Above Carmel the coast tract is decidedly less hot than the region south of it, and becomes cooler and cooler as we proceed northwards.  Northern Phoenicia enjoys a climate that is delightful, and in which it would be difficult to suggest much improvement.  The summer heat is scarcely ever too great, the thermometer rarely exceeding 90º of Fahrenheit,[23] and often sinking below 70º.  Refreshing showers of rain frequently fall, and the breezes from the north, the east, and the south-east, coming from high mountain tracts which are in part snow-clad, temper the heat of the sun’s rays and prevent it from being oppressive.  The winter temperature seldom descends much below 50º; and thus the orange, the lemon and the date-palm flourish in the open air, and the gardens are bright with flowers even in December and January.  Snow falls occasionally, but it rarely lies on the ground for more than a few days, and is scarcely ever so much as a foot deep.  On the other hand, rain is expected during the winter-time, and the entire line of coast is visited for some months with severe storms and gales, accompanied often by thunder and violent rain,[24] which strew the shore with wrecks and turn even insignificant mountain streams into raging torrents.  The storms come chiefly from the west and north-west, quarters to which the harbours on the coast are unfortunately open.[25] Navigation consequently suffers interruption; but when once the winter is past, a season of tranquillity sets in, and for many months of the year—­at any rate from May to October[26]—­the barometer scarcely varies, the sky is unclouded, and rain all but unknown.

As the traveller mounts from the coast tract into the more elevated regions, the climate sensibly changes.  An hour’s ride from the plains, when they are most sultry, will bring him into a comparatively cool region, where the dashing spray of the glacier streams is borne on the air, and from time to time a breeze that is actually cold comes down from the mountain-tops.[27] Shade is abundant, for the rocks are often perpendicular, and overhand the road in places, while the dense foliage of cedars, or pines, or walnut-trees, forms an equally effectual screen against the sun’s noonday rays.  In winter the uplands are, of course, cold.  Severe weather prevails in them from November to March;[28] 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 vegetable productions of Phoenicia may be best considered under the several heads of trees, shrubs, herbs, flowers, fruit-trees, and garden vegetables.  The chief trees were the palm-tree, the sycamore, the maritime pine, and the plane in the lowlands; in the highlands the cedar, Aleppo pine, oak, walnut, poplar, acacia, shumac, and carob.  We have spoken of the former abundance of the palm.  At present it is found in comparatively few places, and seldom in