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resemble Palmyra, which the continual commerce be- 
tween the East and the West elevated to the greatest 
degree of perfection and splendour, which we even 
admire in its ruins, and which would still have existed, 
but for the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope: on 
the contrary, jt is not placed in any direct line of pas- 
sage. Arabia is surrounded by the Persian Gulph to 
the east, the Red Sea to the west, the ocean to the 
south, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north. Its 
centre, therefore, cannot be in any direct line of com- 
munication with the neighbouring countries to which 
access may be had by sea. Its ports at most will only 
serve as sea-port towns to trading vessels, as is the 
case with Djedda and Mokka upon the Red Sea, and 
Muscat, near the mouth of the Persian Gulph. 
Mecca not being situated in the route to any country 
of consequence, nature has not designed it as a place 
of commerce, placed as it is in the middle of an ex- 
tremely barren desert, which prevents its inhabitants 
from being either husbandmen or shepherds. What 
resources then remain to them for subsistence? The 
force of arms, to oblige other countries to give them 
a part of their productions, or religious enthusiasm, 
to induce strangers to come and bring money to them^ 
with which they may procure the necessaries of life. 
In the time of the Caliphs, these two causes united 
rendered Mecca an opulent city; but before and since 
that glorious period, it has had no other resource for 
its support than the religious enthusiasm of the pil- 
grims, which unfortunately begins to cool from day 
to day, through the effects of time, distance of place, 
and revolutions, that reduce this place to a mean and 
precarious existence. Such is its state at this moment, 
and such was it before the mission cf the. Prophet, 
