CHAP. III.-POPULATION-LANGUAGE-RELIGION. In proportion to its extent, no country on earth presents so motley a population as Syria. One cause of this may be found in the frequent revolutions which Syria has undergone, having been successively invaded and conquered by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Macedonians, Romans, Arabs, Turks, Crusaders, Mamelukes, and the Osmanlees, to whom it is nominally subject. The aboriginal natives, the descendants of Aram, amalgamated with the Greeks, form but a small portion of the present inhabitants, which are a mixed assemblage of Turks, Koords, Turcomans, Arabs, Jews, and the numerous tribes and hostile creeds, that exist in the mountains and valleys of both the Lebanons and the mountains of the Hauran. To state the amount of such a mongrel population is impossible, as we have no precise data on the subject. We only know that it is not a tithe of what Syria might support, and probably of what it once contained. Its conjectural number does not exceed 2,000,000 at most. Language.] The languages spoken in this country are as diversified as the population. The old Syriac is spoken only in a few districts in the vicinity of Damascus and Mount Lebanon; and the Samaritans of Sichem, like the Jews, have forgotten their old language, which is only preserved in their copy of the Pentateuch. The Arabic predominates both in the country and in the towns; and a corrupted mixture of Syriac and Chaldee, called the Nabathean language, is spoken by the peasantry. Turkish is spoken in many of the towns and cities, whilst both it and Koordish are spoken in the camps of the wandering Turkomans and Koords in the Pashalic of Aleppo. Respecting literature and science, it is almost needless to say a word; for of the latter nothing is found in any Mahommedan region, and the former is at a very low ebb both amongst Mussulmans and Christians. Only two libraries, says Volney, exist in all Syria, that of Djezzar Pasha, at Acre, and the convent of Mar Hanna Shouair, belonging to the Greek Catholics in the country of the Druses. Here is a printing press established nigh a century back by the Jesuit Missionaries; but it is on a miserable scale, merely printing, on an average, about 180 volumes annually. Only seven persons are employed at this establishment; and as no work is done on saints' days—which are very numerous-little progress has or can be made. The greatest part of the books printed are Psalters, which, being the only classics of the Christian children, are always in demand. But the business seems to be declining, and will soon be given up. Religious Sects.] No country presents to the observer such a medley of hostile and opposite creeds as Syria. The two prevailing systems are Mahommedan and Christian; but each of these contending faiths is split into a variety of sects, which hate each other as heartily as Mohammedans and Christians do each other. The Mutualees, the Druses, the Ansarians, and Ismaelians, are all heretical Mussulman sects, detested by, and equally detesting, the Sonnite Mussulmauns. The Mutualees are the followers of Alee, whom they regard with idolatrous veneration. This tribe inhabited the great valley which divides the two Lebanons, and were so powerful during the days of Sheik Daher, that they could bring 10,000 horsemen to the field. But, by their own ceaseless intestine discord, and the political cunning and military talents of Djezzar Pasha, of Acre, their power has been annihilated; and, driven from their native soil, as they now are, to the rugged summits of the Antilibanus, they are on the eve of total extermination, and the extinction of their very name. The Druses live to the S. of the Maronites, in the western Lebanon, and are estimated at 120,000 persons. It is impossible precisely to state their religious creed, as they have taken all possible precautions to conceal their most obnoxious tenets. They are divided into two classes, the Okhals, or the intelligent,' and the Djahels, or the ignorant.' The former, composing the sacred order, are 10,000 in number, and possess all the secrets of the sect, and wear white turbans, the badge of purity. Every Thursday the Okhals assemble in their oratories, and perform their sacred rites; but what these are, none but they themselves know. Guards are posted round the spot to prevent the approach of the profane, none but their wives being permitted to be there. If any of the uninitiated dare to witness any part of their sacred rites, instant death would be the consequence of the discovery. The Djahels perform no religious rites whatever, unless when circumstances oblige them to assume the appearance of Mohammedans. They then enter the mosques with the Turks, and, like them, recite their prayers. Both Christ and Mohammed are considered as impostors by them, and they cherish an equal dislike to the followers of both. They believe in the divinity of Khalif Hakem, in his future re-appearance, and in the transmigration of souls. They have been said to worship a calf (but of this we have no certainty), and the image of the Maoula, or human form of the Khalif Hakem, a golden image, locked up in a sacred chest of silver; but of this we are also equally in the dark, as none have witnessed their rites but the initiated. They are charged with practising in their worship the most abominable and obscene rites that ever the grossest paganism enjoined. The Ansarians and Ismaelians are said to have orginated in the seventh century. They are a sort of Soofees, or Mystical Mussulmans,' and are the famous assassins mentioned in the history of the crusades. The Christians, on the other hand, are divided into the Melchites, or Royalists, Jacobites, or Monophysites, Armenians, Nestorians, Maronites, and Latins, or Western Catholics. The Melchites are the most numerous. The very epithet is a sad relic of the bad policy of the Byzantine court, which was always intermeddling with the religious disputes of their Christian subjects. The Jacobites are also numerous. The Maronites are estimated at above 120,000 in number. Whilst the Ansarians inhabit the coast and slope of the mountains, from Antioch to the Nahar el Kebir, the Maronites extend southward from the latter stream to the Nahar el Kelb. They were formerly Monothelites, but renounced that heresy in 1182, and were re-admitted into the bosom of the Romish Church. The Maronites, however, deny both their heresy and recantation, and maintain that this account of their heresy was false and calumnious, and fabricated by Eutychius, the Jacobite Patriarch of Alexandria, a writer of the sixteenth century. They say, that their name of Maronites was derived from Maro, a monk of the 5th century, mentioned by Chrysostom and Theodoret. However this be, it is evident that they are the descendants of the Mardaites, or rebels of Mount Lebanon,' who, in the seventh century, were at open war both with the Greeks and Arabs, and have always maintained a species of nominal independence under their Turkish masters. Their territory is called the Kesrawan, the Castravan of the crusade historians. According to a census taken in 1784, the number of men able to carry arms was 35,000, which implies a population of 140,000 souls. To this, if we add their clergy, and monks, and nuns, dispersed in 200 convents, and the people of the maritime towns, as Djebail, Batroun, and others, it will add other 10,000 to the above estimate. Mr Connor, on the other hand, who was here in 1820, states the whole population at only 80,000 souls, apparently on information procured from their Patriarch, at Canobin, and that the whole number of men fit for the use of arms did not exceed 20,000; so discordant are the hearsay informations of travellers. They enjoy, under the Turks, the liberty of ringing church-bells and making processions within their own districts. These privileges, which no other Christians in Syria enjoy, of living near so many convents and churches, and of giving a loose, when they please, to religious feelings, and of rivaling the Mussulmans in these, have attracted a great Christian population to a mountainous district, the most rugged and barren of all the Lebanon. Though dependent on the Romish church, their clergy have still the liberty of electing a spiritual head out of their own number, who is entitled the Batrack or Patriarch of Antioch. Their clergy, also, are permitted to marry, but they are allowed to do so only once, and the object of their choice must not be a widow, but a virgin. The gospel only is read aloud in Arabic, that the people may hear it; but the mass is performed in Syriac, of which dialect the greater part understand not a word. The communion is partaken of in both kinds. Respecting the maintenance of their clergy, the statements of Volney and Burckhardt are at complete variance, the former stating that the clergy are wholly supported by the labour of their own hands, whilst the latter says that the people are impoverished by their exactions, which, combined with the taxes levied on them by the emir of the Druses, render this Christian community the poorest in Turkey. It may, in general, be observed, that Syria is the headquarters of intolerance. The Latins and the Greeks, the Maronites and the Melchites, the Nestorians and the Jacobites, vie with each other in a rigid adherence to their respective dogmas, and each sect would exterminate the other, had it the power; the same spirit that breathed in Peter the Hermit still survives in the bosoms of the Syrian Christians CHAP. IV.-PASHALIC OF ALEPPO. THIS district comprehends Northern Syria, between the Euphrates and the Mediterranean. Of this portion, Aleppo is the capital. So rapid has been the decline of population in this pashalic, that, in 1785, it contained only 400 villages, whereas in the deftar, or tax register, more than 3,200 villages were then comprehended within it. Dr Russel states that, in 1772, of 300 villages, formerly belonging to the vicinity of the city, less than onethird were then inhabited, and that agriculture had declined in proportion. "Those of our merchants," says he, "who have lived here twenty years, have seen the greater part of the environs of Aleppo depopulated. Nothing is now met with but ruined houses on every side, cisterns broken up, fields abandoned. The peasants have taken refuge in the towns, where they are lost in the mass of the population, and thus escape the rapacious hand of despotism." This tract is composed for the most part of two large plains, that of Antioch on the W., and that of Aleppo on the E. On the N. and E. are high mountains, separating it from Cilicia and the pashalic of Marash. The soil is generally rich and clayey, abounding in rank and tall herbage after the winter-rains, but almost entirely destitute of fruit. The much greater part of the land is untilled, cultivation being scarcely seen in the vicinity of the towns and villages, so deplorable is the effect of long-continued misrule, and the incursions of the Turkoman and Koordish tribes. The principal productions are wheat, barley, and cotton, whilst, in the mountains, the mulberry, the vine, the olive, and the fig, are cultivated. The maritime border is chiefly devoted to the cultivation of tobacco, and the immediate vicinity of Aleppo to the pistachio tree. City of Aleppo.] Aleppo corresponds to the ancient Berrhoea, in the ancient Chalybonites and is situated near the little stream of the Kowaick, which loses itself in a small morass, six leagues below the city. The plain in which Aleppo stands is encircled with barren hills, pastured by sheep and goats, and destitute of trees. The city itself, with its numerous suburbs, occupied, previous to the late calamitous earthquake, eight small hills of unequal height, with the intermediate valleys, and a considerable space of flat ground, comprising in whole a circuit of seven miles. The walls are supposed to be the work of the Mameluke princes, when they possessed Syria, and bear that massive style of architecture which has been long obsolete in this region. There are nine gates to the city, two on each of the three sides, and three on the W. side. The buildings are of hewn stone, spacious and handsome within; the streets well-paved, and kept remarkably clean, with a commodious footpath on each side, raised half a foot above the horse-way. Aleppo is supplied with good water from two springs near the village of Heylan, eight miles north of the city, whence it is conveyed by an aqueduct, partly on a level with the ground and partly subterraneous, and refreshed by air shafts. It is then distributed to the public fountains, baths, seraglios, and to as many of the private houses whose owners choose to pay for it, by means of leaden and earthen pipes. The aqueduct is said to be coeval with the city, but to have been repaired by the mother of Constantine, who is also said to have founded the church, now converted into the principal mosque. In 1218, the aqueduct was again repaired by Malek al Dhaher, the son of the great Saladin. It is annually cleansed, in the month of May, under the direction of the Cadi. This process occupies eight or nine days, during which the baths are shut up, and the inhabitants obliged to depend on their subterraneous reservoirs, wells, and the water of the river. The air of Aleppo is pure, but penetrating; the westerly winds, predominating in the summer, moderate the excessive heats, which, considering the then cloudless sky, the intense power of the solar rays, and the white chalky soil, would otherwise render it uninhabitable. The mosques are numerous, and some of them magnificent. The khans are also numerous and large. The bazaars are long, covered, narrow streets. Every branch of business has its own bazaar, which, as well as the streets, are locked up an hour and a half after sunset. The castle is a large Saracenic structure, seated on a high mount, apparently in the centre of the city, and half a mile in circuit. Like most cities in the East, Aleppo looks best at a distant view. The streets seem dull and narrow from the high stone walls and dead fronts on each side; the shops are mean, and the baths and fountains unadorned. The great boast of Aleppo is its gardens, which extend nearly twelve miles in length, and are parted from each other by stone walls. As they are planted more with a view to profit than pleasure, little attention is paid to elegance, and they are mere compounds of kitchen and flower-gardens blended together, with out parterres or grass plots; presenting a strange commixture of trees, and shrubs, and flowers, and esculent herbs. But inelegant as they may appear to the cultivated taste of an European, they afford an agreeable shade at noon to the languid traveller. Even he who has contemplated with delight the exquisite gardens of Richmond or Stowe, cannot fail of receiving new plessure from the full blow of pomegranate groves. Listening to the purling brooks, revived by the exhilarating breezes, and gazing on the verdure of the groves, and serenaded by the melody of the nightingale, delightful beyond what is heard in England, he will hardly regret, whilst indulging the pensive mood, the absence of British refinement in the art of gardening. Aleppo owes its chief importance to commerce, but which now, and for a long time past, has been on the decline. It was the emporium of Armenia and Diarbekir,-sent caravans to Persia and Bagdad,-communicated with India, by means of the Persian gulf and Bassora,-with Mecca and Egypt, by Damascus,—and with Europe, by Scanderoon and Latakia. Though much declined, it is still a great commercial city, and foreign merchants are numerous. The British, French, and Dutch, have consuls here, who are much respected. Its population has been variously estimated. By Tavernier it was estimated at 258,000 souls, in the city and suburbs, in 1670; by D'Arvieux, in 1683, from 285,000 to 290,000; by Volney, in 1785, at 200,000, but he remarks that, as the city is not larger than Nantes or Marseilles, and the houses only one story in height, they do not probably exceed 100,000; by Dr Russel, who resided here thirteen years, they were estimated at 235,000 in the middle of last century, of whom 200,000 were Turks, 30,000 Christians, and 5,000 Jews; by Seitzen they are reduced to 150,000; whilst the Rev. Mr Connor, in 1820, reckons the Christian population alone at 31,600, namely: Greek catholics 14,000, Maronites 2,000, Syrian catholics 5000, Nestorians 100, Armenian catholics 8,000, Armenian schismatics 2,000, and Greeks, under the Patriarch of Aleppo, 500. In 1822, Aleppo was overthrown by one of those awful visitations of providence to which Syria has been so often subjected.36 The position of Aleppo is 36° 11′ 25′′ N. lat., and 37° 9′ E. long. Aintab.] N. of Aleppo, on the southern skirts of Amanus, is Aintab, the ancient Deba, situated in a plain environed with hills. It has been often visited with earthquakes, but still contains a supposed population of 20,000 souls. Antioch.] To the S.E. of Aleppo, near the Euphrates, are the ruins of Hierapolis, the ancient Manbej, a city famed for its idolatry, and the birthplace of Lucian the Satirist. Antioch, formerly the capital of Syria, and 36 The fate of this city has been singularly deplorable of late years. A civil war long raged within its walls, between the pashas and janissaries, wherein the latter prevailed, and usurped all the power, so that the power of the Porte was entirely nominal, and quite insufficient to support its own governor. But, in 1813, Mohammed Pasha, son of Chapwan Oglou, was appointed pasha of Aleppo, who, aided by a body of horse from his father, stormed the towns of Rieha and Jissershogr, whose chiefs were in correspondence with the janissaries, and laid waste the adjoining territory, and then returned to his intrenched camp before Aleppo, where, by bribing some and threatening others of the janissaries, he persuaded them to deliver up their chief, promising them that he alone would be punished. This unhappy man was tortured for nearly a week, to compel him to disclose his wealth, and, when that end was accomplished, his head was struck off. The remaining janissaries were invited by the pasha to a banquet in his camp, and were so foolish as to accept of the invitation. The moment they entered the precincts of the camp, they were seized, tortured, and put to death, and their heads, preserved in wax, sent to Constantinople. By this act, the pasha became possessed of all the wealth the rebellious janissaries had accumulated for fourteen years, which was immense. This they had acquired by monopolizing the price of corn and all other provisions destined for the supply of the city, and by farming out the gardens and orchards in its vicinity, or purchasing their produce of the owners at their own price. Several of their chiefs had, by these means, acquired many millions of piastres in value, all of which was vested in money, rich merchandise, or precious stones, deposited in many strong boxes, and either placed in secure situations or buried under ground. Of all this Mohammed took possession, and restored the authority of the Porte over Aleppo, to the joy of the people, who generally prefer the yoke of one tyrant to that of the many. |