SYKIA ; ITS IMPORTANCE TO GREAT BRITAIN. 299 



entrepot of commerce for Armenia; the eastern divisions of Asia- 

 Minor, the sources of the Euphrates, and the north of Syria, mark 

 it out as an important point of commercial establishment in direct 

 intercourse with this country, which, if properly cultivated, would 

 consume and cause the diffusion of vast quantities of British manu- 

 factures, and make valuable returns in raw materials. 



Of equal rank with Aleppo is Damascus, situated in the centre of 

 Syria, and containing a population of 160,000 souls. The Damas- 

 cenes are rich, enterprising, and commercial ; and besides the aug- 

 mentation its population receives from the many trading caravans 

 that visit it in the course of every year from Egypt, Arabia, Persia, 

 and Asia-Minor, it is also the place of rendezvous and departure of 

 the great pilgrimage to Mecca, which causes a great influx of 

 merchants and pilgrims from all parts of the East, and imports to 

 Damascus the animated character of a great fair. No city in the 

 East more vividly realizes than Damascus the glowing descriptions 

 in the Arabian tales of an oriental metropolis ; and it is at once a 

 curious and important fact, that although there does not exist even 

 a tradition of its first foundation, while we find mention made of its 

 flourishing condition in the very earliest traditionary records we are 

 in possession of, thus attesting its remote antiquity, yet amid the 

 revolutions that have so changed the physical and moral aspect of 

 our globe, and buried in eternal oblivion the sites and histories of 

 so many contemporary cities, Damascus has alone preserved un- 

 changed the identity of its site, and the local influence of its rank 

 and character, and must convey to the mind of the philosophical 

 observer the proof that its situation must possess some permanent 

 and intrinsic advantages for a commercial intercourse with the ex- 

 tensive regions that surround it. 



Notwithstanding, however, the variety, value, and abundance of 

 the produce of these regions the extensive demand for the same in 

 this country ; notwithstanding that the long line of coast permits of 

 its direct importation from the growers to our home markets that 

 this same line of coast offers many facilities for cutting in various 

 lines the course of inland traffic, and of carrying on manufactures at 

 once to the central and intermediate points ; notwithstanding that 

 the population of this region is extensive, rich, and commercial, and 

 that it contains, at short distances from the coast, two of the most 

 wealthy, refined, and populous cities in the dominions of Islamism ; 

 notwithstanding that this country is well known to be the centre of 

 a most enterprising and arduous commerce with Arabia, Persia, 

 Eastern America, and the northern parts of Tartary, as far even as 

 the western confines of India, and that under these circumstances 

 this range of country in Asiatic Turkey must possess the capabilities 

 of a great mart for British trade, the fact nevertheless is, that till 

 very lately Smyrna, in the northern part of the Archipelago, and at 

 one extreme of this line of coast, and Alexandria at the other ex- 

 treme, were the only two places to which British goods were directly 

 sent ; while the whole intermediate line between them, extending 

 upwards of 2000 miles, in the centre of which are Aleppo and Da- 

 mascus, which are forty and sixty days of caravan journey from 



