employed her time and means in buying land and cultivating it, introducing useful arts, etc., then her memento would have been lasting, and the boon conferred handed down from generation to generation. Mr. Barker’s and Col. Churchill’s estates flourish, and will continue to flourish through many years to come.
The better sorts of peaches and grapes, besides a variety of rare Indian and American fruits, which have been introduced by English philanthropists, all serve to remind the Syrians of the kind friends who brought them to the country; and many who have risen from obscurity into comparative independence, hourly bless the good men whose hands showered these benefits upon them. It would be in the power, more or less, of every Englishman emigrating to Syria, to confer a lasting benefit upon the natives through the introduction of a better method than they possess of cultivating the ground, etc.; while a blacksmith, a skilful carpenter, and a good mason, would prove invaluable acquisitions; and an industrious farmer might initiate them into the art of making wholesome cheese, in lieu of the hard, unpalatable stuff that now bears that name. These would be the greatest of boons to the Syrians; and though naturally a slow people, unwilling to deviate from old customs and habits which have been handed down to them from generation to generation, still the successful working of any newly introduced system, affording them incontrovertible proofs of its yielding a better profit, would very soon induce the natives to follow the example of their more civilised neighbours.
The advantages to be derived from emigrating to Syria are manifold; but first amongst these let me class, what to a patriotic Englishman must be a pleasant thought, the comparative vicinity of this country to his
native land. Thousands of people are content to be cooped up for months in a close confined vessel, exposed to all the hardships and sufferings of a long sea-voyage, and subjected to the expenses of passage-money and outfit, with the almost certainty before them, even if they succeed beyond their most sanguine wishes, of being exiled from their country for ten or a dozen years. I do not now allude to those shoals that are flocking over to Australia, tempted from home by the immense wealth of the Gold-diggings; nor to the possibility of these Gold-diggings being very speedily inundated with people who may, when too late, bitterly lament the rashness of their proceedings; neither will I advert to the possibility of mines being discovered even in so neglected a country as Syria. Some are already known; and even copper and iron also exist. In Arabia, mountains of turquoise exist, specimens of which were exhibited at the Exhibition, and gained a prize, by Major C. R. Macdonald, who had also the honour of presenting the Queen with a pair of magnificent bracelets. I am arguing with that class of men who emigrate simply because they can find no occupation for their professional labours at home. Yet not one out of these thousands has moral courage to emigrate to Syria, where, if they proceed by a steamer, their outfit and passage-money would amount to about one-half the expense incurred in going to Australia,—the passage barely exceeding a fortnight, and that passage, if the season is well chosen, performed in the height of summer, with hardly a squall to ruffle the placid waters of the Mediterranean. Here, then, at the very outset, is a saving of at least one-half of the expense which must be incurred in going to Australia.
We will now suppose our emigrant arrived in Syria,
with some surplus cash in his pocket; he here converts each golden sovereign into more than one hundred piastres, and he must be a spendthrift indeed if he cannot live well and comfortably for ten piastres per day, or at the rate of four sovereigns a month. In this interval he has had enough time to look about him, and determine upon the town or position in which he intends fixing his abode; and he has had also, during this short period, the satisfaction of writing to his friends at home, and of receiving their answers and congratulations on his safe arrival. Listen to this, O ye that would still persist in emigrating to Australia, and remember how many months must elapse ere the happy tidings of your safe arrival and its reply can reach you.
If the emigrant be a farmer he is not long in fixing upon a fit site for the establishment of his farm-house. The immediate neighbourhood of Tripoli, Beyrout, Tyre, Sidon, and Jaffa are best adapted for his purpose, the shipping there and the towns themselves affording an ample market for the consumption of live stock. He will have cheapness to contend against in the sale of cattle and poultry, but the superior quality of what would be produced by a careful farmer, his stall-fed oxen and sheep, and well-fattened poultry, would, amongst Europeans and the wealthiest natives, command eventually a ready and profitable sale. Cyprus would supply him with young turkeys at an average value of about a shilling a head, and with every other species of poultry. If he wished to experimentalise in improving the breed of cattle, he might do so advantageously, not to mention the profits from wool and hides. The one article of cheese alone, in exchange, would be to him a source of certain gain. One half of the inhabitants
subsist for a great portion of the year almost entirely upon this food, wretchedly as it is made by my countrymen.
Should the emigrant be a lover of a cold climate, he can easily fix his abode on the snow-capped pinnacles of Lebanon, where he may enjoy perpetual frost. If another should prefer a milder climate, he can calculate his temperature almost to a nicety, and by carrying a pocket thermometer about with him, go higher or descend lower, as fancy or inclination might prompt. Should he love to luxuriate in heat, he has only to descend to the sea-side, and there he will revel in all the glory of sunshine, glare, and warm land-breezes. Mechanics, etc., would find ready occupation in the very heart of the busiest towns in Syria, and what is more, such is the high repute of English mechanics and artizans amongst the natives of Syria, that even old grey-bearded Mahomedans would gladly apprentice themselves, giving in return their manual labour.
It may be urged, with regard to climate, that the heat of all parts of Syria is too intense to admit of English labourers being employed in the cultivation of the immense tracts of waste land that so abound in various districts. My reply to this is, that both food and labour being extremely cheap in that country, and the produce, whether grain or silk, disposable at an enormous profit in the English markets, the proceeds of such sales would enable the small capitalist to employ sufficient labourers under him; so that, in short, he would be simply a teacher and overseer, managing his own property, and could, in a very few years, afford to have an official in his pay, whilst he himself perhaps might be, with his family, enjoying a cheap jaunt to his own country.