and found nothing but a trace, like the foot-prints of a traveller over the sand.  The temples are fallen, the palaces overthrown, the ports filled up, the cities destroyed; and the earth, stripped of inhabitants, has become a place of sepulchres.  Great God! whence proceed such fatal revolutions?  What causes have so changed the fortunes of these countries?  Wherefore are so many cities destroyed?  Why has not this ancient population been reproduced and perpetuated?

     * According to Josephus and Strabo, there were in Syria
     twelve millions of souls, and the traces that remain of
     culture and habitation confirm the calculation.

Thus absorbed in meditation, a crowd of new reflections continually poured in upon my mind.  Every thing, continued I, bewilders my judgment, and fills my heart with trouble and uncertainty.  When these countries enjoyed what constitutes the glory and happiness of man, they were inhabited by infidel nations:  It was the Phoenician, offering human sacrifices to Moloch, who gathered into his stores the riches of all climates; it was the Chaldean, prostrate before his serpent-god,* who subjugated opulent cities, laid waste the palaces of kings, and despoiled the temples of the gods; it was the Persian, worshipper of fire, who received the tribute of a hundred nations; they were the inhabitants of this very city, adorers of the sun and stars, who erected so many monuments of prosperity and luxury.  Numerous herds, fertile fields, abundant harvests—­whatsoever should be the reward of piety—­was in the hands of these idolaters.  And now, when a people of saints and believers occupy these fields, all is become sterility and solitude.  The earth, under these holy hands, produces only thorns and briers.  Man soweth in anguish, and reapeth tears and cares.  War, famine, pestilence, assail him by turns.  And yet, are not these the children of the prophets?  The Mussulman, Christian, Jew, are they not the elect children of God, loaded with favors and miracles?  Why, then, do these privileged races no longer enjoy the same advantages?  Why are these fields, sanctified by the blood of martyrs, deprived of their ancient fertility?  Why have those blessings been banished hence, and transferred for so many ages to other nations and different climes?

     * The dragon Bell.

At these words, revolving in my mind the vicissitudes which have transmitted the sceptre of the world to people so different in religion and manners from those in ancient Asia to the most recent of Europe, this name of a natal land revived in me the sentiment of my country; and turning my eyes towards France, I began to reflect on the situation in which I had left her.*

     * In the year 1782, at the close of the American war.