The exports from Beirut amount each year to over $4,000,000. About one-third of this value is made up of raw silk; other important commodities are olive oil, licorice and fruit. The character of the chief imports is determined by the fact that the mountains are almost denuded of large forest trees. Immense quantities of timber, metal girders, firewood and petroleum must therefore be brought from abroad. The dependence of Syria upon other countries for the materials used in modern construction was illustrated in the building of the American Girls’ School in Beirut. The lumber came from Maine, the doors and windows from Massachusetts, the desks and chairs from New York, the clay tiles from France, the zinc roof of the cupola from England, and the glass from Austria. [Illustration: Bridge over the Dog River built by Sultan Selim] [Illustration: Procession in the Serai Square of Beirut in celebration of the granting of a constitution to the Turkish Empire in 1909] The cream-colored sandstone for this and a multitude of other structures was, however, quarried near Beirut. The stone makes a fine building material, as it is easily worked, attractive in appearance and very durable. But unfortunately it is at first quite porous, and newly-erected houses are dangerously damp until the rains of two or three winters have, on their way through the walls, first dissolved a certain amount of the stone and then deposited it in the interstices. So the Syrian proverb says, “When you build a house, rent it the first year to your enemy, the second year to your friend, and the third year move into it yourself.” The traveler who journeys to Beirut from the west is naturally impressed by its scenes of Oriental life; but to one who has come hither from Lebanon or Damascus or even from Jerusalem, it seems almost a European city. Here is a French gas company, an English waterworks, a German hospital and an American college; here are post and telegraph offices, a harbor filled with shipping, and the terminus of a busy railway system. Four lines of electric tram-cars furnish quick transportation through the main streets to the attractive suburbs, and many of the wealthier residents possess automobiles. A score of printing-presses are at work and daily newspapers are sold by shouting newsboys. There are a dozen good hotels; and well-equipped stores, run on European lines, are rapidly crowding out the tiny shops of the typical Oriental merchant. Gaudy billboards extol the virtues of French cosmetics, English insurance companies and American sewing machines, phonographs and shoes, or announce the subjects of the moving-picture dramas for the coming week. Carriages throng the principal thoroughfares, the better class of citizens wear European costumes, and no passenger-steamship drops anchor in the harbor without being met by the red-shirted boatmen and suave interpreters of the enterprising tourist-agencies.