Antioch is still a beautiful and stately city, and a great center for licorice, raw silk, wheat, and soap. The finest soap is manufactured there. About thirty factories make it, from pure olive oil and daphne oil, the latter giving it a sweet fragrance. The daphne groves are very numerous. The city has excellent orchards and vineyards, orange trees, olive trees, fig trees, yeniduinya trees, palm trees, pomegranate trees. All sorts of fruits, in every season of the year, are fresh on the branches. But for occasional earthquakes, it would be a queen city yet; none could surpass its beauty or fruitfulness.
GEORGE H. FILIAN.
CITY OF ANTIOCH.
Translation of a letter (see opposite page) written in 1842 by the District Catholicos at city of Sis to Kevork Filian (father of the author) in Antioch:
Red Seal of Catholicos.