In the arms bazaar there are all sorts of odds and ends of cimetars, matchlocks, sabres, pistols, lances, and the like. The famous Damascus blades were offered to us, but they were not of that fine temper that permits you to tie one of them into a knot, and so we did not buy. An antiquarian would be at home in this bazaar, and find many things to suit his fancy.
We went to the silk bazaar, as one of our party wanted to buy some kerchiefs, and after looking around we went out of the bazaar into a Khan, or caravansary. This was a court, with a fountain in the center. A double story of little rooms opened into this court, and on the upper floor was a silk merchant we wished to find.
The bargaining was conducted a l’Orient. We had coffee and cigarettes, and then the silks were shown.
The merchant wanted twenty francs, the buyer would give six.
Neither could do better, but they slowly unbent so that at the end of half an hour the prices were fifteen selling and ten buying. Then we bade the merchant good-bye, and departed.
We returned in an hour, and then the negotiations went on; the seller stuck at thirteen, and the buyer at eleven and a half, and finally, after at least an hour of talk and the assurance of the merchant that the kerchiefs cost him more than that, a bargain was closed at twelve.
The coup de grace was given when the buyer showed the money in bright Napoleons, and rattled them before the other’s eyes.
The silk merchant wanted to sell something more, and sent his partner or attendant to bring a piece of goods from another room. The piece came, the wrapping was removed, and behold! there appeared on the end of the roll a ticket with the name of a French factory at Lyons.
Much of the silk sold in Constantinople, Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, and Bagdad, as Oriental, is from French looms. I have been repeatedly told so by the merchants, and also by an agent of one of the houses especially devoted to Oriental fabrics. It requires an expert to distinguish the native silks from the French ones.
In the Slave-Market—A Dealer in Human Flesh—A Stealthy Trade—Examining Female Slaves—Serfdom in Syria—Inside Views of a Syrian Household—Jewish Houses—An Oriental Song—Smoking with the Ladies—Syrian Customs—A famous Arab Chief—Visiting Abd-el-Kader’s house—The City of the Caliphs—Taking a Bath—Mohammed and his Trowsers—A new Species of Cushion—The Bath-house—Disrobing—Securing our Valuables—Moslem Honesty—Sitting down in a Hot Place—Gustave’s Misadventure—Undergoing a Shampoo—Rubbed to a Jelly—The Couch of Repose—A Delicious Sensation—“All ze luxuries.”
WHILE we were walking through the bazaars, the guide casually pointed out the slave-market, and of course we entered. Our way led into a court yard, with a fountain in the center and a mosque at our side; off at one corner was the entrance to the slave-dealers’ apartments.
The merchant, a mild-mannered Moslem, was in the court yard, and had with him a black boy, a eunuch, for which he wanted thirty pounds. We followed the dealer up a narrow staircase to a locked room which he opened.
Four negro women were there, two sitting and two lying upon the floor, which was spread with rugs and blankets; the youngest may have been sixteen and the oldest thirty. The dealer said something in Arabic, whereupon the women rose and stood in a row facing us, where they were joined by the boy. All kept their heads turned away, but now and then darted furtive glances at us. We did not buy, and after giving the dealer a couple of francs as “backsheesh,” we returned to the street. In Damascus the slave trade is open. In Cairo and Constantinople it flourishes by stealth. In neither of the last two cities are strangers permitted to see it, but in Damascus there is no such concealment. The trade is not extensive, and is mainly confined to supplying servants for private houses. The traffic in beautiful women for the harems is nearly a thing of the past, and so is the general trade in slaves for heavy labor in large numbers.
As far as I can learn, there was never a slave trade and slave employment half as extensive in the Orient as that which flourished in the United States less than twenty years ago.
Slaves in the East are a family possession, and are not reckoned as a specific item of wealth.
We had been told not to fail to see some of the private houses of Damascus, as they are specially famous for their elegance. To wander about the city you would not suppose that it has many rich interiors, but you find on investigation that mud walls frequently lead to something rich inside. Judge not by appearances in Damascus. We entered some of the Moslem court yards, but were not allowed to see the inside of the houses. We saw some Christian houses richly adorned and decorated, but they will all come within the general description at the beginning of the preceding chapter. There were many luxurious houses of Christian natives destroyed in 1860, and few of these have been built. The Christian quarter still bears the marks of Moslem hate, in the large areas that lie in ruins. The whole Christian quarter was burned, and about two thousand five hundred Christians were massacred.
Despite the protection now extended to them by foreign powers, the Christians of Damascus do not feel safe, and are constantly dreading a fresh outbreak of hostilities.
Two Jewish houses that we visited had evidently cost a great deal of money; the dining room of one is finished in marble carving around the entire wall, and the cost of this one apartment was said to be ten thousand pounds.
In one of the Jewish houses, the hostess invited us to seats in the room where herself, the ladies of her household, and a couple of visitors were squatted on divans and smoking nargilehs. They were much surprised that the lady of our party didn’t smoke, and they wanted to stain her nails with henna and paint her eye-lashes.
One of the lady visitors was a cantatrice, the Patti or Nilsson of Damascus, and at the request of the hostess we were favored with a song. Her voice was a sort of rough falsetto, and there was little melody or rhythm about the song when considered from a European point of view. How tastes differ! Such a song would not be listened to in Europe or America, except from curiosity; and the song of Patti would, doubtless, be of no consequence in Damascus. Our guide told us that this lady has sung herself rich, and that she frequently receives twenty or thirty pounds for an evening’s entertainment.
We passed a very pleasant hour in this house, and shall long hold it in remembrance. I don’t believe we should have enjoyed it half as well if the master had been at home, as I have a strong suspicion that we should not have been invited to drink coffee and smoke with the ladies.
We wished to visit the house of the famous Abd-el-Kader, but found it impossible. Twenty years ago, this man filled a prominent place in history, but he is now nearly forgotten. He was born in 1807 in Algeria; he was descended from a long line of Emirs; his father was noted for the wisdom and liberality of his rule over the Algerian province of Oran. When the French occupied Algiers, Abd-el-Kader was one of their fiercest opponents, and from 1831 to 1847 he maintained an active warfare, interrupted by a few brief truces. In the last mentioned year he was captured and taken to France, but was soon released, on condition that he should not return to Algiers, nor take arms in any way against the French. The terms of the contract have been faithfully kept, and he has ever since been on the best terms with France.
He resided for some years in Constantinople, and then moved to Damascus, where he spends the greater part of his time. He continues to wear the Algerian dress, and his dark hair and beard make a striking contrast to his snow-white garments.
Those who have met him say that he is a thoroughly courteous and highly polished gentleman, and in looks and bearing he is “every inch a king.”
Damascus is the most thoroughly Oriental in character of all the cities now in easy reach of the traveler. Constantinople and Cairo have each a large foreign population, and can number their Franks by thousands, but Damascus has less than a hundred of them, including missionaries, merchants, and nondescript Occidentals, who have wandered there by chance. The houses, bazaars, mosques and baths are to-day what they were five hundred years ago, and the Moslem is so averse to progress, that there is no great probability of any important change for five hundred years to come.
As you wander through the streets of Damascus or stand in its crowded market places, you are carried back to the days of Haroun-al-Raschid, and gaze upon the pictures that became familiar to you in your boyhood perusal of the Arabian Nights. You forget the Present, you are living in the Past, and, full of bewilderment, you scan the title page of your note-book to make sure that you really tread the earth in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
I had missed the Turkish bath in Constantinople; I could have taken one any morning and therefore postponed it until too late. In Damascus I determined not to be so negligent, and accordingly arranged to try the Oriental bath on the second day of my stay. Gustave agreed to go with me, and we consulted our guide about the time and place. Imagine our astonishment when Mohammed informed us:
“You must get up at five o’clock in ze morning and I takes you to ze bestest bath in Damas. Ze bath shut up at seven o’clock, and you get no bath then afterwards.”
This was early rising for us, but when you are in Damascus you must follow the custom of the Damascus blades. If, as the proverb says, the early child has the worms, there must be an immense demand in Damascus for vermifuge and that sort of thing. We couldn’t do any sight-seeing in the evening, for the reason that there was no sight-seeing to see. Shops, cafés, and all other public establishments, were closed at sunset or a little later; there were no street lamps, and the facilities for getting about were very limited. We stayed in the hotel in the evening, and went to bed at an hour we would have been ashamed to acknowledge at home. The people that went to bed at such an inhumanly early hour must rise in good season. They do this not from any expectation of health or wealth, as promised by the old couplet, but simply for the reason that they couldn’t endure to be in bed more than eight or nine hours at a stretch; besides an Arab couch is not the most comfortable thing in the world, and doubtless has something to do with the matutinal habits of the people.
It is said that the eastern shore of the Mediterranean is called the Levant, for the reason that the sun rises there. The natives rise before the sun, and to them rather than to the glorious orb of day is due the name by which the region is known. Promptly at five in the morning Mohammed was at our door and we rose. Day was just beginning to dawn when we emerged from the hotel and started along the narrow streets that led to the bath-house. We kept close to Mohammed’s heels, and narrowly missed stepping on the seat of his trowsers whenever he slackened his pace. The fellow’s “breeks” were about the baggiest pair it was ever my lot to gaze upon; he must have bought them when cloth was cheap and the merchant willing to measure him with a fox-skin without counting the tail as anything. When he stood up, the ample part of his trowsers just missed the ground by an inch or so, and when he walked the depending mass of cloth swung unsteadily like a pendulum that has been on a spree. When he went over any little inequality the garment dragged, and sometimes it caught and held the wearer fast. When he sat down he gathered the trowsers under him and formed a sort of cushion that was comfortable to rest upon. It was then that we realized the design of the artist, and admitted that the inventor of the Turkish trowsers knew what he was about.
A good many people were astir, and more than once we caromed against the plodding Orientals and caused them to utter what sounded like imprecations on the Christian dogs that had ventured to affront them. At length Mohammed brought himself to a halt and said:
“Here, gentlemen, is ze bath; ze best good bath in Damas. You bathe here so good as never was afterward before.”
The building was a low one, of stone, with a roof in which two or three domes were set like enormous kettles inverted. Light was admitted through circular windows, or bull’s-eyes, like the cabin windows of an ocean steamer, let into the dome at intervals none too frequent. In the vestibule we encountered a sort of door-keeper, to whom Mohammed said something in the language of the country, and then passed on to the first room of the bath.
“Here is ze bain beautiful. You shall know soon how he is good.”
With that Mohammed selected a couple of attendants whose entire wardrobe was not worth fifty cents each. It consisted of a small tuft of hair on the crown of the head, the rest of the skull being closely shaven, and of a piece of cloth about the loins.
I fell to the lot of a dark-skinned gentleman any way from twenty-five to forty years old, and with a muscular development about the arms that would have done honor to a pugilist.
He assisted me to disrobe, but was not very expert about it, being unfamiliar with the wardrobe of the Occident.
“You will have ze bain avec all ze luxuries,—ze café, ze chibook, ze everyting,” said Mohammed in a tone of inquiry. “Certainly, mon cher descendant of the Prophet,” I replied, “and you will do us the honor to go through the moulin with us. Order baths for three, and you yourself disencumber your corporosity of those habiliments and show us how to Orientalize.”
“Pardon, gentlemens, but I no speak German; only English, French, Italian, Greek, Turk, and Arab. I no understand what you says. Speak ze English, please.”
“Well then; peel—strip off your clothes and go in.”
“Ah! zat is bono,” replied Mohammed, and beckoning to a third attendant, he was soon in the costume of the Apollo Belvidere. My attendant, as soon as he had stripped me, folded my clothes into a bundle, tied them up in a small sheet, and laid the package away on a divan at the side of the room.
“You will have all ze luxuries.”
I asked Mohammed if everything was safe, as we had our watches and some, though not much, money.
We had given our letters of credit and the most of our coin to our friends before retiring the night previous, as we thought some accident might happen if we left things around loose in the bath-house.
“All tings is safe here,” explained our guide. “Zare is no Christians but you in ze house. All ze rest is Moslem, and all tings is safe.”
Thus reassured, we submitted to the situation.
When they had removed our clothing they dressed us in towels around the loins and wrapped wet cloths about our heads. Then they mounted us on wooden clogs that were difficult to keep in place, and which I kicked off in the next room whither my attendant led me. The place was gloomy and full of steam, and the temperature anything but agreeable. It was heated by a furnace under the floor, and the heat was carried around and made even by means of pipes and flues in the wall. While we stood uncertain what to do, two or three buckets of water were dashed over us. I was not expecting it, and the shock of the water striking me in the breast was sufficient to knock me down, I fell against Mohammed and he against his attendant, and we all went into a heap. Mohammed was fat and rather flabby, so that he broke my fall in the most satisfactory manner.
It hurt him somewhat, but that made no difference, as we hired him by the day and paid his expenses.
In one corner a lot of fellows were sitting on the floor and softening the asperities of the bath by singing an Arab air. Mohammed said they were soldiers, but there wasn’t one of them with any more uniform than we wore, and certainly ours was very scanty. We looked and listened, perspired and waited, and just as the place began to seem comfortable the attendants led us into another room compared to which the first was a refrigerator. It was frightfully hot and took away the breath, and if I had considered myself a free moral agent I would have backed out.
Gustave thought he would sit down, and seeing a block of marble through the steamy atmosphere, he went for it. Before the attendant knew what he was about Gustave had taken a seat.
My duty to the moral and religious public requires the omission of the remarks of my friend immediately subsequent to his assumption of the sitting posture. They were made in German, English, and French, and were brief and emphatic. What he supposed to be a block of stone proved to be a marble tub filled with water. The temperature was sufficiently elevated to cause him to howl with pain, but it did no real damage.
We squatted in a group on the floor after lifting Gustave from his tub, and there we sat puffing and perspiring for some ten minutes or more. Then my attendant laid me on a stone bench and put me through what is called the “shampoo.” He squeezed, and rubbed and pulled and pounded till I was as limp as a boned turkey and possessed as much consistency as a jelly fish. I expected to spread out and run over the sides of the bench and I took a glance downward to see if there was danger of running off through the waste pipes. I called faintly to Mohammed, and heard a husky “Monsieur” in response.
“Have the goodness,” I said, “to ask this gentleman to put me in a sack if he wants to rub me any more. Any sack with small meshes will do, but I want it tight enough to keep me together.
“And Mohammed,” I added, “if there is a rolling mill or a wire-drawing establishment handy he could facilitate matters by running me through it, and then”—
A bucket of hot water was poured over me, and some of it entering my mouth put an end to my appeals for mercy. I was soon let off and taken into the first room, where several buckets of water each cooler than its predecessor were thrown over me. Then I was wiped dry, and a cool dry turban was wrapped around my head, and I was clothed in a white garment, and laid away on a divan. Blankets were wrapped around me, and coffee and a chibook were brought. Gustave was similarly mummified and placed near me, and Mohammed was stowed away on the opposite side of the room. We reclined there smoking and sipping coffee, sipping coffee and smoking, talking and drowsing, drowsing and talking, for nearly an hour. Coffee was never more delicious than then, and I solemnly aver that I never had more enjoyment of a pipe. The long stem of the chibook allows the smoke to cool before it reaches the mouth, and there was a delicate flavor to the tobacco that adapted it to the listless condition of mind and limp condition of body which follows the bath.
We dressed, paid our “backsheesh,” and departed happy in mind and body over “ze bestest good bath in Damas.”
Turning our faces eastward—The land of the Sun—Palmyra, Bagdad, and Babylon—The desert in summer and winter—A dangerous road—The Robbers of the Wilderness—Ruins in the Desert—A city of wonders—The haunts of the Bedouins—Engaging an escort—The start for Palmyra—On a Dromedary’s back—The environs of Damascus—A bed on the sand—“Everyone to his taste”—A knavish Governor—Winking at Robbery—In the Desert—On the great caravan track—Caravansaries, what are they?—The high road to India—An Arab fountain.
HOW I longed, when at Damascus, to push further into Asia. Before me lay the land of the Arabian nights—the valley of the Euphrates and of the Tigris; beyond the horizon my imagination pictured the battlemented walls of Bagdad, her white domes and arrowy minarets shining among the waving palms.
I walked her streets once trodden by the feet of Haroun-al-Raschid and made familiar in the stories that were written in his time and—if we may believe our tradition—for his entertainment.. I fancied myself upon the site of Babylon or of Nineveh, and amid the crumbled ruins of those once powerful cities that represented the grandeur and greatness of the ancient East.
I followed the story of Xenophon in the retreat of the Ten Thousand, and stood upon the ground where Alexander marched to the glory that made him The Great. I was upon the threshold—yes, I had passed the portals—of that part of the East which has suffered least from the progress and enterprise of the Occident. With longing eyes I looked beyond the rising sun and wished, oh, how I wished, that I might go on and on till I should tread the soil of Ormuz or of Ind, and feel upon my brow the spice-laden breezes of fair Cathay.
But fate was inexorable and many things conspired to prevent my further progress. We had arranged to keep together till we reached Egypt; the rest of the party were pressed for time and had determined upon Damascus as the Ultima Thule of their journey. The season was not favorable for an overland excursion as we might be caught in winter storms in the desert, and furthermore the robbers were more dangerous then than in the summer. From Damascus it is customary to travel with a caravan under a heavy escort, and there would be no caravan for several months. The authorities will sometimes give an escort and be responsible for the safety of the traveller, but such an outfit costs heavily and requires a very long purse. Arrangements can be made to ride with the fortnightly mail from Damascus to Bagdad, but there are various objections to this mode of journeying.
I thought over all the obstacles in my way and concluded that it was best to keep with our party and go on to Palestine and Egypt. Among the reasons which impelled me to this decision was the fact that I had neither time nor money enough to go farther East, and besides I should be cut off from the society of the “Doubter.” I might get along without money by setting up as a dervish and begging my way, but could existence be possible without our skeptic? Consequently I must go to Egypt.
Even Palmyra had to be given up, and, sighing, I turned my face to the west. But I fell in with a French traveller, who had come overland from Bagdad and spent a day at Palmyra, and I listened with boyish interest to his account of what he saw there.
It is no small matter to reach Palmyra, for the reason that it stands in the midst of desolate wastes, which are the possession or at all events the “backsheeshing” ground of the most lawless of the Bedouin Arabs They have no conscientious scruples about robbery; the only point in their favor is that they are averse to shedding blood, and unless he offers resistance, the traveller can feel as certain about saving his life as he is of losing his property. They may strip him of everything and leave him naked, on foot, and without food or drink in the middle of the desert, but they have qualms of conscience about murder, though quite willing their victim should starve or roast to death. Those who assert that the Bedouins are heartless and cruel, should take | note of the above fact, and make an ample apology if they have hitherto said anything uncomplimentary about these plundering blackguards.
It is absolutely necessary to have an escort in going to Palmyra, and one can be found among the Bedouin sheiks, loafing around Damascus. Under their convoy the traveller can consider himself secure; they are pretty honorable in this respect, and after getting a heavy “backsheesh” for safe conduct, they carry out their contracts, though they expect an additional “backsheesh” on their return and the delivery of the traveller to himself, in good order and condition. It is better to leave money and valuables in Damascus, taking only enough coin along to pay trifling expenses, and leaving the compensation of escort and dragoman at the banker’s or consulate. If you are going overland to Bagdad, carry your money in drafts and circular notes, and not in gold. The Bedouin has a sharp eye for money, and much coin is sure to attract it.
The Palmyra journey should be made with camels or dromedaries, for the reason that there are long stretches without water. Horses may be ridden, but there must be one or more camels at any rate to carry water for them. The sheiks always prefer to take no horses, as they can thereby make the journey more quickly, and consequently cheaper.
Well, let us suppose we are going to Palmyra. We have completed all our arrangements, agreed upon the price to be paid, and how to pay it, have arrayed ourselves in Oriental garments, mounted our dromedaries, and filed out of the city. There may be a difficulty in obtaining a sufficient number of dromedaries for the start, and in that case we ride horses to Kuryetien, about! two days’ journey from Damascus. There the sheik will have the necessary animals assembled and waiting our arrival.
We strike away to the northeastward, going at first along a paved road and among the groves and gardens for which the country around Damascus is famous. We meet crowds of people on their way to town, and accompanied by camels and donkeys: bearing the produce of the farms. In some seasons of the year we will meet long strings of camels, which have come from Bagdad, laden with dates, silks, leather goods, and other merchandise from that city; there may be dozens of these in a single party, and sometimes there may be hundreds of them. The drivers are brown, and not over clean; water has been a scarce article among them, and the rivers of Damascus are to their eyes a most welcome sight. One would think that the privations of the desert would inspire no great love for the arid waste, and yet these wild Arabs are so attached to it that they make their stay in the city as brief as possible, and the moment their business is ended they hasten back to their wanderings in the wilderness.
“Give me a pillow of snow,” said a Laplander, breathing his last in a Southern clime, “and I shall die happy.”
“Give me my bed of sand in the desert,” says the Bedouin Arab, “and I shall sleep in peace.”
Every man to his own liking. Tastes are different all the world over.
Ten or twelve miles from Damascus, we leave the groves and shady gardens, and emerge upon a plain irrigated by the waters of the Barada. The plain is cultivated, though generally destitute of arboreal productions, and here and there are the little clumps of trees where the houses of the farmers are embowered. We passed some villages in the groves; we see a little hamlet on the plain to our right, but evidently we were not likely to find a dense population. Now we leave the plain and ascend a some-what rugged path along a barren and rounded mountain which attains an elevation of nearly two thousand feet above the valley of the Barada. In an hour or so we reach the pass, and at the ruin of an old caravansary we look down upon a plain which stretches away like an ocean and fills the eastern horizon.
Five villages are in sight; they are the homes of the people that cultivate portions of this plain. Wheat and barley are the principal products of the plain, and they find a market in Damascus. The inhabitants are peaceable, but their frequent encounters with Bedouin plunderers have made them acquainted with the use of weapons, and give them a rather warlike appearance. They dress much like the Bedouins, and a stranger finds it difficult to distinguish one from the other. The first night of the journey is usually spent at Jerud, a large village, which is the capital of the province and the dwelling place of a Turkish agha or petty governor. He has a company of cavalry at his command to resist the Bedouin Arabs, and not unfrequently has occasion to use them. It is hinted that he sometimes shuts his eyes while a foray is in progress, and begins the pursuit when the plunderers have reached a secure distance. Of course the robbers are expected to do the square thing under such circumstances, and make an honorable division of the spoils. But we should not listen to such calumnies, as we expect to stop over night in the governor’s house, and as long as we are under his roof we receive every hospitality. The assemblage is a mixed one, as there are Arabs from half-a-dozen tribes spending the night there, and we are expected to show no haughtiness in any way. The man who goes around with his nose in the air will run the risk of a snub from some of his fellow-guests.
Out of Jerud we go in the morning at a pretty early hour, and very soon we are in the Desert. We have left the fertile country behind us, and before and around we have the treeless and desolate waste. We are in a wide valley bounded by bleak and barren hills whose sides present an unvarying panorama of grey rocks and earth. The ground is not sandy, but is covered with fragments of limestone and flint, and now and then we see a little tuft of coarse grass struggling to maintain an existence, and evidently doubtful about keeping it up.
Birds and beasts are rare; in fact there is no inducement for them to stay there. When speaking of birds in such a locality, I am reminded of the story of a traveller at an unpromising place somewhere in Utah of Nevada. He entered the diningroom of the only hotel and asked for breakfast.
“Can give you beefsteak, fried ham, and curlew,” said the landlord, whose beard resembled an inverted sage-bush, and whose belt revealed a bowie-knife and revolver. And he added, “The curlew is very good.”
“What is curlew?” said the wayfarer.
“It is a bird that we shoot round here.”
“Has it got any wings?”
“You bet it can fly!”
“Then bring me some beefsteak,” said the traveller, emphatically. “I want nothing to do with a bird that would stay in this miserable country when he could fly away from it. No curlew in mine, if you please.”
Three or four miles from Jerud we pass a village where there is a fountain, and then for nearly thirty miles the road follows the desert valley as before.
A hot sky above, bleak mountains on either hand, before us an undulating plain, shut in by these mountains, and beneath our feet the gravelly, flinty, verdureless soil, and our caravan slowly winding onward, form the scene presented to our eyes. Can we believe that this route has had an existence for centuries?
Thousands and thousands of years—history does not tell us for how long—this way has been trodden by the feet of patient camels and less patient men. It was the caravan route from Damascus to the opulent East. Ages and ages ago began and flourished a commerce now greatly decayed; as we look from the backs of our beasts of burden we see here and there the ruins of castles and caravansaries which once formed the halting places of the merchants when night overtook them, protected them against robbers, and in turn, perhaps, protected the robbers and sent out predatory bands for purposes of plunder. Once this was the great road to India and Far Cathay, long before the sea routes were known, and when navigation was in its most primitive state. Steam and sail and the mariner’s compass have laid a destroying hand on the caravan traffic, and in place of the myriad trains of camels that once moved along this mountain-girdled valley we find now but a comparatively thin thread of commerce. The world is a world of progress.
We reach Kuryetein, a large village occupied by Moslems and Christians in the proportion of two to one. It is in the same valley we have traversed all the way from Jerud, which continues to Palmyra, forty miles further on. Here is an oasis in the Desert; a fountain bursts from the end of a low spur which juts out of the mountain range and touches one end of the village.
It is quite possible that the man who declared it remarkable that great rivers run by large cities might insist that there is a fountain near Kuryetein and dispute our assertion that Kuryetein is near a large fountain; but we wont be particular about words, as we are to stop here over night and want to have a peaceful time of it, to prepare us for the fatigues of to-morrow.
The water from the fountain is carried in little canals by a very careful system of irrigation over a considerable extent of ground, and creates fertility in what would otherwise be a barren waste. Kuryetein is in the country of the Bedouins, and these Arabs frequently come and camp near the village on account of the water that constantly flows there. They bring their flocks j and herds and constitute themselves a general nuisance, as they are not particular about camping grounds and take the first place they can find, without much regard for the owner’s rights. If I were obliged to live in a village situated as this is, and under all its disadvantages, I would move away at once.
The broken columns and large stones, hewn and squared, lying around, indicate beyond a doubt that a city of importance once stood here, but the most diligent inquirer can learn nothing of the inhabitants concerning the place. It stood there as far back | as they can remember, and that is all they know about it.
Among the Bedouins—A Genuine Son of the Desert—High-toned Robbers—A Sample of Bedouin Hospitality—Etiquette in an Arab Encampment—A Cas-e of Insult—Tent-life and its Freedom—A Nation of Cavalry-Warriors—Bedouin Dress, Manners and Customs—Their Horses and Weapons—A Singular Custom—A Caricature Steed and his Rider—Arab Scare-Crows—On the Road to Palmyra—A Mountain of Ruins—The Grand Colonnade—The Temple of the Sun—A Building Half a Mile in Circumference—An Earthquake, and what it did—The City of the Caliphs.
WE are sure to see some of the real Bedouins of the Desert during our stay here, and this will be a good place to learn something about them.
The real, untamed Bedouin differs from the shabby counterfeit we see around Jerusalem and Beyrout as a five dollar gold piece differs from a bogus cent. The real Bedouin rides a fine horse (which is almost always a mare), and he gets himself up in a style sufficiently gorgeous to be a partial compensation to the traveller for being robbed by him. He is a dignified, high-toned thief, and transacts business on the square; he is never impolite, even when plundering you, and his hospitality is unbounded.
When you go to a Bedouin encampment you must stop at the first tent; if you pass it by for a better looking one you will offer the owner an affront he cannot easily forget, and ten to one he will come around and ask you to step out on the sidewalk and and have a little pugilism a la Bedouin. They wisely put the Sheik’s tent nearest the roadway, and consequently the stranger naturally comes into his hands and becomes his guest. They do all in their power to make the visitor comfortable, and treat him always to the best the place affords. He has the full and free run of the village, can go to the opera or circus without paying a cent, and can run up as large a bill as he chooses at any of the bars and restaurants. He pays nothing for carriages, morning papers, cocktails and cigars, and the street cars; hospitals and rat pits are always open to him. For a real free-and-easy to a stranger, nothing can beat a Bedouin encampment.
A gentleman who has seen much of the Bedouins between Damascus and Palmyra speaks of them as follows:
“The Amazeh are probably the most powerful of all the Arab tribes. They scour the Desert, from the Euphrates to the borders of Syria, and from Aleppo to the plain of Nejd—in winter emigrating to the Euphrates, and sometimes spreading over Mesopotamia; in spring they come up like “locusts for multitude” along the frontier of Syria. They can bring into the field ten thousand horsemen and nearly ninety thousand camel riders, and hair, having, usually, broad, vertical stripes of white and brown. On the head is the cafia or silk kerchief, held in place by a cord of camel’s hair. The sheiks are distinguished by a short scarlet pelisse lined with fur or sheepskin, and they wear large boots of red leather while the common people generally walk barefoot.
“The women are almost all handsome when young, and in form they are lords of a district forty thousand square miles in area. They are divided into four great tribes, which are not unfrequently at war, though they call themselves brothers.
“Their dress consists of an under garment of calico, gray or blue, reaching to the midleg, and fastened round the waist with a leathern girdle. The sleeves are wide and have very long, pendant points. Over this is thrown the abba or loose cloak of goat’s and feature many of them are models. But they have bad tempers, are oppressed with hard work from their youth, and soon lose all their freshness and beauty. Their dress is very simple, consisting of a wide loose robe of blue calico, fastened round the neck and sweeping the ground. On the head is a large black veil usually of silk but seldom used to cover the face. They are fond of ornaments; rings, ear-rings, bracelets and anklets of glass, copper, silver and gold are worn in great abundance. Five or six bracelets are often found on a single dark arm while rings of all shapes and sizes cover the fingers.
“The principal weapon of the Bedouin is a lance, about twelve feet long and steel pointed, and the opposite end contains an iron spike for fixing it in the ground. In a charge the lance is held above the head and just before striking it is shaken so as to make it quiver from end to end. All the horsemen carry swords and some of them carry pistols and daggers. The Bedouins have a novel mode of warfare with dromedaries each carrying two men. The foremost of these men has a short spear and a club or mace at his saddle bow and the other carries a matchlock.
“They seldom fight pitched battles. Guerrilla warfare is their forte. To fall upon the enemy suddenly, sweep off a large amount of booty and get back to their own territory again, ere rescue or reprisal can be effected, is the Arab style. Plundering parties often go a distance of eight or ten days’ journey. Every warrior rides his mare but has a companion mounted on a dromedary to carry provisions and water. The latter remain at a rendezvous while the horsemen make the attack. In their forays the Bedouins never kill an unresisting foe unless tempted by blood-revenge.”
The real Bedouin is not a large personage. He is rarely taller than five feet and seven or eight inches, and is not inclined to corpulence. He appears taller than he really is by reason of his erectness, and he has a light, elastic step and performs every movement with ease and grace. His features are sharp, his nose aquiline, his eyes dark, deep set and generally lustrous, his beard thin and short and his hair long and worn in greasy plaits down each side of the face. The complexion is a dark olive, but it varies considerably among different tribes. The Bedouins of Jerusalem and most other parts of Palestine are a burlesque upon the sons of the Desert. The “Doubter” called them sons of thieves, or something of the sort, and for once we agreed with him.