In the rocks which overhung the coast hereabouts we observed excavations with small entrances, which were ancient sepulchral grottoes. There were also appearances of quarries; and on the seashore were old foundations of edifices. Just before reaching this spot we passed a small creek, where were indistinct ruins and cisterns among some fig-trees. It is therefore probable that a town or city[69] once stood here, the antiquity of which may be inferred from the grottoes. A little farther on we came to a row of pedestals of pillars, and some indistinct foundations, and in three minutes more to a well-spring neatly cased in stone, with steps down to the water. It is called Ayn Bab el Feteh. In a quarter of an hour after quitting the spring there is a rocky promontory called Kysarrâa, which scarcely leaves a passage round it: it was the boundary of ancient Phœnicia. A small stream runs close by. At the distance of two hours and a quarter, reckoning from the bridge of the Kasmia, we halted for the night at a place called the Khudder (or green), where is a small sanctuary dedicated to a santon, or some Mahometan of renowned sanctity. It stands close to the waterside, directly west from the burgh of Sarfent, which is built on the foot of the neighbouring mountains, one mile off. This burgh has a very picturesque appearance when viewed at a distance. It is the general but loose assertion of travellers that its name is a corruption of Sarpentum, a Greek city, which once stood on the seashore, and the ruins of which are still visible, scattered about on the north of the Khudder. But it is known to every one from holy writ that there was a town hereabouts called Sarpent. The Arabic name, therefore, is prior to the Greek one, with the slight alteration necessary for affiliating it to the Greek language. It was adopted on the founding of a new city, in the same way as Acre is evidently a corruption of Acca, which name is to be found in the Bible, Although the perpetual plunder, for centuries, of the materials which once composed the edifices of the town, has almost cleared the spot of every moveable stone above ground, still old Sarpentum continues to be the quarry whence stones are supplied for Sayda, and excavations for foundations have now succeeded the demolition of the superstructures.