Near the mountain are some Saracenic remains of a mosque and palace, with many inscriptions in Cuphic characters. These are vestiges of the destructive warfare conducted by Timûr Leng, the hero, the robber, the warrior, the scourge. The walls are antient, not very lofty, but strong. Gates nine. The city is divided into twenty-three districts, each under its distinct magistrate. That beautiful tree, the Lombardy poplar, abounds all over the plain. It is a native of Syria. When old it becomes ragged and uncouth, as usual in other regions, a monument of fugitive beauty. Damascus is the seat of a considerable trade; and its manufactures afford a support to a great number of Mohammedans and Christians: they consist of silk and cotton, mixed or separate, but chiefly mingled together, in the form of what they call _Cottonî_ or _Alléja_[60]. Much soap is also fabricated[61], which is carried to different parts of Syria and to Egypt. Such of the European articles as are used by the Orientals, are drawn from Seidé, Beirût, and Tripoli, to and from all which places, there are regular caravans, iron, lead, tin, cochineal, broad-cloth. From Persia and the East the caravans of Bagdad convey shawls, muslins, and the rich fabrics of Surat, a part of which is consumed in the city, and a part passes on to other places in Syria and to European Turkey. To maritime commerce the Damascenes were formerly very adverse, and it is only within these few years that they could be prevailed on to send goods by sea to Constantinople. Timûr Leng, on his conquest of Syria, about the beginning of the fourteenth century, conveyed all the celebrated manufactures of steel from Damascus into Persia. Since that period, its works in steel have been little memorable. They were formerly of the highest reputation in Europe and the East. The famous sabres appear to have been constructed, by a method now lost, of alternate layers, about two or three lines thick, of iron and steel: they never broke, though bent in the most violent manner, and yet retained the utmost power of edge; so that common iron, or even steel, would divide under their force. So far as my researches have enabled me to ascertain the population of Damascus, I should not be inclined to compute it at less than two hundred thousand souls. That of Aleppo may be estimated at two hundred and eighty thousand.