OF THE PHONETIC ALPHABET. 83 
be hopeless : but the spirited efforts of the mariner would early dis- 
cover the value of a station centrally situated between the coasts of 
Asia Minor and Greece on the north, and of Egypt and Libya on the 
south. A short acquaintance with this sterile shore would satisfy the 
enterprizing trafficker that the produce of the mountains and plains of 
Syria and Palestine, and perhaps the manufactures of Mesopotamia, of 
Persia and of India, might afford them a lucrative source of exchange 
with the people of the west ; and the sacred or accursed love of gold 
would, in due time, discover the proximity of the two arms of the Red 
Sea,**through which he might establish a maritime connection with the 
hives of Persia and Hindostan. A more intimate acquaintance with 
this devoted coast would extend his vision over the stores of Caucasus 
and the Caspian, which, conveyed south down the Tigris and Eu- 
phrates, have found their way, in all probability, from remote anti- 
quity, across the great desert to Damascus and Tyre.*” 
The markets of the Mediterranean were easily accessible to the de- 
scendents of a race of pirates, who, from Phoenicia, commanded the op- 
posite shores of the Great Sea, inhabited, even at that early period, by 
people*+ initiated in the arts which subserve the elegance and ease of 
The base of the mountain presents, at seasons, pasturage, olives, tobacco, 
vineyards, and douna. The more elevated ranges have been rendered pro- 
lific by the art of husbandmen, and apples, pears, plums, with corn of various 
kinds, and the fruits above enumerated, are reared in appropriate patches of 
land. Brambles, firs, oaks, and a solitary group of time-worn cedars, occupy 
the heights, while the crest of the ridge lies wrapt in a robe of unsullied snow. 
The present desolation of the plains, and the culture of these fearful recesses, 
seem alike to reproach the tyranny of the Turkish lord, who drives the hus- 
bandmen into the fastnesses of the mountains, to avoid his restless and insa- 
tiable extortion. ‘The mountains did not, in all probability, in old times, 
offer the temptation they would now present to adventurers. 
41 Herodotus, in his first chapter, derives the Phoenicians originally from 
the coasts of the Erythrzean Sea. “ Tovrous yue aro THs Egubens xarsomevns 
Saracens aminousvous,” S&c. 
«2 Read the elegant translation of the xxviith chapter of Ezekiel, in Vol- 
ney’s Egypt and Syria, chap. xxix. 
48 Speaking of the ancient Etruscans, who, prior to the establishment of the 
Roman power, are said to have occupied the whole of Italy, Denina says— 
“Tl tempo della maggior grandezza loro é difficile a determinare ma se punto 
meritanio riguardo le opinioni dei cronologi in tempi cosi rimoti, abbiamo da 
credere ch’ essi passessero in Italia circa dugent anni dopo la guerra di 'Troja, 
e piu di dugento avanti la fondazione di Roma.” Mr. D’Hancarville, ina 
learned dissertation on architecture, prefixed to the Antiquités Etrusques, 
Paris, 1785, considers that the Tuscan order was the first invented, and 
taken by the Thyrrenean Pelasgi, and imported thence into Athens. “ Nous 
soupconnons donc que V’ordre Toscan, inventé la premiere de tous, remonte a 
