The

oats. The orchards are laden with the fruits of the temperate and sub-tropical regions, and in some parts, opium, madder, and tobacco are profitable crops. animal world yields silk of the best quality, the "silky mohair" of the goat, and wool from the countless flocks of sheep, tended by the wandering Bedouin and Kurd shepherds. The mineral wealth is great; coal and iron, copper and lead, marble and granite, being abundantly distributed. There are no important manufactures, but the fisheries of the Mediterranean form a very sponge valuable industry. The absence of good roads renders the difficulty of transport so great, that, except near the coast and great rivers, there is little or no commerce.

9. Of the principal towns of Turkey in Asia, Smyrna takes the lead. It disputes with Alexandria the right of being called the Liverpool of the East, for it exports yearly nearly four million pounds' worth of raisins, cotton, drugs, wool, silk, hides, wine, sponge, tobacco, and other products of the East, including about 12,000 tons of figs. Erzeroum is the most important commercial city of Armenia, owing mainly to the large Persian trade which flows through it on its way to Trebizond, a fortified port on the Black Sea. Sinope is another important port on the Black Sea. Bagdad is the most prosperous town of Mesopotamia. Damascus is the oldest as well as one of the most beautiful of Eastern cities. Beyrout is the port of central Syria. Jaffa is the port of Palestine.

10. Turkish Asia boasts of the fragments, at least, of some of the world's most ancient cities. Of these Nineveh and Babylon are the most famous. Nineveh, on the banks of the Tigris, was the capital of the great Assyrian Empire. In its days of greatest prosperity, it is said to have been six miles in circumference; and in the Book of Jonah we read of it as "an exceeding great city of three days' journey," and one "wherein are more than six-score thousand persons" (young children) "who could not discern their right hand from their left." Of late years, many very interesting relics of this great city have been brought to light. The

site of the ancient Babylon, the capital of the empire of the same name, is now uncertain.

11. Numerous islands lie off the coast of Asia Minor, many of them of great historical interest. Cyprus, a fertile island, administered by England, is the largest. Samos, another fertile island, is a beyship under a Christian prince, but paying tribute to the Porte. Mitylene has a population of 60,000. Patmos is famous as the isle to which St. John was banished. Rhodes and Chios are other chief islands.

LESSON XXIX.

TURKEY IN ASIA-SYRIA AND PALESTINE.

1. To many readers, the "Holy Land" will be by far the most interesting part of the Turkish Empire in Asia. No part of the world possesses so great historical associations; none can ever rival it in sacred importance, for it contains Jerusalem, Damascus, and a score of other cities, towns, and villages, the names of which have been familiar to every one from childhood. Of late years the country has been explored, and its geography and antiquities are known with an exactness which can be claimed for few other countries out of Europe.

2. Under the name of Syria is comprised a narrow coast-lying strip of country, about 440 miles long, and from 50 to 100 miles broad. Its principal feature is the longitudinal branch of the Taurus, which runs like a double spine through two-thirds of its length. The chain is broken at several points by valleys of various widths, but it divides the country into three distinct belts, the last of which is "the hill country of Judæa," which finally merges into the Desert of the Wanderings (El Tih), and the rugged peninsula on which is situated Mount Sinai.

3. These ranges send out transverse spurs, and in addition to Esdraelon, and other extensive plains, are

cut with valleys and narrow glens, or "wadys." In Syria proper, the summits and slopes of many of these mountains are wooded with dense forests; but in Palestine, south of Samaria, the otherwise fine mountain and valley scenery is rendered less attractive by the presence of a scanty vegetation, or, as in the country east and south of Sharon-a valley famous to-day, as it was of old, for its beauty and fertility-so desolate and barren, that we wonder how it ever came to be described as flowing with milk and honey."

4. There are thus in Syria and Palestine three distinct longitudinal belts - "the maritime district between the western range and the sea, and the long succession of valleys between the two mountain ridges themselves, and the eastern tract between the latter and the desert." The seaward belt varies in breadth. Sometimes it comprises wide plains, at other places it consists of narrow passes; while at points, where the voyager along the coast sights bold headlands, the mountains reach the sea without the intervention of any level land. This, and the third belt also, contained old cities of great importance, and is, therefore, that part of the Holy Land most instinct with historical associations.

5. At the northern end of the maritime belt stands Alexandretta, or Scanderoon, an ancient town built on a feverish swamp, but with the best harbour on the coast of Syria; Seleucia, which has been spoken of as the western terminus of the coming Euphrates Valley Railway; Latakia, famous for its tobacco; and Tripoli, an important town, destined in time, when a railway unites it with the rest of the world, to be not only a great commercial centre, but also a place much frequented by seekers after a perpetual summer.

6. Next comes the country of the Druzes, a rugged, hilly district south of Beyrout, of which Sidon (Saïda) and Tyre (Sur) are the only towns which appeal to the memory of the student of the past; while, south of the headland Nakûrah, is the plain of Acre, and the promontory of Carmel. Beyond this lies the Vale of Sharon, now but little cultivated, the herds of the wild.

Bedouins being about the only signs of life in a valley which more than two thousand years ago supported a flourishing population.

7. Passing Cæsarea, in which of old Herod held his court, we come to Jaffa, the port of Jerusalem, Ascalon, (famed in the Crusades), and Gaza, which just lies on the inner limits of the rich Sharon valley. Still further southward we tread upon an alkaline sand, and soon after enter the desert, which prevails, until it is relieved by the Nile delta, in Egypt.

8. The second belt stretches between the double chain of central mountains from below the lake of Antioch, through a country of varied character, until it is lost in the Idumæan desert.

9. The principal portions of the third belt are the great plain of Damascus, east of the Anti-Lebanon, and the outlying district of the Hauran. The regions north and south of them are mainly sand deserts or sandy plateaux, relieved here and there by an oasis. Damascus, surrounded by a fertile, flower-covered country, is the chief city and place of commerce. Another distinct

section of the country is the province of Aleppo, containing more than 7,000 square miles, in many places "reticulated with mountains," but also containing many fine level tracts studded with villages.

10. Syria is drained by numerous small rivers, but, with the exception of the Euphrates, which bounds the north-western districts, the Orontes and Leontes are the only ones of importance, though Abana and Pharpar, "rivers of Damascus," will for ever be associated in our minds with the tale of the Assyrian captain who visited the Hebrew prophet.

11. But of all "the waters of Israel" there is none so great or so famous as the Jordan. It is the one great river of the country, and, roughly speaking, may be said to be the recipient of all the minor streams of Palestine which do not flow directly into the Mediterranean. The Jordan rises in Mount Hermon, and ends its first stage in the marshy lake of Merom. Here also it is joined by the lesser Jordan from "Dan." Issuing from