“Madame is at the hotel,” I replied, “she is so small that we call her the baby. You should see her. Elle est très petite, très jolie, et trescharmante.”
My endeavor to divert his attention by an appeal to a Frenchman’s admiration for a pretty woman (many persons not of French birth are troubled the same way) was of no avail. He t measured our heavy trio and returned to the charge by asserting: "It is impossible to take you for that price. We calculated upon two horses for the carriage and we must have three. What enormous men you are.”
The judge now found tongue and repelled the insinuation that he was enorme.
“You think I am large? You should see my partner. He always rides in two carriages, and once when he slipped on the icy sidewalk, the people for half a mile around thought it was an earthquake.”
“Pardon, Monsieur,” I added, “Son Excellence, Monsieur le juge,” and I waved my hand in the direction of my friend, “is not as heavy as you may think. He is nothing but a big bag of wind, as you would find if you should stick a fork into him.”
This raised a laugh in which the manager joined. The judge retorted on me with a remark which personal respect impels me to keep back from this narrative. It was sufficient to raise another laugh, and under the diversion thus created we got the manager into good humor. We brought him around all right, but I firmly believe it would have cost us more if he had seen us before the ticket had been paid for and delivered. As we bowed out of the room the judge was in the rear and caught the manager’s remark to the agent.
“Mon Dieu! Ils sont énormes.”
The “Doubter,” not knowing French, was standing by during the conversation without the faintest idea of what was occurring. He looked on with an expression similar to that of a pig contemplating a railway train, and when we got outside he asked what it was all about.
“Something very serious,” said the judge. “The manager objected to so much weight, and wanted you to remain behind. We tried to compromise with him, but it was of no use, and you are to stay in Beyrout till we return.”
Then the “Doubter” exploded, said he wouldn’t stay, and furthermore, he believed the judge was not telling him the truth; his doubts were so strong on the subject, that when we reached the hotel he hired an English-speaking dragoman to accompany him to the stage company’s office and learn the exact state of the case.
The “Sights” of Beyrout—Excursion to Dog River—An Obstinate Carriage-Owner—How he was “Euchred”—Moral of this Incident—Off for Damascus—Ascending Mt. Lebanon—An Arab Driver—Cultivating “Kalil,” our Jehu—The Cedars of Lebanon—A Grove as Old as Solomon’s Temple—A Wonderful Old City—The Temple of the Sun—Mystery of Tadmor—Cyclopean Masonry—Monstrous Monoliths—Their Dimensions—The “Doubter’s” Doubts and their Solution—Sleeping in an Arab House—What We Saw There—Divans as Couches—A Dangerous Valley—The Robber’s Haunt.
AFTER we had lunched we went out to see the town, and then we hired carriages for a drive to Dog River, which we were told would require a couple of hours. We were to pay six francs each carriage “for two hours to Dog River,” and when we were seated the owner of the stable demanded the money in advance.
We wouldn’t pay.
He threatened to unharness the horses, and actually began.
We told him he must take us out of the carriages, and we lighted our cigars, and settled back for a comfortable rest.
A crowd collected to see the fun. The owner swore that it was always the rule to pay in advance, and we replied that there was no rule without one exception.
He said he must take the money, as he could not trust his drivers, and we invited him to occupy the box till the end of the excursion, and then take his pay. The upshot of the matter: was that he finally told the drivers to go ahead, and they went. Dog River was reached in twenty minutes, and then the joke
was apparent. We would have been there and back in an hour or less had we paid in advance, and there would have been no such thing as redress.
We kept the carriages two hours and took a drive of a couple of miles on the Damascus road to a pretty grove of pines. Then we returned to town just inside of the stipulated time and handed over the pay to the drivers only when we were deposited at the door of the hotel.
Moral: Be cautious about paying a hackman in advance.
We are told and believe that the horse is a noble animal—why is it that nearly every one who associates with him is a scoundrel? A horse jockey is never held up as a pattern of honesty; the race track is the scene of much that is wicked, and as for hackmen, their rascality is the next thing to an axiom—a selfevident proposition.
Our carriage was at the hotel door at nine in the morning of the day after our arrival at Beyrout, and as soon as we could stow ourselves away we were off.
There was a comfortable space for five, but rather close work for six, and it was absolutely necessary that one should ride outside with the driver. I undertook the task, and by a scientific arrangement of baggage built up a comfortable seat. We started, and I went to cultivating the acquaintance of the driver.
He spoke a little French, so that he could manage to understand me, but his strong point in the way of language was Arabic. He was as black as—-well, one of the blackest men I ever saw—as black as the character of a candidate for office, when his opponent takes a turn at him. His lips were curly and his hair was thick—you can read the other way if you like—and he couldn’t be excited into a smile by any ordinary means. The only thing I could do to induce him to grin was to attempt to sing. He thought my singing rather funny, but, as it frightened the horses, he begged me to desist. He was a skilful driver, and his name, Kalil, a name about as common in that country as George or Charles with us.
We rattled out of Beyrout past the forest of pines to which the European residents sometimes drive on a pleasant afternoon. A rain during the night had moistened the road, and at several places where the laborers were repairing it, the carriage was a heavy load for the horses. These, by the way, were three in number, strong, sleek, well kept horses, that knew their work and performed it. Hardly were we out of the city before we began ascending Mount Lebanon, and the ascent is by no means an easy matter. The summit of the mountain where the road crosses it is five thousand six hundred feet above the sea level; as the crow flies, it is not more than seven miles from this summit to Beyrout, but as you follow the road it is nearly twenty miles. We were not fitted with wings for flying, and consequently we stuck to the road which the company provided for us. It was slow work for the horses, and, to ease the load, the lightest and most enterprising of us left the carriage and walked.
The road is of excellent construction and reflects great credit upon the engineer who made the surveys and laid it out. The cost must have been something very great, and I was not surprised to learn that the investment had never paid well, in spite of the apparently good business of the company. In addition to the two diligences each way daily, the company sends a daily freight train of fifteen wagons; whether there is anything or nothing for them to carry, it is all the same—the wagons start at a fixed time, and are allowed three days for the journey, from one city to the other.
There is a large station for freight in each of the terminal cities, and at reasonably regular intervals along the road there are wayside stations with stables of good size, and with quarters for the station-keeper and attendants. The stables, stock, wagons, carriages, and all other property of the company, appeared to be well kept, and without any meanness of management, and the discipline of the men was very strict. I had reason to find it out in a practical way.
I have done a good deal of staging and posting in various parts of the world, and have learned that it is generally a good plan to get on friendly terms with drivers, no matter what their nationality, color, or previous condition of servitude may be. In pursuance of this plan, I cultivated Mr. Kalil, the gentleman of Nubian origin, who conducted our atelage. I gave him a cigar as soon as we started, and he thanked me by touching his hand to his breast, his lips, and his forehead—this is a l’Arabe—and when we pulled up at a wayside cabaret to tighten some of the straps, I “stood treat” with a glass of arrack, which he swallowed without a grimace. Then I intimated that if he would put us through lively, and never mind killing a horse or two, he could consider me good for a liberal “backsheesh.” He shook his head and showed me the way bill, and I saw the company knew its business.
The drivers are required to go between the stations at a certain speed, and they must not exceed it, neither must they fall short, unless from unavoidable reasons. If they go too fast they are corrected; I do not know exactly how, but from the customs of the country, I should imagine that for a slight offense a driver’s pay would be stopped, and he would be pounded a few days with a hammer, a scythe, or a trace chain, till he died. For a more serious offense he would be treated with severity proportionate to the enormity of his conduct.
The time of arrival and departure at each station is noted on the way bill by the station master, so that there is no chance to cut under in any way. I observed the station master examining the horses’ feet as soon as the animals were delivered to him and then making notes on his book. I thought this a strange proceeding until I learned that the horses were numbered on the hooves, the number being neatly cut with an engraving tool, or burned in with an iron.
The company allows none but its own teams on the road, except on payment of a heavy toll; the old bridle road or track is in sight most of the way, and we saw many pack trams of camels, mules, donkeys, and horses threading their way through the mud, while we were rolling on a macadamized track. In no instance did we see a pack train on the modern road.
Away to the north, over a rough and difficult road, are the famous Cedars of Lebanon.
They are in a valley which is dominated by the high peaks of the range, and stand on a little hill or knoll, so that they are visible from a considerable distance.
The grove is not large—one can walk quite around it in half an hour—and contains not far from four hundred trees of all sizes. The old and gnarled trees are in the centre, while the younger ones form the outside of the grove. Not more than a dozen can claim any great antiquity, but there are thirty or forty others that vary from three to five feet in diameter—the largest of the trees, and supposed to be one of the oldest, is more than forty feet in circumference.
The trees have been much defaced and broken by visitors, some of whom would no doubt carry away the whole of Mount Lebanon if it could be packed in a travelling trunk.
Though there are other cedar groves in Syria, the one here mentioned is the most important, for the reason that it is supposed to have furnished the timber for Solomon’s Temple, as recorded in the Old Testament. Cedar trees were doubtless very abundant in the palmy days of Jerusalem; at present they are very scarce, and if the natives and other barbarians continue to destroy their limbs and build fires in the grove, as they do in these days, these famous trees will soon live only in history.
Up, up we went along the sides of Mount Lebanon, the air growing cooler as we rose, and a violent hail-storm dropping upon us. It was warm when we left Beyrout, and I mounted my box without an overcoat. Soon it grew cool, and I donned a light one; an hour later, I abandoned the light for a heavy one; next I spread my shawl in front of me, and next I wrapped a silk kerchief around my neck.
We made our second change of horses after passing the summit, and then began the descent. Now we had speed; we wound down and down, as we had wound up and up, but we went three or four times as fast. Far away at our feet lay a plain—the plains of Buka. Two hours from the summit, we were at Stora, a wayside station, where we passed the night, and were most kindly treated by the keepers—a Greek man married to an Italian woman, once a danseuse at La Scala, Milan.
Next morning before day, we were up and off for Baalbek, which lies about twenty miles away to the left of the road.
It had rained in the night, and the soil was soft and sticky, making slow work for our horses. The mud clung to their feet and formed huge balls, and we could only advance at a walk. The saddles were unused to us and we to them, and we hurt them a good deal. When we dismounted at Baalbek, every one of the party walked like Falstaff’s recruits, wide between the legs, as though accustomed to the gyves, and some of us were inclined to stand while at meals. We had no time to waste, and after lunch proceeded to do the ruins.
We found them all that fancy and travellers have painted them. They are grander and loftier than anything at Rome or Athens, and the architecture is of a most beautiful and delicate pattern. The temple in its glory must have been something majestic, and I have seen few things among the ruins and edifices of Europe and Asia more striking to the eye or more beautiful in general effect than the court and colonnades of the Temple of the Sun.
But the wonder of Baalbek is in the stones used in its construction. Hewn stones, twelve, fifteen, and twenty feet long, and proportionately wide and high, are frequent in the walls and substructures. You grow weary of saying: “There’s one!” “Look at this!” “and this!” “and this!” You wander down in the underground passages, and the size of the stones, placed as precisely as bricks in a wall of a building of to-day, fairly astounds you; you come out, and look on the wall of the temple, and you find stones twenty-four, twenty-eight, and thirty feet long, and proportionally wide and high. You see stones of this sort away up in the air at the tip of the columns, and you wonder how they got there.
In the western wall are three great stones, one of them sixtyfour feet long, another sixty-three feet eight inches, and another sixty-three feet; they are thirteen feet high and thirteen feet thick. They are twenty feet above ground, properly placed in position, and they were brought from the quarries nearly a mile away.
And in the quarries, is another stone of the same sort sixty-eight feet long, but not quite detached from the rock below.
Don’t drop the subject now but pace off sixty-three feet in your garden or back yard or some other man’s yard or garden; then pace off thirteen feet and then look up thirteen feet on the side of the house and then imagine a hewn stone as large, and after you have done it you will just begin to imagine these stones as we saw them.
During our evening halt at Stora one of us read aloud from the guide book the description of Baalbek.
When we came to the measurement of the stones the “Doubter” explained: “Is anybody fool enough to believe such nonsense?”
We tried to argue with him that possibly the stones were of that size, but he closed the argument as he did most arguments by saying: “I know better.”
On our way to Baalbek we saw the stone in the quarry and asked what he thought of it. "That is nothing,” he replied, “they haven’t moved it.”
When we saw the three stones in the wall and measured their length and height he said they were joined together.
He could find no joint and finally insisted that they were only thin slabs fastened to the walls, and to this day he insists that he knows they are nothing like what they are represented to be. He vowed not to speak of them when he reached home for fear he would not be believed.
He always kept the hotel bills so that he could prove that he had been to the places we visited.
“The ‘Doubter’ must be a veree great, what you call in English, liar, at home,” said our fair German companion one day, “if he thinks people not believe him without his hotel bills.”
The “Doubter” after all was a source of amusement to us at odd times, in spite of his high rank as a nuisance, and we finally concluded that it was well to have him along on the same principle that the Romans used to receive a victorious general with shouts of applause and triumphal honors and at the same time kept a slave at his side to call him opprobrious names and continually remind him that he was mortal.
The ancient Egyptian also set our party an example in the same way as they used to put a skeleton in one of the chairs at a public or private festivity so that the guests might remember what they were coming to.
We slept that night in an Arab house at Baalbek. Our beds were on divans or couches. We were tended by Arab man-servants and maid-servants and were bitten by Arab fleas. The rooms of every Arab’s house contain divans that extend along the end furthest from the door and sometimes along one of the sides. They consist usually of benches or frames not quite as high as the seat of a chair and about three and a half feet wide and are covered with mattresses that render them agreeable to sit or recline upon We found them quite comfortable after our hard day’s travel, though perhaps a trifle too hard for American natives. In the poorer houses these divans are of the same material as the floor—solid earth—covered with a mat of straw.
Most of the Arab houses are extremely dirty and abound in vermin. The one we occupied was quite neat and well kept, and the dragoman who accompanied us from Stora expressed surprise at our discovery of fleas. But we did not mind them as we were too weary to be bothered about trifles, and fleas are familiar acquaintances to a person who has travelled in Italy, Russia, and Turkey. Travelling, like poverty, acquaints one with a great many varieties of bed-fellows.
We were up long before day; we breakfasted by candle light, and before the sun tipped the summits of the Lebanon range with golden color, we were on horseback and away. Through the gray dawn we took the last look at the tall columns of the Temple of the Sun standing as they have stood for centuries and may stand for centuries to come.
Shall the edifices which we erect ever become like those of Baalbek, shrouded in a veil of mystery well nigh impenetrable, and fill so little place in the page of history that future ages shall not know who built them and what was their purpose?
Little, very little, is known of Baalbek; her foundation and her founders are unrevealed mysteries, and of her glory and progress and decline we have only the most meagre information. That the city is very ancient there can be no doubt; that her edifices are among the wonders of the world we have the evidence before us.
We rode down the plain of Buka as we had ascended it the day before. A little after eleven o’clock we flung ourselves or rather dropped ungracefully from our saddles and greeted the swarthy Kalil who had come out a short distance with the carriage to meet us. Kalil and the horses soon took us to Stora where we dined and then packed ourselves in the carriage to continue our journey to Damascus. We crossed the flat plain at a gallop and then entered a long valley leading up the range which is over against Lebanon.
This valley is known as the Wady Harir; then we cross a plain and after leaving this we enter a narrow winding glen, the Wady il Kurn, or “Valley of the Horn.” This pass is one of the wildest in the Anti-Lebanon; it is three miles long and was once very dangerous on account of the robbers that infested it. The sides are rough and but slightly wooded and the bottom is evidently at certain seasons of the year the bed of a torrent.
Night came on and shrouded everything around us in blackness; there was an extra touch of darkness to it as there was no moon and there were thick clouds between us and the stars. We could see little more than what was revealed by our lamps and that little soon became monotonous. We crossed the plain of Dinas and entered the gorge of the Abana, the river which is the pride of Damascus, and has always occupied a prominent place in her history.
“Are not Pharpar and Abana,” said Naaman, the leper, “rivers of Damascus better than all the rivers of Syria?”
Following the Abana we at length beheld the lights of Damascus, and at nine o’clock entered the city and were deposited at the door of the only hotel it contains.
Dimitri and his hotel—Court-yards and fountain—How people live in Damascus—Parlors, bed-rooms and boudoirs—A bet and its decision—The “Doubter and his Donkey”—The Street called “Straight”—Bab-Shurky—Spots famous in history—Shaking hinds across a Street—Scene of St. Paul’s conversion—The Window of escape—Tombs of Mohammed’s Wives—The “Doubter” figuring on probabilities—An unexpected upset—Visiting the lepers’ hospital—A frightful spectacle—The Great Mosque—View from the Minaret—The Bazaars and Curiosity Shops—Making a trade—A case of Fraud.
THE hotel at Damascus is kept by a Greek named Dimitri, who has been familiar with Syria for a great many years, and was in his younger days a dragoman.
His house is spacious, and more comfortable than I had expected to find it, and in appearance is the most Oriental of all the hotels I have seen in the East. You enter by a low, narrow doorway, and passing a short vestibule find yourself in a marble paved court open to the sky, and possessing a fine fountain When I say a fine fountain, I mean that it is so from an Oriental point of view—i. e., there is a broad tank, with stone sides, where the water is kept constantly changing by means of a two inch supply-pipe, and an equally large waste pipe. To the right of the fountain there is a recess about twenty feet square, where are divans and chairs in abundance.
Beyond the fountain on the opposite side of the court is the parlor or saloon. It is entered by an ordinary door, and you find inside a marble floor as long as the room is wide,—about six feet in width,—and having a fountain in the centre. The rest of the apartment on each side of the marble floor is elevated about two feet and has steps leading up to it.
The spaces thus elevated are richly carpeted and have divans on three sides. They have in Dimitri’s hotel a few chairs in front of the divans; but these are rather out of place, and are only kept there out of deference to the foreign patrons. The roof is high, and the highest part of it all is in the centre. We have reason to know about it, as we got into a discussion while waiting for dinner, and two of the party risked a bottle of champagne on the result.
One said the roof was thirty feet above the marble floor, and the other thought it was twenty-nine and a half. The nearest was to win, and Dimitri sent for a pole and ladders and we measured it. The result was twenty-nine feet ten and one-quarter inches, and I lost the wine.
I have been thus particular in describing the court, fountain, and saloon of Dimitri’s Hotel for the reason that it will answer for any well-to-do house in Damascus, with the exception of the chairs, which should not be introduced there.
“Take away the chairs,” said Dimitri, “and my house is Oriental, but with them here, it is not. The instant chairs are introduced the Oriental character is gone.”
I should have added that his court contains several orange and other tropical trees; on some of the former the oranges were ripening, and were plucked and offered to us.
The height of the roof of the saloon may seem considerable, but we were told that it is frequently ten or twelve feet more, and before leaving the city I saw some parlors which had I think forty feet of distance between floor and roof.
Next morning we took a guide and started out for the sights.
“The weather is fine to-day,” said the guide; “you had better take donkeys, and see what we have to see of the outside of the town. To-morrow it may rain, and we can then see the bazaars, mosques, and houses.”
We took his advice and donkeys, and started at once. He led us through crowded streets to the gates, or rather to one of the gates, and then we proceeded to make a circuit of Damascus.
Our starting point was Bab-Shurkey or the East Gate It is a picturesque piece of architecture somewhat dilapidated, but containing traces of its former glory. Here was once a magnificent Roman portal with a central and two side arches which were walled up more than eight hundred years ago. This gate is at the end of the “street called Straight,” by which St. Paul entered the city, and from the top of the gate one can look along the street until it is lost in a confusion of buildings. It is not straight as we use the word, but is enough so for Oriental notions.
In the Roman period, and down to the Mohammedan conquest, there was a wide avenue where this street now is; it was about a hundred feet wide and was divided by Corinthian columns into three parts corresponding to the three arches of the gate. They have been distinctly traced in several localities. As you look down there now you see a narrow lane with uneven rows of buildings on either side; the projecting windows almost touch each other, and in some localities they are less than a foot apart. Hand-shaking and osculation would be easy across the streets, and elopements and intrigues are facilitated by the proximity of opposite dwellings. We went near the wall outside of the city, and were shown several of the local curiosities. We passed a projecting tower of early Saracenic masonry, and near it our attention was called to an old gateway, which has been walled up more than 700 years. This is the reputed scene of Paul’s escape from Damascus.
The window was shown until within the past twenty years, when some changes in the wall removed it.
In front of the gate we were shown the tomb of George, the porter who aided St. Paul in his escape, and was martyred in consequence. Our guide was a Christian Arab, and spoke of the place with great veneration, as do all the native Christians. Beyond this is the Christian cemetery, which was desecrated by the Moslems at the time of the massacre of 1860. Some of the tombs were opened and the bones were scattered about; afterward some of those wounded in the massacre were thrown alive into the pit. The scene of St. Paul’s conversion is located here.
Not far away is the foreign cemetery; among those buried there is the accomplished historian, H. T. Buckle.
The guide called our attention to the houses upon the wall of the city; it was from a house of this sort that Paul was let down in a basket, and one can readily see that it was easy for Rahab, who dwelt upon the town wall of Jericho, to let “down the spies” by a cord through the window. On several occasions in time of war, these houses have been removed, but they have speedily re-appeared on the return of peace.
The walls of the city were no doubt of some importance formerly, and are still a sufficient defense against Bedouin cavalry, but they would be of no consequence to-day. Modern artillery would make short work of them, and there are places where a battery of ordinary field guns could destroy them in a few hours.
The city has outgrown the walls in several localities, and it is said that a third of the inhabitants are extra-mural. The population of Damascus is estimated at about one hundred and fifty thousand. Twenty thousand of these are Christians and six thousand Jews. The remainder are Moslems, and many of them are of the most fanatical character. We halt at the Mohammedan cemetery of Bab-es-Saghir, an area of undulating ground, covered with a forest of tombstones, and little whitewashed mounds of brick, in shape resembling a house roof.
These are the graves, and each has a head stone with an inscription in Arabic, and beside it, is a cavity for water, generally containing a green branch of myrtle. Had we been there on a Friday we should have seen crowds of Moslem women weeping over the graves of relatives or friends, and after the ceremony had ended they would have fallen to chatting pleasantly, as if their visit were not a matter of grief. We saw the tombs of three of Mohammed’s wives, and of Fatimah, his grand daughter, and we were shown other graves, and tombs containing the remains of Moslem warriors, statesmen, and historians.
The “Doubter” did not believe that Mohammed’s wives were buried there, and refused to dismount and enter the cemetery. When we returned to the gate we found him prostrate in the dirt, and just rising with the help of the donkey drivers. It seemed that his beast resented the notion of standing patiently for a man to sit on him, and after making a remonstrance in donkey fashion, he ended by turning a somersault that unseated the “Doubter.” The latter jackass described a sort of cruciform parabola and at the end of his gyrations found himself sitting down lengthwise, and with his back uppermost. Several new constellations and solar systems were flying around his excited skull and his doubts as to the character of this planet were stronger than ever.
“I don’t believe,” said he, as soon as his mouth was cleared of the dust that encumbered it, “I don’t believe that there is anything around here worth seeing. We had better go back to the hotel and stay there.”
“Nonsense,” replied one of us, “Damascus is the most interesting city of the East, within our reach; one of the oldest cities and one that has undergone very little change in two thousand years.”
“I know better than that,” said the “Doubter,” “nobody believes this city is two thousand, or even one thousand years old.”
I came to his help just then and told him he was right; that the city was founded in 1811 by a colony of Arabs from New Jersey, and was never heard of by the civilized world until December, 1847, when it was discovered by an Englishman named Smith. Somehow my information did not please him, and he was sullen all the rest of the day.
Later on I found what it was to be dropped from a donkey. I was dismounting, and the beast evidently wanted me to be quick about it. Just as I leaned forward to swing my right leg over, the donkey dropped his head and shoulders and gave me a most beautiful fall. I went down among other donkeys and in the dust of the street, but I flatter myself that I did it gracefully. A dozen Arabs were standing around but not one of them smiled while all my companions let themselves out into laughter. I told them it was not polite to laugh at the unfortunate, but that didn’t appear to check them.
We visited the house of Ananias, the High Priest, all the points connected with St. Paul’s stay in Damascus, and then we went to the Mosques.
Before doing this it was necessary to visit the American Consul or Vice Consul, and obtain a permit. The Consul is a native of the country, a polite, affable gentleman, speaking English quite well, and showing a desire to serve the citizens and the interests of the country he represents. He lives in a fine house of recent construction; his house was burned in the massacre of 1860, and he narrowly escaped assassination. He received us in the style of the Orient, with coffee and pipes, and made us welcome to Damascus. He sent at once for the desired permit and sent his janissary to accompany us in our visit to the mosque.
Before going to the mosque we went to the site of the house of Naaman, the leper; a leper-hospital now occupies the spot. And speaking of lepers, we afterwards went to the leper-hospital and saw half a dozen of the victims of this dreadful disease. Some were blind, some had the face, some the arms, and some the legs, much swollen, and the face and hands of one were covered with scales. Under the edges of these scales the flesh was raw and inflamed, and we were told that some of the patients in the hospital were masses of sores.
The Great Mosque occupies a quadrangle one hundred and sixty-three yards long by one hundred and eight wide. Part of this quadrangle is a court surrounded by cloisters resting on stone pillars; the rest of the space is occupied by the mosque, which is four hundred and thirty-one feet by one hundred and eight. We removed our boots and put on our slippers before entering the building. The interior is divided into three aisles by two ranges of Corinthian pillars, which support round arches. In the centre is a dome one hundred and twenty feet high by fifty feet in diameter, and standing on four massive pillars. The floor is of stone and covered with soft carpets, and here and there on the carpets, were the Moslems at their prayers. Our attention was particularly attracted by one devout old Jew, who wore a phylactery upon his forehead and who appeared to be utterly unconscious of what was going on around him. On the eastern side of the mosque there is an elaborately carved Keebbek, or shrine, and below it is a cave, in which the head of John the Baptist is said to be preserved in a casket of gold.
There are three minarets to the mosque; the most important is the minaret of Jesus, at the south-eastern angle, and two hundred and fifty feet high.
There is a Moslem tradition that when Jesus comes to judge the world, He will descend on this minaret, enter the mosque, and call before him men of every sect and nationality. We climbed to the top of one of the minarets, and obtained from it a fine view of the city.
Mosques, bazaars, houses, mud walls and flat roofs, remains of Roman and Saracenic columns, streets and court-yards, formed the scene before us. Further off were the gardens, the olive and orange groves of Damascus; the Abana sparkled in the sunlight like a band or thread of silver; the barren hills beyond formed a sharp contrast to the fertile plain; and away in the distance we could distinguish a belt of desert. Another mosque, whose minaret is covered with blue encaustic tiles, attracted our attention, and we longed to visit it. To our disappointment we learned that admission was then impossible.
A visitor to Damascus should take advantage of the first clear afternoon, to proceed at a late hour to the Salahiyeh hills, so as to look upon the city at sunset. The road is pleasant and picturesque, and leads gently upward beyond a village that lies between the hill and the city. An hour’s ride brings one to a point where the whole plain is spread out like a map at the spectator’s feet.
Embowered in gardens and tinted by the lights that varied every moment, Damascus looked to us as much like an earthly paradise as anything in the Orient. Away to the east was the range of Anti-Lebanon; to the north was the plain, with a strip of desert, and to the south the plain stretched away and broke into the hills in the distance. We could trace out the shape of the city, and follow with the eye the direction of its principal streets; the tall minarets and bright domes of the mosques formed salient features of the landscapes, and altogether the scene was thoroughly Oriental. It was from this hill that Mohammed looked and pronounced Damascus the most beautiful city of the world, and promised the most dutiful of his attendants, that they should be appointed to dwell there.
Thus we looked upon the city which is doubtless the oldest in the world. More than three thousand years it has flourished; more than thirty centuries it has stood there a city—the beautiful city of the plain. Nations have appeared and vanished. Kingdoms and empires and republics have risen and fallen, but Damascus has stood unchanged. Thrones have crumbled, dynasties have come and gone. Statesmen and poets and scholars have lived their brief period of existence, brief and insignificant. In the centuries that have rolled over Damascus Saracen, Roman, Moslem, and Christian have besieged the city; twice it has been the center of empires, and many times it has been the seat of power that was felt far away. Though never formally occupied by Christians, it was one of the early centers of Christianity, and for nearly three centuries this was the predominant religion. And later in its history the armies of the Mohammedan empire went forth from Damascus, spreading the religion of the Prophet to Spain on the one hand, and to Hindos-tan on the other. Damascus was then the seat of an empire the greatest on the globe, extending from the Himalayas to the Atlantic. Wealth was poured into her coffers, and she became the richest as well as the mightiest capital. Though she has declined she has not fallen, and presents to-day a picture of serene and well-deserved prosperity.
Damascus without the bazaars would be Hamlet without Hamlet. Here you see the Orient in its perfection. Instead of shops scattered through the city, as in the West, all trades, or rather all the persons in one trade, are brought together. The bazaars of Damascus have had a world-wide celebrity for centuries, and there are none in the East better than they. You can buy there anything you want, from a. slave to a cigarette, and from a sewing needle to a parure of diamonds. You can wander for hours and days in the bazaars; in the slipper bazaar, the tobacco bazaar, the seed bazaar, the mercers’ bazaar, the tailors’ bazaar, the clog bazaar, the silversmiths’ bazaar, the spice bazaar, the book bazaar, the old clo’ bazaar, the iron bazaar, the pipe bazaar, and other bazaars to the number of a dozen or more.
There is a general similarity in the bazaars, so far as the externals are concerned; the shops are little pens, from four or six to ten feet square, where the merchant sits or squats on the floor, and the customer sits on the little bench in front. The front of the shop is entirely open during the day; it can be shut at night, but the locks by which it is held are of a very primitive and very flimsy pattern. If the owner wishes to go away in the day time he spreads a net in front during his absence, and this is his card to say he is “out.” The merchant does not press you to buy, and he generally seems not to care whether you buy or not.
In the slipper bazaar you pass shop after shop where Oriental slippers of all patterns and values are sold; in the tailors’ bazaar you find shop after shop where tailors are at work upon Oriental garments, and so you go on through one bazaar after another.
A few articles for sale, such as ear and nose drops, rings and brooches, generally contained in a locked show-case, a foot square, and the same in height; the shop-keepers exhibited their goods, but did not press them for sale; many of them stopped work to stare at us, while others stuck to their business with Oriental indifference. A small anvil, a few hammers, pliers and rollers, and a small fire of charcoal, kept in flame by a bellows of goat-skin comprise the whole outfit of a workman. The entire arrangement could be stowed in a good-sized hat.Part of the street called Straight is occupied by bazaars, and there is a network of them on both sides of it.
In the silversmith’s bazaar each man occupies a space about six feet square, in a sort of large hall, with low roof and many supporting pillars; this space contains both work-room and salesroom.