During Horatio Southgate's travels through Mesopotamia, he encountered indigenous Christians and stated that "Chaldeans" consider themselves to be descended from "Assyrians", but he also recorded that the same "Chaldeans" hold that "Jacobites" are descended from ancient "Syrians" of Damascus: ""Those of them who profess to have any idea concerning their origin, say, that they are descended from the Assyrians, and the Jacobites from the Syrians, whose chief city was Damascus"". Those ancient "Syrians of Damascus", in terms of Biblical tradition, were ancient Arameans of Aram-Damascus.