* He died in Paris on the 20th of April, 1820.
A list of the Works Published by Count Volney.
TRAVELS IN EGYPT AND SYRIA during the years 1783, 1784, and 1785: 2 vols. 8vo.—1787.
CHRONOLOGY OF THE TWELVE CENTURIES that preceded the entrance of Xerxes into Greece.
CONSIDERATIONS ON THE TURKISH WAR, in 1788.
THE RUINS, or Meditations on the Revolutions of Empires—1791.
ACCOUNT OF THE PRESENT STATE OF CORSICA—1793.
THE LAW OF NATURE, or Physical Principles of Morality—1793.
ON THE SIMPLIFICATION OF ORIENTAL LANGUAGES—1795. A LETTER TO DR. PRIESTLEY—1797.
LECTURES ON HISTORY, delivered at the Normal School in the year 3—1800.
ON THE CLIMATE AND SOIL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, to which is added an account of Florida, of the French colony of Scioto, of some Canadian Colonies, and of the Savages—1803.
REPORT MADE TO THE CELTIC ACADEMY ON THE RUSSIAN WORK OF PROFESSOR PALLAS, entitled "A Comparative Vocabulary of all the Languages in the World."
THE CHRONOLOGY OF HERODOTUS conformable with his Text—1808 and 1809.
NEW RESEARCHES ON ANCIENT HISTORY, 3 vols. 8vo.—1814
THE EUROPEAN ALPHABET Applied to the Languages of Asia—1819.
A HISTORY OF SAMUEL—1819. HEBREW SIMPLIFIED—1820. INVOCATION.
Hail solitary ruins, holy sepulchres and silent walls! you I invoke; to you I address my prayer. While your aspect averts, with secret terror, the vulgar regard, it excites in my heart the charm of delicious sentiments—sublime contemplations. What useful lessons, what affecting and profound reflections you suggest to him who knows how to consult you! When the whole earth, in chains and silence bowed the neck before its tyrants, you had already proclaimed the truths which they abhor; and confounding the dust of the king with that of the meanest slave, had announced to man the sacred dogma of Equality. Within your pale, in solitary adoration of Liberty, I saw her Genius arise from the mansions of the dead; not such as she is painted by the impassioned multitude, armed with fire and sword, but under the august aspect of Justice, poising in her hand the sacred balance wherein are weighed the actions of men at the gates of eternity!
O Tombs! what virtues are yours! You appal the tyrant's heart, and poison with secret alarm his impious joys. He flies, with coward step, your incorruptible aspect, and erects afar his throne of insolence.* You punish the powerful oppressor; you wrest from avarice and extortion their ill-gotten gold, and you avenge the feeble whom they have despoiled; you compensate the miseries of the poor by the anxieties of the rich; you console the wretched, by opening to him a last asylum from distress; and you give to the soul that just equipoise of strength and sensibility which constitutes wisdom—the true science of life. Aware that all must return to you, the wise man loadeth not himself with the burdens of grandeur and of useless wealth: he restrains his desires within the limits of justice; yet, knowing that he must run his destined course of life, he fills with employment all its hours, and enjoys the comforts that fortune has allotted him. You thus impose on the impetuous sallies of cupidity a salutary rein! you calm the feverish ardor of enjoyments which disturb the senses; you free the soul from the fatiguing conflict of the passions; elevate it above the paltry interests which torment the crowd; and surveying, from your commanding position, the expanse of ages and nations, the mind is only accessible to the great affections—to the solid ideas of virtue and of glory.
* The cathedral of St. Denis is the tomb of the kings ofFrance; and it was because the towers of that edifice areseen from the Castle of St. Germain, that Louis XIV. quittedthat admirable residence, and established a new one in thesavage forests of Versailles.(This note, like many others, has been omitted from theAmerican editions. It seems pertinent to the subject, andis explanatory of the text.—Pub.)
Ah! when the dream of life is over, what will then avail all its agitations, if not one trace of utility remains behind?
O Ruins! to your school I will return! I will seek again the calm of your solitudes; and there, far from the afflicting spectacle of the passions, I will cherish in remembrance the love of man, I will employ myself on the means of effecting good for him, and build my own happiness on the promotion of his.
THE RUINS OF EMPIRES.
In the eleventh year of the reign of Abd-ul-Hamid, son of Ahmid, emperor of the Turks; when the Nogais-Tartars were driven from the Crimea, and a Mussulman prince of the blood of Gengis-Kahn became the vassal and guard of a Christian woman and queen,* I was travelling in the Ottoman dominions, and through those provinces which were anciently the kingdoms of Egypt and Syria.
* In the eleventh year of Abd-ul-Hamid, that is 1784 of theChristian era, and 1198 of the Hegira. The emigration ofthe Tartars took place in March, immediately on themanifesto of the empress, declaring the Crimea to beincorporated with Russia. The Mussulman prince of the bloodof Gengis-khan was Chahin-Guerai. Gengis-Khan was borne andserved by the kings whom he conquered: Chahin, on thecontrary, after selling his country for a pension of eightythousand roubles, accepted the commission of captain ofguards to Catherine II. He afterwards returned home, andaccording to custom was strangled by the Turks.
My whole attention bent on whatever concerns the happiness of man in a social state, I visited cities, and studied the manners of their inhabitants; entered palaces, and observed the conduct of those who govern; wandered over fields, and examined the condition of those who cultivated them: and nowhere perceiving aught but robbery and devastation, tyranny and wretchedness, my heart was oppressed with sorrow and indignation.
I saw daily on my road fields abandoned, villages deserted, and cities in ruin. Often I met with ancient monuments, wrecks of temples, palaces and fortresses, columns, aqueducts and tombs. This spectacle led me to meditate on times past, and filled my mind with contemplations the most serious and profound.
Arrived at the city of Hems, on the border of the Orontes, and being in the neighborhood of Palmyra of the desert, I resolved to visit its celebrated ruins. After three days journeying through arid deserts, having traversed the Valley of Caves and Sepulchres, on issuing into the plain, I was suddenly struck with a scene of the most stupendous ruins—a countless multitude of superb columns, stretching in avenues beyond the reach of sight. Among them were magnificent edifices, some entire, others in ruins; the earth every where strewed with fragments of cornices, capitals, shafts, entablatures, pilasters, all of white marble, and of the most exquisite workmanship. After a walk of three-quarters of an hour along these ruins, I entered the enclosure of a vast edifice, formerly a temple dedicated to the Sun; and accepting the hospitality of some poor Arabian peasants, who had built their hovels on the area of the temple, I determined to devote some days to contemplate at leisure the beauty of these stupendous ruins.
Daily I visited the monuments which covered the plain; and one evening, absorbed in reflection, I had advanced to the Valley of Sepulchres. I ascended the heights which surround it from whence the eye commands the whole group of ruins and the immensity of the desert. The sun had sunk below the horizon: a red border of light still marked his track behind the distant mountains of Syria; the full-orbed moon was rising in the east, on a blue ground, over the plains of the Euphrates; the sky was clear, the air calm and serene; the dying lamp of day still softened the horrors of approaching darkness; the refreshing night breezes attempered the sultry emanations from the heated earth; the herdsmen had given their camels to repose, the eye perceived no motion on the dusky and uniform plain; profound silence rested on the desert; the howlings only of the jackal,* and the solemn notes of the bird of night, were heard at distant intervals. Darkness now increased, and through the dusk could only be discerned the pale phantasms of columns and walls. The solitude of the place, the tranquillity of the hour, the majesty of the scene, impressed on my mind a religious pensiveness. The aspect of a great city deserted, the memory of times past, compared with its present state, all elevated my mind to high contemplations. I sat on the shaft of a column, my elbow reposing on my knee, and head reclining on my hand, my eyes fixed, sometimes on the desert, sometimes on the ruins, and fell into a profound reverie.
* An animal resembling a dog and a fox. It preys on othersmall animals, and upon the bodies of the dead on the fieldof battle. It is the Canis aureus of Linnaeus.
Here, said I, once flourished an opulent city; here was the seat of a powerful empire. Yes! these places now so wild and desolate, were once animated by a living multitude; a busy crowd thronged in these streets, now so solitary. Within these walls, where now reigns the silence of death, the noise of the arts, and the shouts of joy and festivity incessantly resounded; these piles of marble were regular palaces; these fallen columns adorned the majesty of temples; these ruined galleries surrounded public places. Here assembled a numerous people for the sacred duties of their religion, and the anxious cares of their subsistence; here industry, parent of enjoyments, collected the riches of all climes, and the purple of Tyre was exchanged for the precious thread of Serica;* the soft tissues of Cassimere for the sumptuous tapestry of Lydia; the amber of the Baltic for the pearls and perfumes of Arabia; the gold of Ophir for the tin of Thule.
* The precious thread of Serica.—That is, the silkoriginally derived from the mountainous country where thegreat wall terminates, and which appears to have been thecradle of the Chinese empire. The tissues of Cassimere.—The shawls which Ezekiel seems to have described under theappellation of Choud-choud. The gold of Ophir.—Thiscountry, which was one of the twelve Arab cantons, and whichhas so much and so unsuccessfully been sought for by theantiquarians, has left, however, some trace of itself inOfor, in the province of Oman, upon the Persian Gulf,neighboring on one side to the Sabeans, who are celebratedby Strabo for their abundance of gold, and on the other toAula or Hevila, where the pearl fishery was carried on. Seethe 27th chapter of Ezekiel, which gives a very curious andextensive picture of the commerce of Asia at that period.
And now behold what remains of this powerful city: a miserable skeleton! What of its vast domination: a doubtful and obscure remembrance! To the noisy concourse which thronged under these porticoes, succeeds the solitude of death. The silence of the grave is substituted for the busy hum of public places; the affluence of a commercial city is changed into wretched poverty; the palaces of kings have become a den of wild beasts; flocks repose in the area of temples, and savage reptiles inhabit the sanctuary of the gods. Ah! how has so much glory been eclipsed? how have so many labors been annihilated? Do thus perish then the works of men—thus vanish empires and nations?
And the history of former times revived in my mind; I remembered those ancient ages when many illustrious nations inhabited these countries; I figured to myself the Assyrian on the banks of the Tygris, the Chaldean on the banks of the Euphrates, the Persian reigning from the Indus to the Mediterranean. I enumerated the kingdoms of Damascus and Idumea, of Jerusalem and Samaria, the warlike states of the Philistines, and the commercial republics of Phoenicia. This Syria, said I, now so depopulated, then contained a hundred flourishing cities, and abounded with towns, villages, and hamlets.* In all parts were seen cultivated fields, frequented roads, and crowded habitations. Ah! whither have flown those ages of life and abundance?—whither vanished those brilliant creations of human industry? Where are those ramparts of Nineveh, those walls of Babylon, those palaces of Persepolis, those temples of Balbec and of Jerusalem? Where are those fleets of Tyre, those dock-yards of Arad, those work-shops of Sidon, and that multitude of sailors, of pilots, of merchants, and of soldiers? Where those husbandmen, harvests, flocks, and all the creation of living beings in which the face of the earth rejoiced? Alas! I have passed over this desolate land! I have visited the palaces, once the scene of so much splendor, and I beheld nothing but solitude and desolation. I sought the ancient inhabitants and their works, and found nothing but a trace, like the foot-prints of a traveller over the sand. The temples are fallen, the palaces overthrown, the ports filled up, the cities destroyed; and the earth, stripped of inhabitants, has become a place of sepulchres. Great God! whence proceed such fatal revolutions? What causes have so changed the fortunes of these countries? Wherefore are so many cities destroyed? Why has not this ancient population been reproduced and perpetuated?
* According to Josephus and Strabo, there were in Syriatwelve millions of souls, and the traces that remain ofculture and habitation confirm the calculation.
Thus absorbed in meditation, a crowd of new reflections continually poured in upon my mind. Every thing, continued I, bewilders my judgment, and fills my heart with trouble and uncertainty. When these countries enjoyed what constitutes the glory and happiness of man, they were inhabited by infidel nations: It was the Phoenician, offering human sacrifices to Moloch, who gathered into his stores the riches of all climates; it was the Chaldean, prostrate before his serpent-god,* who subjugated opulent cities, laid waste the palaces of kings, and despoiled the temples of the gods; it was the Persian, worshipper of fire, who received the tribute of a hundred nations; they were the inhabitants of this very city, adorers of the sun and stars, who erected so many monuments of prosperity and luxury. Numerous herds, fertile fields, abundant harvests—whatsoever should be the reward of piety—was in the hands of these idolaters. And now, when a people of saints and believers occupy these fields, all is become sterility and solitude. The earth, under these holy hands, produces only thorns and briers. Man soweth in anguish, and reapeth tears and cares. War, famine, pestilence, assail him by turns. And yet, are not these the children of the prophets? The Mussulman, Christian, Jew, are they not the elect children of God, loaded with favors and miracles? Why, then, do these privileged races no longer enjoy the same advantages? Why are these fields, sanctified by the blood of martyrs, deprived of their ancient fertility? Why have those blessings been banished hence, and transferred for so many ages to other nations and different climes?
* The dragon Bell.
At these words, revolving in my mind the vicissitudes which have transmitted the sceptre of the world to people so different in religion and manners from those in ancient Asia to the most recent of Europe, this name of a natal land revived in me the sentiment of my country; and turning my eyes towards France, I began to reflect on the situation in which I had left her.*
* In the year 1782, at the close of the American war.
I recalled her fields so richly cultivated, her roads so admirably constructed, her cities inhabited by a countless people, her fleets spread over every sea, her ports filled with the produce of both the Indies: and then comparing the activity of her commerce, the extent of her navigation, the magnificence of her buildings, the arts and industry of her inhabitants, with what Egypt and Syria had once possessed, I was gratified to find in modern Europe the departed splendor of Asia; but the charm of my reverie was soon dissolved by a last term of comparison. Reflecting that such had once been the activity of the places I was then contemplating, who knows, said I, but such may one day be the abandonment of our countries? Who knows if on the banks of the Seine, the Thames, the Zuyder-Zee, where now, in the tumult of so many enjoyments, the heart and the eye suffice not for the multitude of sensations,—who knows if some traveller, like myself, shall not one day sit on their silent ruins, and weep in solitude over the ashes of their inhabitants, and the memory of their former greatness.
At these words, my eyes filled with tears: and covering my head with the fold of my mantle, I sank into gloomy meditations on all human affairs. Ah! hapless man, said I in my grief, a blind fatality sports with thy destiny!* A fatal necessity rules with the hand of chance the lot of mortals! But no: it is the justice of heaven fulfilling its decrees!—a God of mystery exercising his incomprehensible judgments! Doubtless he has pronounced a secret anathema against this land: blasting with maledictions the present, for the sins of past generations. Oh! who shall dare to fathom the depths of the Omnipotent?
* Fatality is the universal and rooted prejudice of theEast. "It was written," is there the answer to every thing.Hence result an unconcern and apathy, the most powerfulimpediments to instruction and civilization.
And sunk in profound melancholy, I remained motionless.
While thus absorbed, a sound struck my ear, like the agitation of a flowing robe, or that of slow footsteps on dry and rustling grass. Startled, I opened my mantle, and looking about with fear and trembling, suddenly, on my left, by the glimmering light of the moon, through the columns and ruins of a neighboring temple, I thought I saw an apparition, pale, clothed in large and flowing robes, such as spectres are painted rising from their tombs. I shuddered: and while agitated and hesitating whether to fly or to advance toward the object, a distinct voice, in solemn tones, pronounced these words:
How long will man importune heaven with unjust complaint? How long, with vain clamors, will he accuse Fate as the author of his calamities? Will he forever shut his eyes to the light, and his heart to the admonitions of truth and reason? The light of truth meets him everywhere; yet he sees it not! The voice of reason strikes his ear; and he hears it not! Unjust man! if for a moment thou canst suspend the delusion which fascinates thy senses, if thy heart can comprehend the language of reason, interrogate these ruins! Read the lessons which they present to thee! And you, evidences of twenty centuries, holy temples! venerable tombs! walls once so glorious, appear in the cause of nature herself! Approach the tribunal of sound reason, and bear testimony against unjust accusations! Come and confound the declamations of a false wisdom or hypocritical piety, and avenge the heavens and the earth of man who calumniates them both!
What is that blind fatality, which without order and without law, sports with the destiny of mortals? What is that unjust necessity, which confounds the effect of actions, whether of wisdom or of folly? In what consist the anathemas of heaven over this land? Where is that divine malediction which perpetuates the abandonment of these fields? Say, monuments of past ages! have the heavens changed their laws and the earth its motion? Are the fires of the sun extinct in the regions of space? Do the seas no longer emit their vapors? Are the rains and the dews suspended in the air? Do the mountains withhold their springs? Are the streams dried up? And do the plants no longer bear fruit and seed? Answer, generation of falsehood and iniquity, hath God deranged the primitive and settled order of things which he himself assigned to nature? Hath heaven denied to earth, and earth to its inhabitants, the blessings they formerly dispensed? If nothing hath changed in the creation, if the same means now exist which before existed, why then are not the present what former generations were? Ah! it is falsely that you accuse fate and heaven! it is unjustly that you accuse God as the cause of your evils! Say, perverse and hypocritical race! if these places are desolate, if these powerful cities are reduced to solitude, is it God who has caused their ruin? Is it his hand which has overthrown these walls, destroyed these temples, mutilated these columns, or is it the hand of man? Is it the arm of God which has carried the sword into your cities, and fire into your fields, which has slaughtered the people, burned the harvests, rooted up trees, and ravaged the pastures, or is it the hand of man? And when, after the destruction of crops, famine has ensued, is it the vengeance of God which has produced it, or the mad fury of mortals? When, sinking under famine, the people have fed on impure aliments, if pestilence ensues, is it the wrath of God which sends it, or the folly of man? When war, famine and pestilence, have swept away the inhabitants, if the earth remains a desert, is it God who has depopulated it? Is it his rapacity which robs the husbandman, ravages the fruitful fields, and wastes the earth, or is it the rapacity of those who govern? Is it his pride which excites murderous wars, or the pride of kings and their ministers? Is it the venality of his decisions which overthrows the fortunes of families, or the corruption of the organs of the law? Are they his passions which, under a thousand forms, torment individuals and nations, or are they the passions of man? And if, in the anguish of their miseries, they see not the remedies, is it the ignorance of God which is to blame, or their ignorance? Cease then, mortals, to accuse the decrees of Fate, or the judgments of the Divinity! If God is good, will he be the author of your misery? If he is just, will he be the accomplice of your crimes? No, the caprice of which man complains is not the caprice of fate; the darkness that misleads his reason is not the darkness of God; the source of his calamities is not in the distant heavens, it is beside him on the earth; it is not concealed in the bosom of the divinity; it dwells within himself, he bears it in his own heart.
Thou murmurest and sayest: What! have an infidel people then enjoyed the blessings of heaven and earth? Are the holy people of God less fortunate than the races of impiety? Deluded man! where then is the contradiction which offends thee? Where is the inconsistency which thou imputest to the justice of heaven? Take into thine own hands the balance of rewards and punishments, of causes and effects. Say: when these infidels observed the laws of the heavens and the earth, when they regulated well-planned labors by the order of the seasons and the course of the stars, should the Almighty have disturbed the equilibrium of the universe to defeat their prudence? When their hands cultivated these fields with toil and care, should he have diverted the course of the rains, suspended the refreshing dews, and planted crops of thorns? When, to render these arid fields productive, their industry constructed aqueducts, dug canals, and led the distant waters across the desert, should he have dried up their sources in the mountains? Should he have blasted the harvests which art had nourished, wasted the plains which peace had peopled, overthrown cities which labor had created, or disturbed the order established by the wisdom of man? And what is that infidelity which founded empires by its prudence, defended them by its valor, and strengthened them by its justice—which built powerful cities, formed capacious ports, drained pestilential marshes, covered the ocean with ships, the earth with inhabitants; and, like the creative spirit, spread life and motion throughout the world? If such be infidelity, what then is the true faith? Doth sanctity consist in destruction? The God who peoples the air with birds, the earth with animals, the waters with fishes—the God who animates all nature—is he then a God of ruins and tombs? Demands he devastation for homage, and conflagration for sacrifice? Requires he groans for hymns, murderers for votaries, a ravaged and desolate earth for his temple? Behold then, holy and believing people, what are your works! behold the fruits of your piety! You have massacred the people, burned their cities, destroyed cultivation, reduced the earth to a solitude; and you ask the reward of your works! Miracles then must be performed! The people whom you extirpated must be recalled to life, the walls rebuilt which you have overthrown, the harvests reproduced which you have destroyed, the waters regathered which you have dispersed; the laws, in fine, of heaven and earth reversed; those laws, established by God himself, in demonstration of his magnificence and wisdom; those eternal laws, anterior to all codes, to all the prophets those immutable laws, which neither the passions nor the ignorance of man can pervert. But that passion which mistaketh, that ignorance which observeth neither causes nor effects, hath said in its folly: "All things flow from chance; a blind fatality poureth out good and evil upon the earth; success is not to the prudent, nor felicity to the wise;" or, assuming the language of hypocrisy, she hath said, "all things are from God; he taketh pleasure in deceiving wisdom and confounding reason." And Ignorance, applauding herself in her malice, hath said, "thus will I place myself on a par with that science which confounds me—thus will I excel that prudence which fatigues and torments me." And Avarice hath added: "I will oppress the weak, and devour the fruits of his labors; and I will say, it is fate which hath so ordained." But I! I swear by the laws of heaven and earth, and by the law which is written in the heart of man, that the hypocrite shall be deceived in his cunning—the oppressor in his rapacity! The sun shall change his course, before folly shall prevail over wisdom and knowledge, or ignorance surpass prudence, in the noble and sublime art of procuring to man his true enjoyments, and of building his happiness on an enduring foundation.
Thus spoke the Phantom. Confused with this discourse, and my heart agitated with different reflections, I remained long in silence. At length, taking courage, I thus addressed him: Oh, Genius of tombs and ruins! Thy presence, thy severity, hath disordered my senses; but the justice of thy discourse restoreth confidence to my soul. Pardon my ignorance. Alas, if man is blind, shall his misfortune be also his crime? I may have mistaken the voice of reason; but never, knowingly, have I rejected its authority. Ah! if thou readest my heart, thou knowest with what enthusiasm it seeketh truth. Is it not in its pursuit that thou seest me in this sequestered spot? Alas! I have wandered over the earth, I have visited cities and countries; and seeing everywhere misery and desolation, a sense of the evils which afflict my fellow men hath deeply oppressed my soul. I have said, with a sigh: is man then born but for sorrow and anguish? And I have meditated upon human misery that I might discover a remedy. I have said, I will separate myself from the corruption of society; I will retire far from palaces where the mind is depraved by satiety and from the hovel where it is debased by misery. I will go into the desert and dwell among ruins; I will interrogate ancient monuments on the wisdom of past ages; I will invoke from the bosom of the tombs the spirit which once in Asia gave splendor to states, and glory to nations; I will ask of the ashes of legislators, by what secret causes do empires rise and fall; from what sources spring the Prosperity and misfortunes of nations, on what principles can the Peace of Society, and the happiness of man be established?
I ceased, and with submissive look awaited the answer of the Genius.
Peace and happiness, said he, attend those who practice justice! Since thy heart, O mortal, with sincerity seeketh truth; since thine eyes can still recognize her through the mist of prejudice, thy prayer shall not be in vain. I will unfold to thy view that truth thou invokest; I will teach thy reason that knowledge thou seekest; I will reveal to thee the science of ages and the wisdom of the tombs.
Then approaching and laying his hand on my head, he said:
Rise, mortal, and extricate thy senses from the dust in which thou movest.
Suddenly a celestial flame seemed to dissolve the bands which held us to the earth; and, like a light vapor, borne on the wings of the Genius, I felt myself wafted to the regions above. Thence, from the aerial heights, looking down upon the earth, I perceived a scene altogether new. Under my feet, floating in the void, a globe like that of the moon, but smaller and less luminous, presented to me one of its phases; and that phase* had the aspect of a disk varigated with large spots, some white and nebulous, others brown, green or gray, and while I strained my sight to distinguish what they were, the Genius exclaimed:
* See Plate representing half the terrestrial globe,opposite page 10.
Disciple of Truth, knowest thou that object?
O Genius, answered I, if I did not see the moon in another quarter of the heavens, I should have supposed that to be her globe. It has the appearance of that planet seen through the telescope during the obscuration of an eclipse. These varigated spots might be mistaken for seas and continents.
They are seas and continents, said he, and those of the very hemisphere which you inhabit.
What! said I, is that the earth—the habitation of man?
Yes, replied he, that brown space which occupies irregularly a great portion of the disk, and envelops it almost on every side, is what you call the great ocean, which advancing from the south pole towards the equator, forms first the great gulf of India and Africa, then extends eastward across the Malay islands to the confines of Tartary, while towards the west it encircles the continents of Africa and of Europe, even to the north of Asia.
That square peninsula under our feet is the arid country of the Arabs; the great continent on its left, almost as naked in its interior, with a little verdure only towards its borders, is the parched soil inhabited by black-men.* To the north, beyond a long, narrow and irregular sea,** are the countries of Europe, rich in meadows and cultivated fields. On its right, from the Caspian Sea, extend the snowy and naked plains of Tartary. Returning in this direction that white space is the vast and barren desert of Cobi, which separates China from the rest of the world. You see that empire in the furrowed plain which obliquely rounds itself off from our sight. On yonder coasts, those ragged tongues of land and scattered points are the peninsulas and islands of the Malays, the wretched possessors of the spices and perfumes. That triangle which advances so far into the sea, is the too famous peninsula of India.*** You see the winding course of the Ganges, the rough mountains of Thibet, the lovely valley of Cachemere, the briny deserts of Persia, the banks of the Euphrates and Tygris, the deep bed of the Jordan and the canals of the solitary Nile.
* Africa.** The Mediterranean.*** Of what real good has been the commerce of India to themass of the people? On the contrary, how great the eviloccasioned by the superstition of this country having beenadded the general superstition!
O Genius, said I, interrupting him, the sight of a mortal reaches not to objects at such a distance. He touched my eyes, and immediately they became piercing as those of an eagle; nevertheless the rivers still appeared like waving lines, the mountains winding furrows, and the cities little compartments like the squares of a chess-board.
And the Genius proceeded to enumerate and point out the objects to me: Those piles of ruins, said he, which you see in that narrow valley watered by the Nile, are the remains of opulent cities, the pride of the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia.* Behold the wrecks of her metropolis, of Thebes with her hundred palaces,** the parent of cities, and monument of the caprice of destiny. There a people, now forgotten, discovered, while others were yet barbarians, the elements of the arts and sciences. A race of men now rejected from society for their sable skin and frizzled hair, founded on the study of the laws of nature, those civil and religious systems which still govern the universe. Lower down, those dusky points are the pyramids whose masses have astonished you. Beyond that, the coast, hemmed in between the sea and a narrow ridge of mountains, was the habitation of the Phoenicians. These were the famous cities of Tyre, of Sidon, of Ascalon, of Gaza, and of Berytus. That thread of water with no outlet, is the river Jordan; and those naked rocks were once the theatre of events that have resounded throughout the world. Behold that desert of Horeb, and that Mount Sinai; where, by means beyond vulgar reach, a genius, profound and bold, established institutions which have weighed on the whole human race. On that dry shore which borders it, you perceive no longer any trace of splendor; yet there was an emporium of riches. There were those famous Ports of Idumea, whence the fleets of Phoenicia and Judea, coasting the Arabian peninsula, went into the Persian gulf, to seek there the pearls of Hevila, the gold of Saba and of Ophir. Yes, there on that coast of Oman and of Barhain was the seat of that commerce of luxuries, which, by its movements and revolutions, fixed the destinies of ancient nations.*** Thither came the spices and precious stones of Ceylon, the shawls of Cassimere, the diamonds of Golconda, the amber of Maldivia, the musk of Thibet, the aloes of Cochin, the apes and peacocks of the continent of India, the incense of Hadramaut, the myrrh, the silver, the gold dust and ivory of Africa; thence passing, sometimes by the Red Sea on the vessels of Egypt and Syria, these luxuries nourished successively the wealth of Thebes, of Sidon, of Memphis and of Jerusalem; sometimes, ascending the Tygris and Euphrates, they awakened the activity of the Assyrians, Medes, Chaldeans, and Persians; and that wealth, according to the use or abuse of it, raised or reversed by turns their domination. Hence sprung the magnificence of Persepolis, whose columns you still perceive; of Ecbatana, whose sevenfold wall is destroyed; of Babylon,**** now leveled with the earth; of Nineveh, of which scarce the name remains; of Thapsacus, of Anatho, of Gerra, and of desolated Palmyra. O names for ever glorious! fields of renown! countries of never-dying memory! what sublime lessons doth your aspect offer! what profound truths are written on the surface of your soil! remembrances of times past, return into my mind! places, witnesses of the life of man in so many different ages, retrace for me the revolutions of his fortune! say, what were their springs and secret causes! say, from what sources he derived success and disgrace! unveil to himself the causes of his evils! correct him by the spectacle of his errors! teach him the wisdom which belongeth to him, and let the experience of past ages become a means of instruction, and a germ of happiness to present and future generations.
* In the new Encyclopedia 3rd vol. Antiquities is publisheda memoir, respecting the chronology of the twelve agesanterior to the passing of Xerxes into Greece, in which Iconceive myself to have proved that upper Egypt formerlycomposed a distinct kingdom known to the Hebrews by the nameof Kous and to which the appellation of Ethiopia wasspecially given. This kingdom preserved its independence tothe time of Psammeticus; at which period, being united tothe Lower Egypt, it lost its name of Ethiopia, whichthenceforth was bestowed upon the nations of Nubia and uponthe different tribes of blacks, including Thebes, theirmetropolis.** The idea of a city with a hundred gates, in the commonacceptation of the word, is so absurd, that I am astonishedthe equivoque has not before been felt.It has ever been the custom of the East to call palaces andhouses of the great by the name of gates, because theprincipal luxury of these buildings consists in the singulargate leading from the street into the court, at the farthestextremity of which the palace is situated. It is under thevestibule of this gate that conversation is held withpassengers, and a sort of audience and hospitality given.All this was doubtless known to Homer; but poets make nocommentaries, and readers love the marvellous.This city of Thebes, now Lougsor, reduced to the conditionof a miserable village, has left astonishing monuments ofits magnificence. Particulars of this may be seen in theplates of Norden, in Pocock, and in the recent travels ofBruce. These monuments give credibility to all that Homerhas related of its splendor, and lead us to infer itspolitical power and external commerce.Its geographical position was favorable to this twofoldobject. For, on one side, the valley of the Nile, singularlyfertile, must have early occasioned a numerous population;and, on the other, the Red Sea, giving communication withArabia and India, and the Nile with Abyssinia and theMediterranean, Thebes was thus naturally allied to therichest countries on the globe; an alliance that procured itan activity so much the greater, as Lower Egypt, at first aswamp, was nearly, if not totally, uninhabited. But when atlength this country had been drained by the canals and dikeswhich Sesostris constructed, population was introducedthere, and wars arose which proved fatal to the power ofThebes. Commerce then took another route, and descended tothe point of the Red Sea, to the canals of Sesostris (seeStrabo), and wealth and activity were transferred toMemphis. This is manifestly what Diodorus means when hetells us (lib. i. sect. 2), that as soon as Memphis wasestablished and made a wholesome and delicious abode, kingsabandoned Thebes to fix themselves there. Thus Thebescontinued to decline, and Memphis to flourish, till the timeof Alexander, who, building Alexandria on the border of thesea, caused Memphis to fall in its turn; so that prosperityand power seem to have descended historically step by stepalong the Nile; whence it results, both physically andhistorically, that the existence of Thebes was prior to thatof the other cities. The testimony of writers is verypositive in this respect. "The Thebans," says Diodorus,"consider themselves as the most ancient people of theearth, and assert, that with them originated philosophy andthe science of the stars. Their situation, it is true, isinfinitely favorable to astronomical observation, and theyhave a more accurate division of time into mouths and yearsthan other nations" etc.What Diodorus says of the Thebans, every author, and himselfelsewhere, repeat of the Ethiopians, which tends more firmlyto establish the identity of this place of which I havespoken. "The Ethiopians conceive themselves," says he, lib.iii., "to be of greater antiquity than any other nation: andit is probable that, born under the sun's path, its warmthmay have ripened them earlier than other men. They supposethemselves also to be the inventors of divine worship, offestivals, of solemn assemblies, of sacrifices, and everyother religious practice. They affirm that the Egyptiansare one of their colonies, and that the Delta, which wasformerly sea, became land by the conglomeration of the earthof the higher country which was washed down by the Nile.They have, like the Egyptians, two species of letters,hieroglyphics, and the alphabet; but among the Egyptians thefirst was known only to the priests, and by them transmittedfrom father to son, whereas both species were common amongthe Ethiopians.""The Ethiopians," says Lucian, page 985, "were the first whoinvented the science of the stars, and gave names to theplanets, not at random and without meaning, but descriptiveof the qualities which they conceived them to possess; andit was from them that this art passed, still in an imperfectstate, to the Egyptians."It would be easy to multiply citations upon this subject;from all which it follows, that we have the strongestreasons to believe that the country neighboring to thetropic was the cradle of the sciences, and of consequencethat the first learned nation was a nation of Blacks; for itis incontrovertible, that, by the term Ethiopians, theancients meant to represent a people of black complexion,thick lips, and woolly hair. I am therefore inclined tobelieve, that the inhabitants of Lower Egypt were originallya foreign colony imported from Syria and Arabia, a medley ofdifferent tribes of savages, originally shepherds andfishermen, who, by degrees formed themselves into a nation,and who, by nature and descent, were enemies of the Thebans,by whom they were no doubt despised and treated asbarbarians.I have suggested the same ideas in my Travels into Syria,founded upon the black complexion of the Sphinx. I havesince ascertained that the antique images of Thebias havethe same characteristic; and Mr. Bruce has offered amultitude of analogous facts; but this traveller, of whom Iheard some mention at Cairo, has so interwoven these factswith certain systematic opinions, that we should haverecourse to his narratives with caution.It is singular that Africa, situated so near us, should bethe least known country on the earth. The English are atthis moment making explorations, the success of which oughtto excite our emulation.*** Ailah (Eloth), and Atsiom-Gaber (Hesien-Geber.) Thename of the first of these towns still subsists in itsruins, at the point of the gulf of the Red Sea, and in theroute which the pilgrims take to Mecca. Hesion has atpresent no trace, any more than Quolzoum and Faran: it was,however, the harbor for the fleets of Solomon. The vesselsof this prince conducted by the Tyrians, sailed along thecoast of Arabia to Ophir, in the Persian Gulf, thus openinga communication with the merchants of India and Ceylon.That this navigation was entirely of Tyrian invention,appears both from the pilots and shipbuilders employed bythe Jews, and the names that were given to the tradingislands, viz. Tyrus and Aradus, now Barhain. The voyage wasperformed in two different modes, either in canoes of osierand rushes, covered on the outside with skins done over withpitch: (these vessels were unable to quit the Red Sea, or somuch as to leave the shore.) The second mode of carrying onthe trade was by means of vessels with decks of the size ofour river boats, which were able to pass the strait and toweather the dangers of time ocean; but for this purpose itwas necessary to bring the wood from Mount Libanus andCilicia, where it is very fine and in great abundance. Thiswood was first conveyed in floats from Tarsus to Phoenicia,for which reason the vessels were called ships of Tarsus;from whence it has been ridiculously inferred, that theywent round the promontory of Africa as far as Tortosa inSpain. From Phoenicia it was transported on the backs ofcamels to the Red Sea, which practice still continues,because the shores of this sea are absolutely unprovidedwith wood even for fuel. These vessels spent a completeyear in their voyage, that is, sailed one year, sojournedanother, and did not return till the third. Thistediousness was owing first to their cruising from port toport, as they do at present; secondly, to their beingdetained by the Monsoon currents; and thirdly, because,according to the calculations of Pliny and Strabo, it wasthe ordinary practice among the ancients to spend threeyears in a voyage of twelve hundred leagues. Such acommerce must have been very expensive, particularly as theywere obliged to carry with them their provisions, and evenfresh water. For this reason Solomon made himself master ofPalmyra, which was at that time inhabited, and was alreadythe magazine and high road of merchants by the way of theEuphrates. This conquest brought Solomon much nearer to thecountry of gold and pearls. This alternative of a routeeither by the Red Sea or by the river Euphrates was to theancients, what in later times has been the alternative in avoyage to the Indies, either by crossing the isthmus of Suezor doubling the cape of Good Hope. It appears that till thetime of Moses, this trade was carried on across the desertof Syria and Thebais; that afterwards it fell into the handsof the Phoenicians, who fixed its site upon the Red Sea; andthat it was mutual jealousy that induced the kings ofNineveh and Babylon to undertake the destruction of Tyre andJerusalem. I insist the more upon these facts, because Ihave never seen any thing reasonable upon the subject.**** It appears that Babylon occupied on the eastern banksof the Euphrates a space of ground six leagues in length.Throughout this space bricks are found by means of whichdaily additions are made to the town of Helle. Upon many ofthese are characters written with a nail similar to those ofPersepolis. I am indebted for these facts to M. deBeauchamp, grand vicar of Babylon, a traveller equallydistinguished for his knowledge of astronomy and for hisveracity.