some and courteous, though
picturesque in rags. They are thrifty and frugal, but penniless and
starving. They are comparatively truthful and honest, but without credit
or resources. They have broad acres which only require to be scratched
and they bring forth sixty-fold; but they cultivate little patches
surrounded with mud walls and within range of their matchlocks. During
the greater part of the year these poor people dare not walk over their
own fields for fear of being stripped of their tattered rags. And yet
these are the most heavily taxed peasantry in the world. They pay
_black-mail_ to the Bedawin, who plunder them notwithstanding; and they
pay taxes to the Turks, who give them no protection. The Bedawin enforce
their claims by cutting off the ears of any straggling villagers from
defaulting villages, who fall within their power, and by carrying off
for ransom a number of village children into the Desert. The Turks
enforce their claims by imprisoning the Sheikhs of the villages till
they have paid the uttermost farthing. With protection and fair
government, the peasantry of Northern Syria would be among the happiest
in the world. But in their land, what the Turkish caterpillar leaves the
Bedawy locust devours.

* * * * *

From the foregoing remarks it is evident that the agricultural resources
of Syria and Palestine are very great, and capable, under good
government, of being largely developed: that the difficulties
encountered by those who invest capital in land in Syria and Palestine
are such as to deter immigrants from embarking in agricultural
enterprises under Turkish rule in that land: and that immigrants in
Syria and Palestine would be exposed to great personal dangers, which
would increase in proportion to the success of their labours.

WM. WRIGHT.

FOOTNOTES:

[56] "The Land of Gilead," p. 295.

[57] Ph[oe]nicia, the Greek [Greek: phoinike], has been by some derived
from [Greek: phoinix], a palm tree.

[58] Vice-Consul Jago, writing from Damascus, March, 1880, says:--"With
regard to the property near the Damascus Lakes, it is on the edge of the
Desert where no authority exists, and therefore exposed to Bedawin
raids." He summarizes the agricultural products of the neighbourhood of
Damascus as:--"Wheat, barley, maize (white and yellow), beans, peas,
lentils, kerane, gelbane, bakie, belbe, fessa, borake (the last seven
being green crops for cattle food), aniseed,