This account will appear a perfect fable to those who only know Beyrout in its present civilised state; and vast indeed must have been the change for the better, when ladies and children can wander about the place, singly and unprotected, at all hours of the day, and even, I may venture to assert, throughout the night.
Since the expulsion of the Egyptians, in 1840–1, Beyrout has rapidly risen into considerable importance; and it may now be considered the chief entrepôt of Syrian commerce. At that period there were barely three or four European families established; and an English vessel only occasionally touched at the port; now, merchants, artizans, and shopkeepers, from all parts of Europe have flocked into the town; and scarcely a week passes by without three or more vessels arriving in the roads from different ports of Europe. The roadstead presents a gay appearance on Sunday, when all the different vessels display the ensigns of their respective nations, and corresponding flags are hoisted from the tops of the consulates on shore. English, French, Sardinian, Austrian, American, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish ships are daily arriving at, or sailing out of the port, bringing manufactures from Manchester, colonial produce from London, sugar from Hamburg, assorted cargoes from France and Italy, and numberless requisites and necessaries from other parts of the world; whilst they export from Beyrout, silk reeled in the many factories situated in the immediate neighbourhood and on Lebanon, grain from the interior, raw silk, of which some portion is contributed from my native village, and lately an enterprising American has carried off ship-loads of our Beyrout and Syrian olive oil, timber, nuts, and specimens of dried and preserved fruits. The population is rapidly increasing, the wealth augmenting, new firms are being established, fresh channels of commerce discovered, houses being built, gardens enclosed, grounds purchased and planted, till the once quiet, secluded, and almost desolate-looking Beyrout, many of whose decayed and dilapidated ruins crumbled into dust under the severe shocks of the great earthquake of 1821, has been rapidly metamorphosed into a pleasant and flourishing town, replete with handsome buildings and luxuriant gardens, presenting, as viewed from the sea, one of the handsomest marine pictures possible for the pencil of the painter to depict, or the lay of the poet to celebrate.