* The precious thread of Serica.—­That is, the silk originally derived from the mountainous country where the great wall terminates, and which appears to have been the cradle of the Chinese empire.  The tissues of Cassimere.—­ The shawls which Ezekiel seems to have described under the appellation of Choud-choud.  The gold of Ophir.—­This country, which was one of the twelve Arab cantons, and which has so much and so unsuccessfully been sought for by the antiquarians, has left, however, some trace of itself in Ofor, in the province of Oman, upon the Persian Gulf, neighboring on one side to the Sabeans, who are celebrated by Strabo for their abundance of gold, and on the other to Aula or Hevila, where the pearl fishery was carried on.  See the 27th chapter of Ezekiel, which gives a very curious and extensive 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,