Some modern travellers appear to me to have mistaken the nature of the gradual depopulation of the East. The villages in general are so much deserted, that, in the neighbourhood of Aleppo for instance, where within the present century stood three hundred villages, there now remain no more than ten or twelve. Yet, this depopulation of the villages swells the cities and towns, not indeed in the same proportion, but still with a rising tide. The causes seem to be, 1. In the cities the modes of gaining a livelihood are more multifarious, and small or no capital is required, whereas in agriculture it is indispensable. 2. In the cities the property is not tangible, so to speak; it is veiled from the eye of government, so as to be safe from the excessive exactions imposed on the peasants, whose property is of the most unwieldy and self-apparent description. The peasantry, both in Syria and Egypt, are not _Villani_, but as free as any class of men; and it happens unfortunately, that even a good governor cannot sufficiently protect them, for he must either resign, or pay the usual tributes at the Porte. Money he must have, and the modern ministerial arts, of diving into the most secret recesses of property, being there unknown, he of course taxes that which is most apparent, and the most difficult to remove. Yet the distinction between a good and a bad governor is, even here, sufficiently felt; the population and commerce of Damascus being on the increase, by the justice and equity of the present Pasha; whereas, both had been materially injured by the violence of Jezzar. At this moment the shops in the extensive bazars, much larger than those of Aleppo, are all opened, and furnished with every species of commodity, and each caravan brings a supply of persons who, shunning oppression elsewhere, come here for temporary profit or fixed residence. The rent of houses, though still low, is sensibly increasing, and the suburbs spreading by new buildings. The Pashalîk is the first in Asia. The present Pasha is Abdallah, a man of about fifty years of age, tall and personable, and of noble extract, his ancestors having been invested with Pashalîks in the last century. It is hardly necessary to mention, that every Pasha has absolute power of life or death, there being no appeal from his jurisdiction. The inhabitants of Damascus were formerly noted for their maltreatment of the Franks, but at present I found the pride of their ignorance somewhat abated, and observed no difference between them and other Oriental citizens. It is deeply to be regretted, that religion, intended to conciliate mankind, should be the chief cause of their ferocity against each other, and should, in an equal proportion, have mingled poisons and antidotes. The Mohammedan himself a god, all the rest of mankind dogs! can any benefit recompense the pride, the fury, the eternal enmity, destruction, and slaughter, inwoven into the very soul by such misanthropic dogmata?