And yet, are not these the children of the prophets?
The Mussulman, Christian, Jew, are they not the elect children of God, loaded with favors and miracles?
Why, then, do these privileged races no longer enjoy the same advantages?
Why are these fields, sanctified by the blood of martyrs, deprived of their ancient fertility?
Why have those blessings been banished hence, and transferred for so many ages to other nations and different climes?
* The dragon Bell.
At these words, revolving in my mind the vicissitudes which have transmitted the sceptre of the world to people so different in religion and manners from those in ancient Asia to the most recent of Europe, this name of a natal land revived in me the sentiment of my country; and turning my eyes towards France, I began to reflect on the situation in which I had left her.* * In the year 1782, at the close of the American war.
I recalled her fields so richly cultivated, her roads so admirably constructed, her cities inhabited by a countless people, her fleets spread over every sea, her ports filled with the produce of both the Indies: and then comparing the activity of her commerce, the extent of her navigation, the magnificence of her buildings, the arts and industry of her inhabitants, with what Egypt and Syria had once possessed, I was gratified to find in modern Europe the departed splendor of Asia; but the charm of my reverie was soon dissolved by a last term of comparison.
Reflecting that such had once been the activity of the places I was then contemplating, who knows, said I, but such may one day be the abandonment of our countries?
Who knows if on the banks of the Seine, the Thames, the Zuyder-Zee, where now, in the tumult of so many enjoyments, the heart and the eye suffice not for the multitude of sensations,--who knows if some traveller, like myself, shall not one day sit on their silent ruins, and weep in solitude over the ashes of their inhabitants, and the memory of their former greatness.
At these words, my eyes filled with tears: and covering my head with the fold of my mantle, I sank into gloomy meditations on all human affairs.
Ah! hapless man, said I in my grief, a blind fatality sports with thy destiny!* A fatal necessity rules with the hand of chance the lot of mortals! But no: it is the justice of heaven fulfilling its decrees!--a God of mystery exercising his incomprehensible judgments! Doubtless he has pronounced a secret anathema against this land: blasting with maledictions the present, for the sins of past generations.

Oh! who shall dare to fathom the depths of the Omnipotent?
* Fatality is the universal and rooted prejudice of the East.

"It was written," is there the answer to every thing.
Hence result an unconcern and apathy, the most powerful impediments to instruction and civilization.
And sunk in profound melancholy, I remained motionless..