* According to the writers who were contemporary with Alexander, the strait was 4 stadia wide (nearly 1/2 mile), or 500 paces (about 3/8 mile), at the period when the Macedonians undertook the siege of the town; the author followed by Pliny says 700 paces, possibly over--mile wide. From the observations of Poulain de Bossay, Renan thinks the space between the island and the mainland might be nearly a mile in width, but we should perhaps do well to reduce this higher figure and adopt one agreeing better with the statements of Diodorus and Quintus Curtius. Like the coast region opposite Arvad, the shore which faced Tyre, lying between the mouth of the Litany and ras el-Ain, was an actual suburb of the city itself--with its gardens, its cultivated fields, its cemeteries, its villas, and its fortifications. Here the inhabitants of the island were accustomed to bury their dead, and hither they repaired for refreshment during the heat of the summer. To the north the little town of Mahalliba, on the southern bank of the Litany, and almost hidden from view by a turn in the hills, commanded the approaches to the Bekaa, and the high-road to Coele-Syria.* To the south, at Ras el-Ain, Old Tyre (Palastyrus) looked down upon the route leading into Galilee by way of the mountains.** * Mahalliba is the present Khurbet-Mahallib. ** Palrotyrus has often been considered as a Tyre on the mainland of greater antiquity than the town of the same name on the island; it is now generally admitted that it was merely an outpost, which is conjecturally placed by most scholars in the neighbourhood of Ras el-Ain. Eastwards Autu commanded the landing-places on the shore, and served to protect the reservoirs; it lay under the shadow of a rock, on which was built, facing the insular temple of Melkarth, protector of mariners, a sanctuary of almost equal antiquity dedicated to his namesake of the mainland.* The latter divinity was probably the representative of the legendary Samemrum, who had built his village on the coast, while Usoos had founded his on the ocean. He was the Baalsamim of starry tunic, lord of heaven and king of the sun. * If the name has been preserved, as I believe it to be, in that of El-Awwatin, the town must be that whose ruins we find at the foot of Tell-Mashuk, and which are often mistaken for those of Palastyrus. The temple on the summit of the Tell was probably that of Heracles Astrochiton mentioned by Nonnus.