Let us go this morning for a walk through the bazaars of this the oldest of all the world’s cities. They are more oriental than those of Tunis or Cairo and more quaint than those of Constantinople.
Take the Street called Straight, up which St. Paul came to meet Ananias. It is a vaulted tunnel where the only light comes through little windows in the roof, which rises to a height of about one hundred feet. Suppose you could cover lower Broadway at the top of its third-story windows, and in place of the doors and windows of plate-glass have the walls made up of cave-like stores opening out on the roadway. Let each store have a floor about as high above the street level as the seat of a chair, and let it be filled with the most gorgeous goods of the Orient. Let each have its turbaned or fez-capped merchant sitting on the floor at the front, with workmen similarly dressed labouring away in the rear. The bazaars of Damascus are made up of many such vaulted streets so roofed that only dim light comes in through the little windows high up overhead. The shops are mere holes in the walls, but they are packed full of goods. The walls between them are little more than partitions of boards, and there is hardly a business establishment where the traditional bull of the china shop could turn round without losing his hide. The customers bargain standing out in the roadway, or sitting on the floors of the stores and hanging their heels in the street.
Each trade has its own section and we walk for blocks filled with booths containing only one kind of goods. Here is the saddle bazaar. The air is heavy with the rich smell of leather. Harness hangs from the walls, and inside are saddles for camels, donkeys, and horses. There are gay trappings for Arabian steeds, and leather buckets in which one can carry water with him over the desert. There are also necklaces of blue beads to put on your horses to ward off the evil eye, as well as other charms for the journey.
The harness shops are twelve feet deep and each is a little factory where two or three saddlers are at work. In some places they are making harness of wool and in others trappings of leather beautifully decorated.
A little farther on we come to a bazaar selling panniers for camels and donkeys, while not far away is a street where they handle nothing but shoes. The cobblers are turning out footgear of wood, wool, and leather. They are cutting out sandals somewhat like the rain shoes of Japan. The finer ones, which are beautifully inlaid with mother-of-pearl, are for the better class women. Such shoes are used at home and when madame goes to the bathhouse. They are worn without stockings. In another place the merchants are selling shoes of red leather such as are used by the country people and the poorer Damascenes. They are of goatskin, camelskin, or cowhide, and have no heels. The leather is not very well tanned, the shoes being kept on the lasts until sold.
The average shoe shop is about fifteen feet wide, ten feet deep, and twelve feet in height. The stock is hung to wooden nails driven into the walls both in and outside the shop. The men customers stand in the street and try on the shoes without the assistance of the merchant. The women examine the shoes through the eye slits of their veils and guess at the sizes.
A very odd boot is that worn by the Bedouins. It is of goatskin dyed yellow or red and has heels of camelhide with an iron strip running round each of them. This boot reaches half way to the knee. None of the shoes is made by machinery, and most of them are sewed rather than pegged.
How would you like to have your hat blocked, ironed, and brushed for a cent? That is what you can do in Damascus. The hat bazaar has scores of shops for the purpose. The most common cap is the red fez, a round felt bowl which fits tight around the head without rim or brim. It is about five inches high, and must be pressed every few days to keep it in shape. The hatter has a zinc-covered table in which are several small holes filled with fires of burning charcoal. He has brass frames or blocks over which the caps fit, and shells of metal which may be clamped upon them to hold the fez in form. After this the frame is laid over one of the fires, and in a moment the heat gives the cap the latest and most fashionable shape.
Other bazaars are devoted to the selling of silks and still others to the finest of cloths. The wealthier Mohammedans have their long robes made of the best possible stuffs, for they delight in rich garments. The women shop in these bazaars. They peep out through their veils as they examine the goods and will bargain an hour in buying a needle. I am told that they sometimes raise their veils to entice the merchants to lower their prices, but if so, I have not seen them, and I have been told by my guide that if I wish to keep my head on my shoulders I had best turn my eyes in another direction.
There is one Damascus bazaar where I walk carefully, and as far as possible keep in midstreet. It is called the Louse Market, and you may know why when I tell you that it is devoted to second-hand clothes. The bazaar is just back of the citadel and not far from the Straight Street. From morning until evening it is filled with customers and dealers; auctioneers walk back and forth through it, each carrying a garment which he holds up, asking for bids. He praises his goods to the skies and tells the crowd that he is willing to sell them for a song.
Yesterday I spent a short time in the booksellers’ bazaar, but my guide Shammas dragged me away, fearing that we might be insulted and mobbed. The dealers are such strict Mohammedans that they do not wish even to sell to the Christians. The shops are near the gate of the Great Mosque and among their wares are many copies of the Koran. Picking one up, I asked the merchant the price.
He scowled and angrily exclaimed: “Put it down! Put it down! We do not sell our holy books to the Christians.”
Thereupon, as I saw he was growing angry, I dropped it, saying: “We Christians are glad to give or sell our Bibles to any one, and as for your Korans, I can buy them by the ton in New York or London.”
The Moslems here are noted for their hatred of Christians, and one of the bloodiest massacres of modern times occurred in Damascus about sixty years ago. The people are little changed to-day, and they are about as ignorant as they were then. The chief books sold are religious. There are also some story books and copies of the “Arabian Nights,” either in parts or as a whole.
During our trip through the bazaars we find the tastes of the Mohammedan stomach everywhere in evidence. These people like good food, and it seems to me they eat from morning till night. Pedlars carrying candy, lemonade, and cakes march through the streets crying their wares while bread men sit on the sidewalks with their stocks. The most common bread is a flat, round cake as thick as the buckwheats we have for breakfast, and a foot or more in diameter. These cakes are white or brown. They are so pliable that they can be doubled up without breaking. They are often used to pick the meats out of a stew. The Orientals do not use forks, claiming that their own hands are much cleaner. They have a saying that “everyone knows whether he has washed his own hands, but no one knows who washed the forks.” Another kind of bread is like a gigantic shoe sole without the heel, and another is a round biscuit about an inch thick.
But here comes a man selling candy. Take a bite of it and your mouth will flow water like the rivers which feed this city and make fertile its plains. Damascus is noted for its sweetmeats, and its candies are shipped far and wide over the world. The sweets are sold in the bazaars, some of the merchants having large shops. There is one dear old turbaned sheik who has a cell in the candy bazaar where you can buy nuts and fruits fit for the queen of the fairies. His sugared almonds are the joy of the tourist, and his Turkish delight, a soft, sweet, transparent paste, with pistachios and other small nuts scattered through it, is a dish for the gods.
Stop a moment and listen to the cries of the pedlars. Shammas will interpret them for us. Here is a man selling bread hot from the oven. He yells: “Ya rezzak”, or, “God, send me a customer,” and follows by showing a cake and saying, “All this for two cents.” Another coming behind cries out in Arabic: “Buy my bread and the good God will nourish you,” and a third says: “My cakes are food for the swallows and the delight of tender and delicate girls.”
Here comes a lemonade man. He has a big glass jar slung to his back with a neck so shaped that he can tilt its contents into a cup. He has two brazen bowls which he holds in his hands and rattles as he shouts: “Drink and refresh thy heart.” Another pedlar has ice-cream the coolness of which he cries up in the words: “Balak sunnak,” or “Take care of your teeth,” meaning it is so cold it will make your teeth ache. Fruit is sold the same way, as well as cooked meats of various kinds. There is one salad which the men call out is so tender that if an old woman eats it she will find herself young in the morning.
A good deal of food is bought by the charitable and given to beggars. Some even buy bread for the dogs, hoping thereby to acquire merit and thus pave their road to the Mohammedan heaven.
Making our way through the crowds we reach a region of cook shops, restaurants, and cafés not far from the butcher shops. The latter sell most kinds of meat, including camel, beef, mutton, and lamb. The mutton is fine. The sheep are of the fat-tail variety, and when skinned and dressed for the market their tails are left on. These hang down over their backs in great lumps of fat, looking like a loaf of fresh dough ready for baking. Sometimes they have the form of a heart four or five inches thick and eight inches wide. Such a tail will weigh fifteen pounds. Upon a live sheep it hangs down at the rear like a woolly apron, and when raised looks like a miniature sail, showing an expanse of bare white skin beneath.
Another interesting part of business Damascus is composed of long streets of cave-like vaults floored with cement and divided up into compartments piled high with grain, beans, or flour. This is the grain bazaar. One of the compartments may hold a hundred bushels of wheat and another a like quantity of oats, barley, or lentils. There are bins filled with Indian corn and bins of caraway seeds. The grain lies on the floor and is scooped up and measured to order. Camels come in bringing great bags of wheat and go out carrying other grains to various parts of the city. The country about Damascus which can be irrigated is exceedingly rich and produces large crops. A great deal of grain is brought from the plains beyond the Jordan and on the east of the Sea of Galilee, known as the hauran, and this grain is shipped from Damascus to other parts of Syria and across the Mediterranean to Europe.
Indeed, the trade of Damascus is extensive. The city makes goods of various kinds which are shipped all over the world. It is noted for its beautiful brass and silver ware, its inlaid woodwork, and its oriental rugs. It has large caravan trade with Persia and other parts of Turkey, and long lines of camels are always bringing in and carrying out goods. There are some great buildings called khans devoted to wholesaling and warehousing. I visited one of these. It was shaped much like a mosque, being lighted by nine great domes the tops of which were at least one hundred feet above the dirt floor. The domes were upheld by stone pillars. The floor, which covered almost an acre, was packed with merchandise.
In one part of it were bags of wheat piled high toward the roof; in another hundreds of boxes of dates. In other parts were barrels and crates of fruit and bales of oriental rugs laid one upon the other. Some of the bales were enormous, one equalling a load for a two-horse wagon. I was told that they came from Bagdad. There were a number of these khans in Damascus at the time of Christ, and there are several now in use. The space in them is rented out to merchants, the owners doing a general warehousing business.
But come, let us go to the silver bazaar.
This, like the warehouse establishment, is under one roof. It is composed of scores of silversmith shops or booths scattered over a large room of more than an acre. Each merchant has his own little quarter. He sits behind a desk or counter, and has a rude, old-fashioned safe at the rear. At the right and left, or still farther back, are his mechanics, who are working in silver and gold, making all sorts of jewellery. Each has a little anvil before him and a miniature furnace with a blow pipe, by which he melts and shapes the metal to the desired form. The pounding can be heard everywhere. We ask some of the merchants to show us their wares. They bring out heavy chains of silver, and gold rings set with diamonds and pearls and some magnificent pigeon-blood rubies. There are millions of dollars’ worth of jewellery under this roof.
The customers are both men and women, the former in gowns and turbans and the latter in great black sheets with veils over their faces. We stop and watch the buying and selling. There is a woman looking at a bracelet of gold. The jeweller weighs it on rude little scales and then adds the cost of the labour. The woman is not satisfied with the price. She calls him a thief, and demands that he do not rob her children of bread. It may be an hour before the bargain is made.
I am frequently asked what one can buy in these oriental cities which is worth while taking home. Damascus is a good shopping place for the tourist. Since it is somewhat off the main line of travel, one can pick up oriental things comparatively cheap. I have bought several rugs which have come here by caravan from Bokhara, two of which are at least one hundred years old. I will not give the prices except to say that they are much below those at which they could be bought in New York, and the merchant has agreed to pay the duties upon them and to deliver them to my house in Washington.
Among the many other things sold are silk head shawls such as are used by the Bedouins, and table covers of red or black woollen cloth embroidered with silk.
A great many Americans take home brassware from Damascus, and not a few purchase swords inlaid with silver and with the Damascus blades for which the city has been noted for ages. Some of these swords are imitations imported from Germany, while other “oriental” wares come from Manchester, being made especially for this trade. Indeed, one must keep his eye open if he would buy genuine curios in any part of the world.