Railways run from Beirut to Homs, Hamah, Aleppo and Damascus (French), and to the latter also from Haifa (Turkish).
Until then the Venetians held the carrying trade of India, which was brought by the Persian Gulf and Red sea into Syria and Egypt, the Venetians receiving the products of the East at Alexandria and Beirut and distributing them over Europe.
From his reign therefore Antioch may be regarded as a dependency of Jerusalem; and thus the end of Baldwin's reign (1131) may be said to mark the time when the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem stands complete, with its own boundaries stretching from Beirut in the north to el-Arish and Aila in the south, and with the three Frankish powers of the north admitting its suzerainty.
Some of the coast towns, too, were recovered by the German crusaders, especially Beirut; and in 1198 the new king Amalric II.
In 1229 this commission was overthrown by John of Ibelin, lord of Beirut, against whom it had taken proceedings.
