tries of Europe have factories in it. Damascus in Syria, further to the south, is estimated to contain 180000 people. Its former celebrity for works in steel, particularly sword-blades, is lost; but it flourishes by its manufactures of mixed silk and cotton, called damasks, and of excellent soap, and other articles it is also frequented by the caravans from Bagdad. Smyrna, a populous city and sea-port on the Archipelago, is the centre of the European Levant trade, and the residence of the principal factors of the mercantile states of Europe. It exports a great quantity of the products of Lesser Asia, consisting of cotton, silk, oil, leather, dying drugs, and manufactured goods.*

All the Turkish cities in Asia are subject to frequent and destructive visitations of the plague, and are in a state of depopulation and decay. Another great evil is the frequency of revolt among the bashaws or military commanders in the parts of this despotic empire which are remote from the seat of government, which introduces a temporary anarchy, exposing foreign merchants, especially christians, to pillage and mas

sacre.

The most important mart in the interior country is Konieh, the ancient Iconium. It is well built, and provided with numerous and commodious khans for the convenience of merchants, by many of whom, of various countries and religions, it is frequented. Konieh is the principal seat of that extraordinary order of enthusiasts, the dervises or mahometan monks called Mewlewahs, whose devotion chiefly consists in a kind of whirling dance, continued till they fall down exhausted.

:

Prusa, the ancient Bursa, is one of the most agreeable and well-built cities of Lesser Asia, and was formerly a favourite residence of the sultans it is romantically situated at the foot of mount Olympus. Angora, already mentioned for its breed of goats, is rendered populous by its manufacture of stuffs. Tokat, in a rugged rocky situation, flourishes by its silk and leather manufactures, and its trade in copper utensils, made of

*The population of the Turkish cities seems to be overrated. See Eton's Survey of the Turkish Empire.

EDITOR.

the metal extracted from the mines in the neighbouring mountains. Some of the ports on the Black sea possess a share of commerce, but of no great extent: the total want of science in navigation among the Turkish mariners subjects them to perpetual losses and delays; and the Russian ports on the opposite side will certainly command the chief traffic on this sea. Trebisond, one of these ports, is of great fame in the history of the middle ages. At the opposite extremity of Asiatic Turkey Basra, or Bassora, is rendered opulent and populous by the trade on the Persian gulf, which conveys to it the commodities of India and Persia. This city, however, belongs rather to an independent Arabian prince than to the grand seignior, who receives from it only a dubious homage.

Bagdad, once so celebrated as the splendid seat of the Saracen caliphs, is now reduced to a town of 20000 inhabitants. Near it are the obscure relics of a much greater city, the ancient Babylon. Jerusalem, the famed capital of the Jewish nation, and so long the object of contention between the christian and mahometan powers, is now a mean town in a steril district, subsisting only by that veneration in which it is held by Jews, Christians, and Musselmans, and which still procures it the visits of many pious pilgrims.

Travellers of a different class from those last mentioned have visited all the parts of this country to which a safe access is permitted, in search of those remains of classical antiquity with which they abound. At every memorable spot occur the vestiges of famous cities, now barely to be traced by the ruins of their demolished walls, and the broken columns of their temples, buried in the rank herbage, and the haunt of snakes and jackals. Not only the slow corrosion of time, and the violence of fanatic barbarians, have operated in this destruction, but the frequent earthquakes to which Lesser Asia is liable have powerfully aided in the work of demolition. In several spots relics of human art still survive in a state to attract admiration. The most striking assemblage of ruins probably in the world is presented by the ancient Palmyra, or Tadmor, singularly placed in a sandy desert on the borders of Arabia, far to the south-east of Aleppo. These are described as suddenly

bursting upon the traveller's eye as he comes round an eminence in the wilderness, and disclosing long rows of columns decorated with architectural ornaments, gigantic portals, and roofless temples. Balbec, the ancient Heliopolis, on the coast of Syria, is famed for a single magnificent ruin, that of the temple of the Sun, equally conspicuous for the vastness of its dimensions, and the noble style of its architecture.

To this division of the Turkish dominions belong several fine islands. Of those in the Archipelago the most northerly and the largest is MYTILENE, the ancient LESBOS, once famed for beauty, poetry, music, and all that could minister to refined voluptuousness. It is mountainous, and intersected with bays and arms of the sea, which present many fine situations, decorated with plantations of olives and vines, and naturally clothed with myrtle and odoriferous shrubs The climate is delicious, and the products exquisite in their kinds. Its natural hot baths are celebrated.

SCIO, the ancient CHIOS, succeeds. It is also a mountainous, but beautiful isle, well cultivated by its Greek inhabitants, who enjoy more freedom here than elsewhere. Its wines retain their former reputation; and its groves of lemon and orange trees and other fine fruits equally gratify the different senses. Scio is famous for its product of mastich, a fragrant resin collected from a shrub of the genus pistachia, and chiefly reserved for the use of the Grand Seignior's haram, as a masticatory. The Chio turpentine, produced by a tree of the same genus, is also much valued. The women are beauties of the Grecian mould of feature, but disfigured by a preposterous mode of dress.

SAMOS and Cos are valuable isles of ancient fame. The soil of Rhodes is sandy, but fertile in wheat.

Near that extremity of the Mediterranean which washes the Syrian coast lies the island of CYPRUS, much superior in extent to any of those above enumerated. It is 160 miles long and 70 broad in its widest part. The soft climate and fruitful soil of this island caused it to be anciently accounted the peculiar residence of Venus, and its manners corresponded with this appropriation. It flourished at different periods in popula

1

tion and opulence, but has been in a declining state since it came under the dominion of the Turks in 1570. Its commodities are a peculiarly rich wine, silk, cotton, fruits, timber, and turpentine. It has also many mineral treasures though now neglected. Cyprus labours under a deficiency of running water during the summer heats; and its stagnant pools infect the atmosphere so as to render the low grounds very unhealthy.

The sum of population in European Turkey is estimated at eight millions; that of Asiatic Turkey at ten millions. These eighteen millions of subjects would compose a very powerful state, if they did not consist of a discordant assemblage of various people and religions, held together only by despotism, which loses its power in proportion to the distance from the centre of its action. In many districts a few Turks live as tyrants amidst a host of reluctant slaves, who would certainly join any invader likely to free them from the yoke. On this account it is found necessary to delegate almost unlimited power to the distant governors, who, if they lose their interest at court, are in perpetual danger of their lives, and frequently hold by force the office which they dare not resign. It is very seldom that some of the provinces are not in a state of open revolt. The system of government is so adverse to the prosperity and welfare of the governed, and is administered with so much ignorance and incapacity, that, whilst other nations are improving, Turkey is in a constant progress of deterioration. Its armies, formerly dreaded at least for their numbers, are inferior to those of some of the neighbouring powers; and its revenues, though considerable, are not adequate to any great

exertions.

ASIATIC RUSSIA.

HAVING closed our survey of one empire which extends from Europe to Asia, we shall not delay to complete the account of another, which agrees with it in this circumstance, and is its neighbour in both quarters of the world. We shall hereby be carried back somewhat abruptly to the regions of frost but no geographical arrangement can give entirely regular and easy transitions.

The Russian empire, which we have seen occupying so large. a portion of the European continent, extends much more widely in the Asiatic; for the whole northern part of Asia from east to west, and from the Arctic ocean to the borders of Tatary, is included under this designation. Of this vast tract the northern, eastern, and western boundaries are distinctly marked, being those of Asia itself: the southern line, as passing along the verge of wild and uninhabited deserts, must be accounted in great part indeterminate and ideal. It may, however, be reckoned to pass from the west along the river Kuban and the chain of Caucasus to the northern part of the Caspian sea; thence to ascend through the steppe of Issim to the river Ob, proceeding on its bank to the point whence it issues from the Altaian mountains; then, following that chain to the head of the Onon in Daouria, and along the course of the Argoun to the Yablonoi mountains, a branch of which it follows to its termination in a promontory on the coast north of the river Amur. The extent of Asiatic Russia is estimated at 5300 English miles from east to west, by a breadth of nearly 2000 from north to south.

The face of the country, for the most part, like that of European Russia, tends to a level. The borders of the northern ocean consist mostly of marshy plains, buried in almost per