The resources of Syria are inexhaustible if only properly developed. The trade in wine may rival that of Spain, Portugal, or France; the grapes are beautiful, and if they were only properly selected, and proper means taken to secure a good wine in this country, neither in Europe nor Asia is there greater facility for establishing an extensive and lucrative trade in this one department than in Syria and Palestine? The fruits are delicious; and those grown in the open air and without any trouble, rival in flavour, quality, and quantity, those of any other country, where the greatest pains are taken and great expense incurred to accomplish this. Then, again, the articles of tobacco, wheat, wool, etc., and innumerable other articles; madder root, the beautiful dyes of Syria (the Tyrian dye is not known now); one and all may, if properly cultivated and brought into the English market, rival its imports from all other parts of the world. The immense plains could, with very little outlay or labour, give us wheat and wool, indeed supply all the world; and Syria will, I hope, yet, at no remote period, become the granary of the west.
The white wool of Scripture was up to a late period partially grown in the country around the Euphrates; and, as is suggested by Dr. Thompson in the articles already adverted to in the Colonial and Asiatic Magazine, when an improved breed of sheep from English colonies, Spain, etc., shall be introduced into Syria, we may expect to supply with its resources the markets now chiefly furnished with wool from America, Australia, Germany, etc.
CHAPTER XXI. THE COMPARATIVE INFLUENCES OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT FAITHS IN SYRIA.