Amid the barren deserts of Arabia, a few fertile spots of soil arise out of the sandy waste, like islands out of the wide ocean. One of these places, termed oases by the inhabitants of those countries, became the seat of a rich, flourishing, and magnificent city, the immense ruins of which, at the present day, strike every traveller with astonishment. Palmyra, as this city was called in the Latin, and Tadmor, in the Syriac language, are both derrived from the multitude of palm-trees which grew upon this fertile region. - Goodrich, 1844