Men with families who wish to luxuriate in the enjoyments of life, but whose limited means of from £200 to £300 per annum restrict them, should emigrate to Lebanon and to Syria. There they might build themselves palaces, have parks stocked with gazelles and deer, the choicest orchard of fruit, a stable not to be surpassed by potentates of Europe, summer-houses, and dogs, and guns, and other requisites for shooting and coursing parties; a summer residence near the seaside, and a yacht to pleasure in whithersoever they might choose, or whither the whim of the moment might lead them.
Finally, if Englishmen would only emigrate to Syria, and establish a small colony there, then the uninitiated natives would be enabled to form some estimate of their character as a nation; and, above all, would discover, that they, like themselves, are Church-goers, strictly observant of the sabbath, possessing ordained bishops, priests, and deacons,—acknowledging the efficacy of the Sacraments, and a people really good, and believers in the Gospel, in lieu of being what they now suppose them to be, a people that mount upon house-tops to pray, because the higher the elevation the nearer they think themselves to God.
If consumptive patients, in the early stage of that most direful malady, were to resort to the milder climate of Syria, there is every hope that, under God’s blessing, they would eventually recover, for, apart from the excellency of the climate, they are there exposed to no sudden changes of heat and cold, no coming out of stifling opera-houses into the chilling night air, no pernicious excitements, nor exhausting late hours.
CHAPTER XVI. SYRIA, HER INHABITANTS, AND THEIR RELIGIONS, CONTINUED.
The desire to benefit my countrymen by an influx of European emigrants has tempted me to wander from the subject of the preceding chapter; to forget the actual inhabitants for a moment, while painting the delights of a residence in Syria to those who can only become so in future. I must now proceed with my survey of the different races of people who inhabit the country, and I shall endeavour to make this sketch of their peculiarly national and religious characteristics as clear as possible.