SYR 
8] 4 
as in ancient times, and may now be stated as inconsiderable. 
Scanderoon, Tripoli, Saide, and other ports on the Medi¬ 
terranean, are the residence of a few Frank merchants, and 
carry on a limited intercourse with Europe. A very exten¬ 
sive land communication has generally been carried on from 
Syria, with Arabia, Persia, and the interior of Asia; but 
the domination of the Wahabis in the former country, and 
the civil wars in the latter, have almost entirely blocked 
up the passage of the pilgrims and caravans. This circum¬ 
stance, with the oppression of the pachas, has nearly ruined 
this celebrated emporium of Syria. The city contains only 
a small proportion of its former inhabitants, and the plains 
round it lie deserted and uncultivated. The vicinity of 
Damascus, on the contrary, which depends more upon 
agriculture, and has been mildly ruled, exhibits an appear¬ 
ance of populousness and prosperity. 
The political state of Syria does not differ from that of 
the rest of Asiatic Turkey, to which general head we shall 
here refer. Few countries present a greater variety of popu¬ 
lation. Its open plains, separated by no defined boundary 
from Arabia, Persia, and Asia Minor, are variously occu¬ 
pied by the wandering population of these respective coun¬ 
tries. Turks and Greeks form, as elsewhere, the basis of 
population in the cities. The only tribes which can be 
considered as appropriate to Syria, are the tenants of the 
heights of Lebanon. The most remarkable of these are the 
Druses and the Maronites. The former have been sometimes 
represented as Christians; and a slight resemblance of name 
has been employed to make them appear original followers 
of a Count de Dreux, who made a figure in Palestine during 
the crusades. In fact, however, the Druses are mentioned 
prior to that era. They are the votaries of Hakem, the 
caliph of Egypt, who in the 11th century set up pretensions 
to divinity, and recommended his faith by the abolition of 
fasting, circumcision, and all the burdensome parts of the 
Mahometan ritual. The Druses have ever since lived with 
little outward form of religion, the observances of which are 
chiefly confined to the okkal or doctors. Their language, 
which is pure Arabic, clearly disproves the idea of any 
European origin. The Druses live in a species of rude in¬ 
dependence, and are the only people in this part of Asia 
who have any semblance of a free government. They have 
a king, indeed, who governs under the Porte, and a here¬ 
ditary nobility possessed of high privileges; but the people 
still retain the free possession of the fruits of their industry, 
and these rude mountains yield more ample produce, and 
maintain a larger population, than many of the most fertile 
districts of the Turkish empire. When the cry of war is 
raised, the whole nation takes arms, and 15,000 men have 
been raised on a very short notice. They have no idea of 
regular warfare; their armies are merely a collection of 
peasants, with short coats, naked legs, and armed with 
muskets. They never engage in close combat, or on the 
plain ; but maintain a war of posts, firing from a distance, 
or rising in ambuscade. Their obstinacy and hardihood in 
this species of warfare renders their frequent rebellions very 
formidable to the Turkish empire. They can muster 40,000 
men, which probably implies a total population of about 
200,000. 
The Maronites are another people of Lebanon, inhabiting 
the mountain district of Kesraouan, which rises behind 
Tripoli. They are more orderly and peaceable than the 
Druses. They are Christians, and have joined the Romish 
communion, having renounced all the heresies of their 
founder Maron, except the marriage of the priesthood, which 
nothing can ever induce them to relinquish. Their soil 
produces nothing but the mulberry, which they cultivate 
with the greatest care, and depend upon almost solely for 
subsistence. Their chief place, and the residence of the 
patriarch, is at Cannobine, a convent situated high up the 
mountain, which the freshness of the air, its picturesque hills, 
and beautiful arcades, render a delightful residence. Their 
number is supposed to exceed 100,000. Tribes of less im¬ 
portance are the Mutualis, who inhabit the plain between 
Libanus and Anti Libanus; and the Arisarians, who oc- 
S Y R 
cupy the northern ridge of hills continued from Leba¬ 
non, and bordering on Asia Minor, called Mount Casius. 
It seems impossible to form even a conjecture as to the 
amount of the mixed population of this part of the Turkish 
empire. 
SYRIAC, adj. Spoken in old Syria.—Some Syriac 
copies of the New Testament are now remaining in the duke’s 
library. Walton, 
SYRIAC, s. The Syriac language.—Then spake the 
Chaldeans to the king in Syriac. Daniel. 
SYRIAN, a very ancient, and formerly a large town, of 
the Birman dominions, province of Pegue. It is situated on 
the banks of the Appoo river, and was formerly the port 
at which several of the European nations had factories. The 
British factory was destroyed in the year 1744, during the 
war between the Birmans and Peguers. The town also 
suffered much on that occasion, and since the removal of 
the trade to Rangoon, has dwindled into a mere village. 
Lat. 16. 49. N. long. 96. 17. E. 
SY'RIASM, s. A Syriac idiom.—The scripture-Greek 
is observed to be full of syriasms and hebraisms. War- 
burton. 
SY'RINGA, s. A flowering shrub. 
The sweet syringa yielding but in scent 
To the rich orange. Mason . 
SYRINGA [from Sypiyf, Gr. a pipe], in Botany, a genus 
of the class diandria, order inonogynia, natural order of 
sepiarise, jasmineae (Juss.) —Generic Character. Calyx; 
perianth, one-leafed, tubular, small mouth, four-toothed, 
erect, permanent. Corolla; one-petailed, funnel-form, 
tube cylindric, very long; border four-parted, spreading, 
and rolled back; segments linear, obtuse. Stamina: fila¬ 
ments two, very short; anthers small, within the lube of 
the corolla. Pistil: germ oblong; style filiform, length of 
the stamens; stigma bifid, thickish. Pericarp: capsule 
oblong, compressed, acuminate, two-celled, two-valved; 
valves contrary to the partition.—Seeds solitary; oblong, 
compressed; acumiuate at both ends; with a membrana¬ 
ceous edge.— Essential Character. Corolla, four-cleft; 
capsule two-celled. 
1. Syringa vulgaris, or common lilac.—Of this shrub, 
which grows to the height of eighteen or twenty feet in good 
ground, there are three varieties: those of the white sort 
grow more erect than the blue; and the purple or Scotch 
lilac has its branches yet more diffused. The branches of 
the white are covered with a smooth bark of a gray colour; 
in the other two it is darker. The leaves of the white are of 
a brighter green: they are heart-shaped in all, almost five 
inches long, and three inches and a half broad near the base; 
placed opposite on foot-stalks an inch and half in length, the 
flowers are always produced at the ends of the shoots of the 
former year, and below the flowers other shoots come out to 
succeed them; for that part upon which the flowers stand 
decays down to the shoots below every winter. There are 
generally two bunches or panicles of flowers joined at the 
end of each shoot; those of the blue are the smallest, the 
flowers also are smaller, and placed thinner than either of the 
others; the bunches on the white are larger, but those of the 
Scotch are larger still, and the flowers fairer; this therelore 
makes the best appearance. The lilac is very common in 
the English gardens, where it has been long cultivated as a 
flowering shrub. It is supposed to grow naturally in some 
parts of Persia, but is so hardy as to resist the greatest cold of 
this country. 
2. Syringa Chinensis, or Chinese lilac.—Leaves very like 
those of the preceding, but smaller. Flowers as in Syringa 
Persica.—Supposed to be a native of China. 
3. Syringa Persica, or Persian lilac.—Leaves lanceolate. 
The Persian lilac is a shrub of much lower growth than the 
common sort, seldom rising more than five or six feet high. 
Flowers in large panicles at the end of the former year’s 
shoots, as in the former; of a pale blue colour, and having 
a very agreeable odour. They appear at the end of May, 
soon after those of the common sort, and continue longer in 
beauty, 
