This Syria, said I, now so depopulated, then contained a hundred flourishing cities, and abounded with towns, villages, and hamlets.* In all parts were seen cultivated fields, frequented roads, and crowded habitations.

Ah! whither have flown those ages of life and abundance ?--whither vanished those brilliant creations of human industry?
Where are those ramparts of Nineveh, those walls of Babylon, those palaces of Persepolis, those temples of Balbec and of Jerusalem?
Where are those fleets of Tyre, those dock-yards of Arad, those work-shops of Sidon, and that multitude of sailors, of pilots, of merchants, and of soldiers?
Where those husbandmen, harvests, flocks, and all the creation of living beings in which the face of the earth rejoiced?
Alas! I have passed over this desolate land! I have visited the palaces, once the scene of so much splendor, and I beheld nothing but solitude and desolation.

I sought the ancient inhabitants and their works, and found nothing but a trace, like the foot-prints of a traveller over the sand.

The temples are fallen, the palaces overthrown, the ports filled up, the cities destroyed; and the earth, stripped of inhabitants, has become a place of sepulchres.
Great God! whence proceed such fatal revolutions?
What causes have so changed the fortunes of these countries?
Wherefore are so many cities destroyed?
Why has not this ancient population been reproduced and perpetuated?
* According to Josephus and Strabo, there were in Syria twelve millions of souls, and the traces that remain of culture and habitation confirm the calculation.
Thus absorbed in meditation, a crowd of new reflections continually poured in upon my mind.

Every thing, continued I, bewilders my judgment, and fills my heart with trouble and uncertainty.