparing these with the accounts given by travellers of the utter desolation of the place, had endeavored to strengthen the argument for the Scriptures. The spot is spoken of by Shaw as utterly abandoned, except “by a few poor wretches, harboring themselves in the vaults, and subsisting chiefly upon fishing, who seem to be preserved in this place by Divine Providence, as a visible argument how God hath fulfilled his word concerning Tyre.” Volney speaks of it as reduced to a miserable village, consisting of “fifty or sixty wretched huts, ready to crumble into ruins;” and Joliffe, a more recent traveller, says, that “some miserable cabins, ranged in irregular lines, dignified with the name of streets, and a few buildings of a rather better description, occupied by the officers of government, compose nearly the whole of the town.” Approaching it with these impressions, I was surprised to see a walled town of tolerable dimensions, and with houses no worse looking than is ordinary in these countries, above which, in answer to our ensign, were waving the flags of most of the European nations, together with our own star-spangled banner. The ship was hove to, and we were thus enabled to make a hasty visit to the place. Our boats passed some ruins, probably remains of the times of the Crusaders, which help to guard the harbor from the wind and the sands. This looks as if it had once been spacious, but it was now so choked up with ruins of various kinds and with sand, as scarcely to admit even our boats. Our consul, accompanied by some of the representatives of other nations, met us at the landing, and conducted us to his house, where we were welcomed with the usual forms of eastern hospitality. The present population of Tyre, or _Tsour_ as it is called by the natives, I should judge to be about 3,000 persons; it occupies about half of the ancient island, which since the time of Alexander has been a peninsula. It is surrounded by a wall of no great strength, nor at present of any great utility, as the sands on the eastern side, after covering over the isthmus to a considerable depth, have reached the city and have been filled up nearly to the height of its battlements. The sand is the only enemy, therefore, from which the fortifications are protecting them, for any other would only have to walk up this inclined plane and let themselves down into the city.