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This is especially the case in the central region between Berytus and Arka, opposite the highest portion of the Lebanon; and again in the north between Cape Possidi and Jebili, opposite the more northern part of Bargylus. The hilly region in these places is a broad tract of alternate wooded heights and deep romantic valleys, with streams murmuring amid their shades.
Severe weather prevails in them from November to March; snow falls on all the high ground, while it rains on the coast and in the lowlands; the passes are blocked; and Lebanon and Bargylus replenish the icy stories which the summer's heat has diminished.
The olive in Phoenicia is at least as old as the Exodus, for it was said of Asher, who was assigned the more southern part of that country "Let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil." Olives at the present day clothe the slopes of Lebanon and Bargylus above the vine region, and are carried upward almost to the very edge of the bare rock.
The Phoenicians, probably, derived their first knowledge of mining from their communications with the Egyptians, and no doubt first practised the art within the limits of their own territory in Lebanon, Casius, and Bargylus. The mineral stores of these regions were, however, but scanty, and included none of the more important metals, excepting iron.
Vineyards cover large tracts in the vicinity of all the towns; they climb up the sides of Carmel, Lebanon, and Bargylus, hang upon the edge of precipices, and greet the traveller at every turn in almost every region. The size of individual vines is extraordinary. The bunches of grapes weighed from ten to twelve pounds and the berries were like small plums."
The elevated tract known to the ancients as Bargylus, and to modern geographers as the Ansayrieh or Nasariyeh mountain-region, runs at right angles to the spur terminating in the Mount Casius, and extends from the Orontes near Antioch to the valley of the Eleutherus. This is a distance of not less than a hundred miles.
Sometimes the hills are cultivated in terraces, on which grow vines and olives, but more often they remain in their pristine condition, clothed with masses of tangled underwood. The mountain ranges, which belong in some measure to the geography of Phoenicia, are four in number Carmel, Casius, Bargylus, and Lebanon.
The military strength of Philistia and Egypt barred them out from expansion upon the south; the wild savagery of the mountain races in Casius, northern Bargylus, and Amanus was an effectual barrier towards the north; but before them lay the open Mediterranean, placid during the greater portion of the year, and conducting to a hundred lands, thinly peopled, or even unoccupied, where there was ample room for any number of immigrants.
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