At the west is the expanse of the “Great Sea.” At the east, just back of the cape, are the great mountains. Everything along the shore of the Mediterranean is warm, almost tropical in its verdure, and resplendent in the orient hues painted by the Syrian sun. The lower slopes of Lebanon are soft with vineyards and groves of olive, fig and mulberry. Above the green orchards and white villages are dark pine forests, and somber gorges cut deep between smooth, swelling moorlands. Higher still the desolate, lonely slopes are quite bare of vegetation; yet, in the clear atmosphere, they seem as soft as if they were overlaid with bright velvets and shimmering silks. Last of all, the eye is drawn up to the summits of Keneiseh and Sunnin, tinged with orange and purple in the summer sunset, and in winter covered with vast sheets of snow. From the tropics to the chill barrenness of the arctics—it is all comprehended in one glorious panorama. What an Arabic poet wrote of yonder towering Sunnin is true of the whole range— “He bears winter upon his head, Spring upon his shoulders, Autumn in his bosom, While summer lies slumbering at his feet.” But Lebanon is more than a splendid spectacle. There would be no Syria, no fertile mother of the olive and orange, no land of the long martial history, no tale of ancient culture or modern enterprise, save for the Mountain, whose lofty peaks break the rain-clouds borne hither by the west winds and drop their precious moisture on the thirsty soil below. CHAPTER II THE LEFT-HAND LAND The Arab geographer always faces towards the east. So the southernmost portion of the Arabian peninsula is to him the _Yemen_ or “Right,” and this northern district of ours is called _esh-Shâm_ or the “Left-hand Land.” The name _Surîya_ or “Syria,” an ancient corruption of “Assyria,” is also, however, frequently employed, especially by the Turks. As this territory is not a modern political unit, its limits are variously defined, both by natives and foreigners. The whole country between Asia Minor and Egypt is often called Syria, and its inhabitants, who have the same language and customs and are of practically the same—very mixed—blood, are known as Syrians. But from the historical viewpoint it is perhaps more exact to distinguish between Palestine and Syria, and confine the latter name to the territory which lies to the north of the Hebrew boundary-town of Dan. Syria then, as we shall use the word, extends from the southern slopes of Mount Hermon to the Bay of Alexandretta, a distance of about two hundred and fifty miles. It is a long, narrow country. At the west is the Mediterranean; at the east is the Syrian Desert; within these boundaries, the width is never more than fifty miles.