Onwards to the Syrian Coast: Mount Lebanon and Aleppo Embarks on his pilgrimage to Jerusalem via Rhodes and Cyprus to Syrian Tripoli – the attractions of Mount Lebanon, and contacts with the local Maronites – to Aleppo, with unrealised plans for visiting Baghdad – the pigeon post between Aleppo and Baghdad

Yet on the other side of the picture, he saw signs of weakness in the fabric of the Ottoman state. The whole of commerce and trade in the empire was in the hands of Jews and Christians – Venetians, Ragusans, Flemings, French and English – who drew great proÀ ts from the empire, none of which was reinvested there.110 While on his travels, Lithgow noted that the frontier regions of the Balkans and the Mediterranean coasts were heavily fortiÀ ed against the Christians – he particularly mentions the fortresses of Rhodes and of Famagusta in Cyprus – but the hinterlands, and especially the Asiatic parts of the empire, were poor in resources and thinly populated. Consequently, he believed that if only the Christian princes would come together in a concerted action against the Turks, they would easily overcome them. Indeed, if only one of the Christian powers would furnish assistance to the people of Cyprus, which had come under Ottoman rule as recently as 1570, he felt sure that the garrison in the island of hardly more than one thousand Turks could easily be overcome and the island returned to the fold of Christendom.111