"Though old as history itself, thou art as fresh as the breath of spring, blooming as thine own rosebud, and fragrant as thine own orange-flower, O Damascus, pearl of the East!"
"Though old as history itself, thou art as fresh as the breath of spring, blooming as thine own rosebud, and fragrant as thine own orange-flower, O Damascus, pearl of the East!"
We are at the Grande Hotel Victoria. All these hotels are "Grande" something or other. A box shanty ten by fifteen is likely to be called "Grande Hotel de France." However, the Victoriaisgrand, rather, and quite Oriental in its general atmosphere.The rooms are clean, too, and the Turkish pictures amusing. Furthermore, our rooms look across the river—the soul of Damascus—the water in which Eve first saw her sweet reflected form, if tradition holds. Its banks are bordered by a great thoroughfare now, where against a background of peach-bloom and minaret an eternal panorama flows by. Camel trains from Bagdad and the far depths of Persia; mule trains from the Holy Land; donkey trains from nowhere in particular; soldiers with bands playing weird music; groups of Arabs mounted on splendid horses—dark men with long guns, their burnouses flying in the wind. One might sit here forever and drift out of time, out of space, in the fabric of the never-ending story.
Being late in the afternoon, with no programme, Laura and I set out to seek adventure, were immediately adopted by a guide, and steered toward the bazaars. We crossed a public square near the hotel where there were all sorts and conditions of jackasses—some of them mounted by men, others loaded with every merchandise under the sun. We saw our first unruly donkey just then—a very small donkey mounted by a very fat son of the prophet with a vast turban and beard. It being the Mohammedan Sunday (Friday), he had very likely been to the mosque and to market, and was going home. He had a very large bush broom under his arm, and it may have been this article thrashing up and down on the donkey's flank that made him restive. At all events, he was cavorting about (the donkey, I mean) in a most unseemly fashion for one bestridden by so grave aburden, and Mustapha Mohammed—they are all named that—was bent forward in a ball, uttering what Laura thought might be quotations from the Koran. We did not see what happened. They were still gyrating and spinning when we were caught up by the crowd and swept into the bazaar.
The Grande Bazaar of Damascus excels anything we have seen. It is bigger and better and cleaner than the bazaar of Constantinople, and a hundred—no, a million—times more inviting. No Christian could eat anything in a Constantinople market-place. The very thought of it gags me now as I write, while here in Damascus, Laura and I were having confections almost immediately—and lemonade cooled with snow brought on the backs of camels from the Lebanon mountain-tops. Mark Twain speaks of the place as being filthy. I think they must have cleaned up a good deal since then; besides, that was midsummer. I would not like to say that the place is speckless, but for the Orient it was clean, and the general bouquet was not disturbing. Also, I had a safer feeling in Damascus. I did not feel that if I stepped into a side-street I would immediately be dragged down and robbed. I did not feel as if I were a lost soul in a bedlam of demons.
We noticed other things. The little booths, one after another, were filled with the most beautiful wares—such wares as we have seen nowhere else—but the drowsy merchants sat cross-legged in meditation, smoking their nargileh or reading their prayers, and did not ask us to buy. If we stopped to look at their goods they hardly noticed us. If we priced themthey answered our guide in Arabic monosyllables. Here and there a Jew with a more pretentious stock would solicit custom in the old way of Israel, but the Arab was silent, indifferent, disinterested. Clearly it was his preference that we pass by as quickly as possible. His goods were not for such as us. I did manage to add to my collection of donkey-beads, and would have bought more if Laura had not suggested that they probably thought I was buying them to wear myself. At the book-booth they even would not let us touch the volumes displayed for sale.
Another thing I have noticed: there are no beggars here—none worth while. Now and then, perhaps, somebody half extends a timid hand, but on the whole there is a marked absence of begging. Damascus does not beg from the Christian.
It is a weird, wonderful place, that bazaar. It covers an endless space, if one may judge from its labyrinthine interior. Everywhere they stretch away, the dim arcades, flimsily roofed with glass and matting and bark, fading into vague Oriental vistas of flitting figures and magic outlines. Here in the main thoroughfare a marvellous life goes on. The space is wide, and there are masses of people moving to and fro, mingled with donkeys and camels, and even carriages that dash recklessly through; and there is a constant cry of this thing and that thing from the donkey-boys and the pedlers of nuts and bread and insipid sweetened drinks. Some of the pedling people clatter little brass cymbals as they walk up and down, and repeat over and over some words which our guide said were something between a prayer anda song, probably as old as the language.[6]And the vendors of drinks carry their stock in trade in a goat-skin, or maybe in a pigskin, which is not a pretty thing to look at—all black and hairy and wet, with distended legs sticking out like something drowned. We didn't buy any of those drinks. We thought they might be clean enough, but we were no longer thirsty.
All sorts of things are incorporated in this bazaar: old dwelling-houses; columns of old temples; stairways beginning anywhere, leading nowhere; mosques—the limitless roof of merchandise has stretched out and enveloped these things. To attempt a detailed description of the place would be unwisdom. One may only generalize this vast hive of tiny tradesmen and tiny trades. All the curious merchants and wares we have seen pictured for a lifetime are gathered here. It is indeed the Grande Bazaar—the emporium of the East.
The street we followed came to an end by-and-by at a great court open to the sky. It was a magnificent enclosure, and I was quite willing to enter it. I did not do so, however. I had my foot raised to step over the low barrier, when there was a warning cry and a brown hand pushed me back. Our guide had dropped a step behind. He came hurrying up now, and explained that this was the court of the Great Mosque. We must have special permission to enter. We would come with the party to-morrow.
The place impressed me more than any mosquewe have seen—not for its beauty, though it is beautiful, but because of its vastness, its open sky, and its stone floor, polished like glass by the bare and stockinged feet that have slipped over it for centuries. We could not enter, but we were allowed to watch those who came as they removed their shoes and stepped over into the court to pray. When you realize that the enclosure is as big as two or three city squares, and that the stones, only fairly smooth in the beginning, reflect like a mirror now, you will form some idea of the feet and knees and hands that have pressed them, and realize something of the fervor of the Damascus faith.
We left the bazaar by a different way, and our guide got lost getting us back to the hotel. I didn't blame him, though—anybody could get lost in those tangled streets. We were in a hopeless muddle, for it was getting dark, when down at the far end of a narrow defile Laura got a glimpse of a building which she said was like one opposite our hotel. So we went to look for it, and it was the same building. Then our guide found the hotel for us, and we paid him, and everything was all right. He didn't know anything about the city, I believe, but was otherwise a perfect guide.
Following, we put in a busy two days in Damascus—a marvellous two days, I thought. Our carriages were at the hotel next morning, and I want to say here that of all the carriages and horses we have seen, those of Damascus are far and away the best. The horses are simply beautiful creatures and in perfect condition. Even those kept for hireare superb animals with skins of velvet. They are Arabian, of course, and I can believe, now, that the Arab loves his horse, for I have never seen finer animals, not even on Fifth Avenue. I can understand, too, why theQuaker Citypilgrims—ambling into Damascus on those old, blind, halt and spavined Beirut nags—made their entry by night.
And these Damascus horses go. Their drivers may love them, but they make them hurry. They crack their whips, and we go racing through the streets like mad. However deliberate the East may be in most things, it is swift enough in the matter of driving.
I don't care for it. It keeps me watching all the time to see what kind of an Arab we are going to kill, and I miss a good many sights. We went through that crowded thoroughfare of the Grande Bazaar at a rate which fairly was homicidal. Certainly if those drowsy shopkeepers did not hate Christians enough before, they do now.
We drove to the Grande Mosque, and we had to put on slippers, of course, to enter even the outer court. It is nearly a quarter of a mile long, and we slid and straddled across that vast marble skating-rink, pausing at a little pavilion—the Dome of the Treasury—where they keep some venerable books—the oldest books in the world, I believe, and so sacred that nobody ever sees them. Then we entered the Grande Mosque itself—still known as the Church of St. John the Divine.
For, like the temples of Baalbec and otherwheres, the Grande Mosque of Damascus has sheltered a variety of religious doctrines. It was the Templeof Rimmon, first, god of the Syrians. The Romans, who conquered and templed the world, came next, and built here, as they always built, in magnificence and pride, with architecture stolen from the Greeks. After the Romans, the early Christians under Constantine and Theodosius, who for some reason did not destroy, as was their habit, but only adapted the great temple to their needs. The son of Theodosius made some improvements, and above the south door left a Christian inscription which stands to this day.
When, in 634a.d., Damascus fell, the church was at first divided between Mohammedan and Christian worshippers—the two entering by the same gate. They were not so far asunder in those days—not farther, I think, than some of our present-day Christian sects—so called. Seventy years later the strife became bitter, and the followers of Mohammed claimed it all. The Caliph entered the church with guards, smashed the Christian images, and set up emblems of the new faith. Then he lavished quantities of money, making the place as splendid as possible, until it was more beautiful even than St. Sophia's. Sixteen years ago it was badly damaged by fire, but now it has been restored—by Christian workmen, Habib said. Habib, I should add, is our party guide—a Christian Syrian, educated in a college at Beirut—a quite wonderful person of many languages.
The mosque interior is the most beautiful place we have seen. Its ceiling, its windows, its mosaic walls, its rugs—all overwhelming in exquisite workmanshipand prodigality of design. The pictures I have dreamed of Aladdin's palace grow dim in this enchanted place. No wonder the faithful linger here on their way to and from Mecca; for after the long desert stages it is like a vision of that lavish paradise which their generous prophet has provided. They are all about—prostrating themselves with many genuflections and murmurings—and we step on them as little as possible, but they are a good deal in the way. The place holds ten or twelve thousand of them every Friday, Habib said.
Habib, by-the-way, has small respect for the Moslem. Also, he does not seem to fear consequences, which I confess I do, being in the very stronghold of fanaticism, and remembering that some five thousand Christians were suddenly and violently destroyed in Damascus not so many years ago. We were in front of a very marvellous mosaic shrine, and Habib beckoned us to come closer to admire its exquisite workmanship. A devotee was prostrated in the little alcove, bowing and praying in the usual rhythmic way. We surrounded him, but were inclined to hold a little aloof.
"Closer, closer!" urged Habib. "You must see it!"
We crowded up and entangled the praying person, who became aware of our presence and turned up his face helplessly. Then he pressed it again to the floor, and tried to go on with his murmurings. It was no use. Habib jostled him, waved his pointing stick over his head, tapped the ornamentation within an inch of his nose. We were told to step up and examine the work closely—to touch it, smell of it. ClearlyHabib regarded that devotee no more than if he had been a mile removed instead of being actually against us. The poor pious pilgrim stole another look at us, this way and that, slipped a notch in his prayers, gathered himself and tried again, let go a whole distich, quavered in his attempt to make himself heard, cast another appealing glance at theKurfürsters, broke through, and fled. This is not an exaggeration, but an actual happening. In America there would have been trouble.
"He is nothing," said Habib, when I seemed disturbed. "He is only an Arab." Still, he was praying to Habib's God.
Many persons do not realize, I believe, that Christianity and Mohammedanism differ mainly in their Messiah. The Jew furnished the Moslem as well as the Christian with a God, patriarchs, and prophets—the Old Testament being common to all. The Moslem goes further than the Jew, for he accepts parts of the New Testament. He recognizes John the Baptist as a holy messenger, even claiming to have his head in this very church, in a shrine which we saw, though I could see that Habib thought the relic apocryphal. Furthermore, the Moslem accepts Christ! To him, Christ is only a lesser prophet than Mohammed, but still a great being—an emissary of God—and on this same mosque is the Minaret of Jesus, where, one day, as they believe, he will stand to judge the world. On the other hand, the average Christian believes that Mohammed was merely a fraud, and it is this difference of opinion that has reddened the East with blood. I am moved to set down thisparagraph of rather general information for the reason that it contains some things which I suppose others to be as ignorant of as I was—things which seem to me interesting.
We did see one old book, by-the-way—fifteen hundred years old, Habib said, and a member of our party asked if it was printed on a press; though that is nothing—I have done worse myself. Then we ascended the Minaret of the Bride for the view. We climbed and climbed, and got hot, and shaky in the knees, but the view repaid us. There was Damascus spread out in its beauty; its marble courts, its domes and minarets and painted houses—a magic city in the midst of a garden of bloom. Certainly this is fairyland—a mirage whose fragile fabric may vanish in a breath. Oh, our time is all too short! One must have long and long to look upon the East—it has taken so long to build!
We went to Saladin's tomb, and that is authoritative, though I confess that I could not realize, as we stood in that narrow building and viewed the catafalque in the centre, that the mighty Saracen hero of romance rested there. For me, he belongs only in tales of enchantment and fierce deeds, and not in that quiet place. I remembered that his sword was so sharp that a feather pillow dropped on its edge would fall on either side. Perhaps they have the sword there, and possibly the pillow to prove it, but I did not see them.
A Turkish school turned out to look at us and smile. We looked and smiled back, and everybody was satisfied. It is certain that we look more strangeto them than they do to us, now. I know this, for when I stop anywhere and look over our party, here amid the turbans and fezzes and long flowing garments of the Orient, I can see for myself that it is really our party that looks queer and fantastic and out of place—not these people at all.
It is natural that one should realize this in Damascus, for Damascus is the great reality—the unchanged and changeless. Algiers was a framed picture; Constantinople was a world's Midway—a sort of masquerade, prepared for our benefit. Here it is different. No longer the country and the people constitute the show, but ourselves. One presently discovers that he is artificial—an alien, a discord—that he has no place here. These others are the eternal verities; their clothes are the real clothes—not ours, that change fashion with every year and season. One is tempted to abjure all the fanfare and flourish of his so-called progress—to strip off his ridiculous garments and customs and fall in with the long steady rhythm of the ages.
Only, you don't do it. You discover objections to such a course. I could name some of them if I wanted to. Never mind; you couldn't do it anyway. You have been hurrying and sweating and capering about and wearing your funny clothes and singing in false keys too long. You cannot immediately put on the garb of the ages, and lock step with the swing of a thousand years.
We entered the "street which is called Straight," and came to the house of Judas, where St. Paul lodged when he was led blind into Damascus, trembling and astonished of the Lord. His name was Saul, and he had been on his way to Damascus to persecute the Christians, by the authority of Rome. The story is in the ninth chapter of Acts, and is too familiar to repeat here. I believe, though, most of us thought the house of Judas had some connection with the unfaithful disciple of that name, until Habib enlightened us. Habib said that this was another Judas—a good man—well-to-do for his time. The Street called Straight runs through the Grande Bazaar, and the house of Judas is in the very midst of that dim aggregation of trades. It is roofless and unoccupied, but it is kept clean and whitewashed, and its stone walls will stand for another two thousand years.
Next to the birth and crucifixion of the Saviour, the most important event in the story of Christianity happened there. It seemed strange and dream-like to be standing in the house of St. Paul's conversion—a place which heretofore had seemed to exist only in the thin leaves and fine print of our Sunday-school days—and I found myself wondering whichcorner of the house St. Paul occupied, just where he sat at table, and a number of such things. Then I noticed the drifting throngs outside, passing and repassing or idling drowsily, who did not seem to know that it was St. Paul's house, and paid no attention to it at all.
At the house of Ananias, which came next, Habib was slow in arriving, and the Horse-Doctor gave us a preliminary lecture.
"This," he said, "is the house of Ananias, once fed by the ravens. Later, through being a trifle careless with the truth, he became the founder and charter member of a club which in the United States of America still bears his name. Still later he was struck by lightning for deceiving his mother-in-law, Saphira, who perished at the same time to furnish a Scripture example that the innocent must suffer with the guilty (see Deuteronomy xi. 16): This is the spot where Ananias fell. That stone marks the spot where his mother-in-law stood. The hole in the roof was made by the lightning when it came through. We will now pass on to the next—"
That was good enough gospel for our party if Habib had only let it alone. He came in just then and interrupted. He said:
"This is the house of Ananias—called St. Ananias, to distinguish him from a liar by the same name. That Ananias and his wife, Saphira, fell dead at the feet of St. Peter because of falsehood, a warning to those who trifle with the truth to-day. St. Ananias was a good man, who restored St. Paul's sight and instructed him in the Christian doctrine."
We naturally avoided the Doctor for a time after that. His neighborhood seemed dangerous.
The house of Ananias is below ground, and was probably used as a hiding-place in a day when it was not safe for an active and busy Christian to be at large. Such periods have not been unusual in Damascus. St. Paul preached Christianity openly, but not for long; for the Jews "took counsel to kill him," and watched the gate to see that he did not get away.
"Then the disciples took him by night, and let him down the wall in a basket."
We drove to the outer wall, and came to the place and the window where Paul is said to have been let down. Itmighthave happened there; the wall is Roman, and the window above it could have been there in St. Paul's day. I prefer to believe it is the real window, though I have reason to think they show another one sometimes.
Habib said we were to visit some of the handsome residences of Damascus. We were eager for that. From the Minaret of the Bride we had looked down upon those marble courts and gay façades, and had been fascinated. We drove back into the city, through narrow mud-walled streets, forbidding and not overclean. When these alleys had become so narrow and disheartening that we could travel only with discomfort, we stopped at a wretched entrance and were told to get out. Certainly this was never the portal to any respectable residence. But we were mistaken. The Damascus house is built from the inside out. It is mud and unseemly disrepute without,but it is fairyland within. Every pretentious house is built on the same plan, and has a marble court, with a fountain or pool, and some peach or apricot or orange trees. On one side of the court is the front of the house. It has a high entrance, and rooms to the right and to the left—rooms that have a raised floor at one end (that is where the rich rugs are) and very high ceilings—forty feet high, some of them—decorated with elaborate designs. In the first house the round writhing rafters were exposed, and the decoration on them made them look exactly like snakes. The Apostle took one look and fled, and I confess I did not care for them much myself. The rest of the house was divided into rooms of many kinds, and there was running water, and a bath. We visited another house, different only in details. Some of the occupants were at home here—women-folks who seemed glad to see us, and showed us about eagerly. A tourist party from far-off America is a diversion to them, no doubt.
URGING US TO PARTAKE OF THE PRECIOUS STUFF, WITHOUT STINTURGING US TO PARTAKE OF THE PRECIOUS STUFF, WITHOUT STINT
Then we went to still another house. We saw at once that it was a grander place than the two already visited, and we were simply bewildered at the abundance of the graven brass and inlaid furniture, rich rugs and general bric-à-brac, that filled a great reception-room. Suddenly servants in Turkish dress appeared with trays of liqueurs—two kinds, orange and violet—urging us to partake of the precious stuff, without stint. Also, there were trays of rare coffee and dainty sweetmeats, and we were invited to sit in the priceless chairs and to handle the wonderful things to our hearts' content. We were amazed,stunned. Oriental hospitality could go no further. Then in some subtle manner—I don't remember how the information was conveyed, but it must have been delicately, Orientally done—we learned that all this brass, all these marvellous things, were for sale!
Did we buy them? Did we! David did not take more brass from Hadadezer than we carried out of that Damascus residence, which was simply an annex to a great brass and mosaic factory, as we discovered later. Perhaps those strange liqueurs got into our enthusiasm; certainly I have never seen our party so liberal—so little inclined to haggle and hammer down.
But the things themselves were worth while. The most beautiful brass in the world is made in Damascus, and it is made in that factory.
They took us in where the work was going on. I expected to see machinery. Nothing of the sort—not a single machine anywhere. Every stage of the work is performed by hand—done in the most primitive way, by workmen sitting on the ground, shaping some artistic form, or with a simple graving-tool working out an intricate design. Many of the workers were mere children—girls, most of them—some of them not over seven or eight years old, yet even these were producing work which would cause many an "arts and crafts" young lady in America to pale with envy. They get a few cents a day. The skilled workers, whose deft fingers and trained vision produce the exquisite silver inlay designs, get as much as a shilling. No wonder our people did not haggle. The things were cheap, and they knew it.
In a wareroom in the same factory I noticed that one of the walls was stone, and looked like Roman masonry; also that in it were the outlines of two high arches, walled up. I asked Habib about it.
"Those," he said, "are two of the entrances to the Street called Straight. We are outside of the wall here; this house is built against it. The Straight street had three entrances in the old days. Those two have long been closed."
It always gives me a curious sensation to realize that actual people are living and following their daily occupations in the midst of associations like these. I can't get used to it at all.
To them, however, it is nothing. The fact that they sleep and wake and pursue their drowsy round in places hallowed by tradition; that the house which sheltered St. Paul stands in the midst of their murmuring bazaar; that one side of this wareroom is the wall of the ancient city, the actual end of the Street called Straight; that every step they take is on historic ground, sacred to at least three religions—this to me marvellous condition is to them not strange at all.
It is not that they do not realize the existence of these things: they do—at least, most of them do—and honor and preserve their landmarks. But that a column against which they dream and smoke may be one of the very columns against which St. Paul leaned as he groped his blind way down the Street called Straight is to them not a matter for wonder, or even comment.
I am beginning to understand their point of view—evento envy it. I do not envy some of the things they have—some of their customs—but their serenity of habit, their security of place in the stately march of time, their establishment of race and religion—one must envy these things when he considers them here, apart from that environment which we call civilized—the whirl which we call progress.
I do not think I shall turn Moslem. The doctrine has attractive features, both here and hereafter; but I would not like to undertake the Koran at my time of life. I can, however, and I do, pay the tribute of respect to the sun-baked land and sun-browned race that have given birth to three of the world's great religions, even though they have not unnaturally claimed their last invention as their best and held it as their own.
We entered the remaining portal of the Street called Straight and drove to the Grand Bazaar. We were in a buying fever by this time, and plunged into a regular debauch of bargain and purchase. We were all a little weary when we reached the hotel. We came in carrying our brass and other loot, and dropped down on the first divan, letting our bundles fall where they listed.
I thought the Apostle looked particularly solemn. Being a weighty person, jouncing all day in a carriage and walking through brass bazaars and fez bazaars and silk bazaars and rug bazaars and silver bazaars and leather bazaars and saddle bazaars, and at least two hundred and seven other bazaars, had told on him. When I spoke cheeringly he merely grunted and reached for something in a glass which, if it tasted as it smelled, was not calculated to improve his temper. When I sat down beside him he did not seem over cordial.
ASKED HIM IF HE WOULDN'T EXECUTE A LITTLE COMMISSION FOR ME IN THE BAZAARSASKED HIM IF HE WOULDN'T EXECUTE A LITTLE COMMISSION FOR ME IN THE BAZAARS
Then, quite casually, I asked him if he wouldn't execute a little commission for me in the bazaars; there were a few trifles I had overlooked: another coffee-set, for instance—something for a friend at home; I had faith in his (the Apostle's) taste.
It seemed a reasonable request, and I made itpolitely enough, but the Apostle became suddenly violent. He said:
"Damn the bazaars! I'm full of brass and Oriental rugs and bric-à-brac. I never want to hear of a bazaar again. I want to give away the junk I've already bought, and get back to the ship." Which we knew he didn't mean, for he had put in weary hours acquiring those things, inspired with a large generosity for loved ones at home.
The Colonel came drifting along just then—unruffled, debonair—apparently unwearied by the day's round. Nothing disturbs the Colonel. If he should outwear the century, he would still be as blithe of speech and manner as he is to-day at—dear me, how old is the Colonel? Is he thirty? Is he fifty? He might be either of those ages or at any mile-post between.
He stood now, looking down at the Apostle and his cup of poison. Then, with a coaxing smile:
"Match you, Joe—my plunder against yours—just once."
The Apostle looked up with a perfectly divine sneer.
"Yes, you will— I think I see myself!"
The Colonel slapped a coin on the table briskly.
"Come on, Joe—we never matched for bric-à-brac before. Let's be game—just this time."
What was the use? The Apostle resisted—at first violently, then feebly—then he matched—and lost.
For a moment he could hardly realize the extent of his disaster. Then he reached for the mixture in front of him, swallowed it, gagged, and choked alarmingly. When he could get his voice, he said:
"I'm the hellfiredest fool in Syria. I walked four hundred miles to buy those things."
The Horse-Doctor regarded him thoughtfully.
"You always interest me," he said. "I don't know whether it's your shape or your mental habitudes. Both are so peculiar."
After which we left the Apostle—that is, we stood from under and went in to dinner.
The Apostle is a good traveller, however—all the Reprobates are. They take things as they find them, which cannot be said for all of our people. One wonders what some of them expected in Damascus—probably steamer fare and New York hotel accommodations. I judge this from their remarks.
As a matter of fact, we are at the best hotel in Damascus, and the hotel people are racking their bodies and risking their souls to give us the best they know. A traveller cannot get better than the best—even in heaven. Travelling alone in any strange land, he is more likely to get the worst. Yet the real traveller will make the best of what he finds, and do better when he finds he can. But these malcontents of ours have been pampered and spoiled by that steamer until they expect nothing short of perfection—theirkind of perfection—wherever they set foot. They are so disturbed over the fact that the bill-of-fare is unusual and not adjusted to their tastes that they are not enjoying the sights, and want to clear out, forthwith. They have been in Damascus a little more than a day; they want to go now. This old race has stood it five thousand years or more. These ship-dwellers can't stand it two days withoutcomplaint. I don't want to be severe, but such travellers tire me. I suppose the bill-of-fare in heaven won't please them. I hope not, if I'm invited to remain there—any length of time, I mean.
The rest of us are having great enjoyment. We like everything, and we eat most of it. There are any number of dried fruits and nuts and fine juicy oranges always on the table, strung down the centre—its full length. And even if the meats are a bit queer, they are by no means bad. We whoop up the bill-of-fare, and go through it forward and backward and diagonally, working from both ends toward the centre, and back again if we feel like it. We have fruit and nuts piled by our plates and on our plates all through the meal.Wedon't get tired of Damascus. We could stay here and start a famine. Whatwillthese grumblers do in heaven, where very likely there isn't a single dish they ever heard of before?
In the matter of wines, however, I am conservative. You see, Mohammed forbade the use of spirituous beverages by the faithful, and liquor forms no part of their long, symphonic rhyme. They don't drink it themselves; they only make it for visitors.
It would require no command of the Prophet to make me abstain from it. I have tried their vintage. I tried one brand called the "Wine of Ephesus." The name conjured visions; so did the wine, but they were not the same visions. The name suggested banquets in marble halls, where gentlemen and ladies of the old days reclined on rich divans and were served by slaves on bended knee. The wine itself—the taste of it, I mean—suggested a combinationof hard cider and kerosene, with a hurry call for the doctor.
I was coy about the wines of the East after that, but by-and-by I tried another brand—a different color with a different name. This time it was "Nectar of Heliopolis." They had curious ideas of nectar in Heliopolis. Still, it was better than the Wine of Ephesus. Hair-oil is always better than kerosene in a mixture like that—but not much better. The flavor did not invite debauch.
This is Sunday (the Christian Sunday), and I have been out for an early morning walk. I took the trolley that starts near the hotel. I did not care for a trolley excursion, but I wanted to see what a Damascus trolley is like and where it went. It isn't like anything in particular, and it didn't go anywhere—not while I was on it.
I noticed that it was divided into three sections, and I climbed into the front one. The conductor motioned to me, and I understood that I had made a wrong selection, somehow. A woman, veiled and bangled, climbed aboard just then, and I understood. I was in the women's section—a thing not allowed in Damascus. So I got back into the rear section, but that wouldn't do, either. The conductor was motioning again.
I comprehended at length. The rear compartment was second class. He wanted me to go in style. So I got into the middle compartment and gave him a tin medal, and got two or three similar ones in change, and sat there waiting for the procession to move.I waited a good while. There was an Arabic inscription on the back of the seats in front of me—in the place where, in America, it says, "Wait for the car to stop." I suppose it says, "Wait for the car to start" in Damascus. We did that. The conductor dozed.
Now and then somebody climbed on, but the arrivals were infrequent. I wondered if we were waiting for a load. It would take a week to fill up, at that rate. I looked at my watch now and then. The others went to sleep. That is about the difference between the East and the West. The West counts the time; for the East it has no existence. Moments, hours, months mean nothing to the East. The word hurry is not of her language. She drives her horses fast, but merely for pleasure, not haste. She has constructed this trolley, but merely for style. It doesn't really serve any useful purpose.
We moved a little by-and-by, and I had hopes. They were premature. We crawled up in front of a coffee-house where a lot of turbans and fezzes were gathered outside, over tiny cups and hubble-bubble pipes; then we stopped. Our conductor and motorman got off and leaned against an almond-tree and began gossiping with friends. Finally coffee came out to them, and pipes, and they squatted down to smoke.
I finished my ride then; I shall always wonder where those other passengers thought they were going, and if they ever got there.
I followed down a narrow street, and came to a succession of tiny work-shops. It was then I discoveredwhat a man's feet are for—that is, some uses I had not known before. They are to assist the hands in performing mechanical labor. All mechanics work barefooted here. They sit flat on the floor or ground, with their various appliances in front of them, and there is scarcely any operation in which the feet do not take part. I came to a turning-lathe—a whole row of turning-lathes—tiny, crude affairs, down on the ground, of course, driven back and forth with a bow and a string. The workman held the bow in one hand, while the other hand, assisted by the foot, guided the cutting tool. It would never occur to these workmen to put the lathe higher in the air and attach a treadle, leaving both hands free to guide the tool.
Their sawing is the crudest process imaginable. They have no trestles or even saw-bucks. They have only a slanting stick stuck in the ground, and against this, with their feet and one hand, they hold the piece to be sawed, while the other hand runs the earliest saw ever made—the kind Noah used when he built the Ark. Sometimes a sawyer has a helper—a boy who pushes and pulls as the saw runs back and forth.
I bought a Sunday-morning paper. It does not resemble the sixty-four-page New York Sunday dailies. It consists of four small pages, printed in wriggly animalculæ and other aquaria, and contains news four years old—or four hundred, it does not matter. Possibly it denounces the sultan—it is proper to do that just now—but I think not. That would be too current. I think it is still denouncing Constantine.
Later, we drove to the foot of Mohammed's Hill—the hill from which the Prophet looked down on the Pearl of the East and decided that as he could have only one paradise he would wait for the next. They have built a little tower to mark the spot where he rested, and we thought we would climb up there.
We didn't, however. The carriages could only go a little way beyond the city outskirts, and when we started to climb that blistering, barren hillside afoot we changed our minds rapidly. We had permission to go as high as we pleased, but it is of no value. Anybody could give it. Laura and I and a German newspaper man were the only ones who toiled up high enough to look down through the mystical haze on the vision Mohammed saw. Heavens! but it was hot up there! And this is March—early spring! How thoseQuaker Citypilgrims stood it to travel across the Syrian desert in August I cannot imagine. In theInnocentsI find this observation:
"The sun-flames shot down like shafts of fire that stream out of a blowpipe. The rays seemed to fall in a steady deluge on my head and pass downward like rain from a roof."
"The sun-flames shot down like shafts of fire that stream out of a blowpipe. The rays seemed to fall in a steady deluge on my head and pass downward like rain from a roof."
That is a white-hot description, but not too intense, I think, for Syrian summer-time.
Another thing we noticed up there: Damascus is growing—in that direction at least. Older than history, the place is actually having a boom. All the houses out that way are new—mud-walled, but some of them quite pretentious. They have pushed out far beyond the gardens, across the barren plain, and they are climbing the still more barren slope. They stand there in the baking sun, unshaded as yet by any living thing. One pities the women shut up behind those tiny barred windows. These places will have gardens about them some day. Already their owners are scratching the earth with their crooked sticks, and they will plant and water and make the desert bloom.
Being free in the afternoon, Laura and I engaged Habib and a carriage and went adventuring on our own account. We let Habib manage the excursion, and I shall always remember it as a sweet, restful experience.
We visited a Moslem burying-ground first, and the tomb of Fatima—the original Fatima—Mohammed's beautiful daughter, who married a rival prophet, Ali, yet sleeps to-day with honor in a little mosque-like tomb. We passed a tree said to have been planted by the Mohammedan conqueror of Damascus nearly thirteen hundred years ago—an enormous tree, ten feet through or more—on one side a hollow which would hold a dozen men, standing.
Then at last we came to the gardens of Damascus, and got out and walked among the olive-trees and the peach and almond and apricot—most of them in riotous bloom. Summer cultivation had only justbegun, and few workmen were about. Later the gardens will swarm with them, and they will be digging and irrigating, and afterward gathering the fruit, preserving and drying it, and sending it to market. Habib showed us the primitive methods of doing these things.
How sweet and quiet and fragrant it was there among the flowering trees! In one place a little group of Syrian Christians were recreating (it being Sunday), playing some curious dulcimer instrument and singing a weird hymn.
We crossed the garden, and sat on the grass under the peach-bloom while Habib went for the carriage. Sitting there, we realized that the guide-book had been only fair to Damascus.
"For miles around it is a wilderness of gardens—gardens with roses among the tangled shrubberies, and with fruit on the branches overhead. Everywhere among the trees the murmur of unseen rivulets is heard."
"For miles around it is a wilderness of gardens—gardens with roses among the tangled shrubberies, and with fruit on the branches overhead. Everywhere among the trees the murmur of unseen rivulets is heard."
That sounds like fairyland, but it is only Damascus—Damascus in June, when the fruit is ripening and the water-ways are full.
We drove out of Damascus altogether—far out across a fertile plain, to the slopes of the West Lebanon hills. Then turning, we watched the sun slip down the sky while Habib told us many things. Whatever there is to know, Habib knows, and to localities and landmarks he fitted stories and traditions which brought back all the old atmosphere and made this Damascus the Damascus of fable and dreams.
Habib pointed out landmarks near and far—minarets of the great mosque, the direction of Jerusalem, of Mecca; he showed us where the waters of Damascusrise and where they waste into the desert sands. To the westward was Mount Hermon; southward came the lands of Naphtali, and Bashan where the giant Og once reigned. All below us lay Palestine; Mount Hermon was the watch-tower, Damascus the capital of the North.
Damascus in the sunset, its domes and minarets lifting above the lacing green! There is no more beautiful picture in the world than that. We turned to it again and again when every other interest had waned—the jewel, the "pearl set in emeralds," on the desert's edge. Laura and I will always remember that Sunday evening vision of the old city, the things that Habib told us, and the drive home.
Next to the city itself I think the desert interested us. It begins just a little beyond Damascus, Habib said, and stretches the length of the Red Sea and to the Persian Gulf. A thousand miles down its length lies Mecca, to which pilgrims have journeyed for ages—a horde of them every year. There is a railway, now, as far as Tebook, but Mecca is still six hundred miles beyond. The great annual pilgrimages, made up of the faithful from all over Asia and portions of Europe and Africa, depart from Damascus, and those that survive it return after long months of wasting desert travel. Habib said that a great pilgrimage was returning now; the city was full of holy men.
Then he told us about the dromedary mail that crosses the desert from Damascus to Bagdad, like a through express. It is about five hundred miles across as the stork flies, but the dromedary is not disturbed by distance. He destroys it at the rate offifteen miles an hour, and capers in fresh and smiling at the other end. Habib did not advise dromedary travel. It is very rough, he said. Nothing but an Arab trained to the business could stand it. Once an Englishman wanted to go through by the dromedary mail, and did go, though they implored him to travel in the regular way. He got through all right, but his liver and his heart had changed places, and it took three doctors seven days to rearrange his works.
A multitude was pouring out of the city when we reached the gates—dwellers in the lands about. We entered and turned aside into quiet streets, the twilight gathering about mysterious doorways and in dim shops and stalls, where were bowed, turbaned men who never seemed to sell anything, or to want to sell anything—who barely noticed us as we passed through the Grand Bazaar, where it was getting dark, and all the drowsy merchants of all the drowsy merchandise were like still shadows that only moved a little to let us pass. Out again into streets that were full of dusk, and dim flitting figures and subdued sounds.
All at once I caught sight of a black stone jar hanging at the door of a very small and dusky booth. It was such a jar as is used in Damascus to-day for water—was used there in the time of Abraham.
"Habib!"
I had wanted one of the pots from the first. The carriage stops instantly.
"Habib! That black water-jar—a small one!"
I had meant to bargain for it myself, but Habib isahead of me. He scorns to bargain for such a trifle, and with such a merchant. He merely seizes the jar, says a guttural word or two in whatever tongue the man knows, flings him a paltry coin, and is back in the carriage, directing our course along the darkening, narrow way.
What a wonderful life the dark is bringing out! There, in front of that coffee-house, that row of men smoking nargileh—surely they are magicians, every one. "That silent group with shaven faces and snowy beards: who are they, Habib?"
"Mongolians," he says. "Pilgrims returning from Mecca. They live far over to the north of China, but still are followers of the Prophet." The scope of Islamism is wide—oh yes, very wide, and increasing. That group gathered at the fountain—their dress, their faces—
"Habib!"
The horses come up with a jerk.
"A copper water-jar, Habib! An old, old man is filling it—such a strange pattern"—
Habib is down instantly, and amid the crowd. Cautiously I follow. The old man is stooped, wrinkled, travel-worn. His robe and his turban are full of dust. He is listening to Habib and replying briefly.
Habib explains. The pilgrim is returning with it from Mecca; it is very old; he cannot part with it. My heart sinks; every word adds value to the treasure. Habib tries again, while I touch the ancient, curiously wrought jar lovingly. The pilgrim draws away. He will hardly allow me even this comfort.
We return to the carriage sadly. The driver starts. Some one comes running behind, calling. Again we stop; a boy calls something to Habib.
"He will sell," Habib laughs, "and why not? He demands a napoleon. Of course you will not give it!"
Oh, coward heart! I cannot, after that. I have the napoleon and the desire, but I cannot appear a fool before Habib.
"No, it is too much. Drive on."
We dash forward; the East closes behind us; the opportunity is forever lost.
If one could only be brave at the instant! All my days shall I recall the group at the fountain: that bent, travel-stained pilgrim; that strangely fashioned water-pot which perhaps came down to him from patriarchal days. How many journeys to Mecca had it made; how many times had it moistened the parching lips of some way-worn pilgrim dragging across the burning sand; how many times had it furnished water for absolution before the prayer in the desert! And all this could have been mine. For a paltry napoleon I could have had the talisman for my own—all the wonder of the East, its music, its mystery, its superstition; I could have fondled it and gazed on it and re-created each picture at a touch.
Oh, Habib, Habib, may the Prophet forgive you; for, alas, I never can!
At the station next morning a great horde of pilgrims were waiting for the train which would bear them to Beirut—Mongolians, many of them, who had been on the long, long, pilgrimage over land andsea. At Beirut, we were told, seven steamers were waiting to take them on the next stage of their homeward journey. What a weary way they had yet to travel!
They were all loaded down with baggage. They had their bundles, clothing, quilts, water-bottles: and I wandered about among them vainly hoping to find my pilgrim of the copper pot. Hopeless, indeed. There were pots in plenty, but they were all new or unsightly things.
All the pilgrims were old men, for the Moslem, like most of the rest of us, puts off his spiritual climax until he has acquired his material account. Hehasto, in fact; for, even going the poorest way and mainly afoot, a journey of ten or twelve thousand miles across mountain and desert, wilderness and wave cannot be made without substance.
We took a goodly number of them on our train. Freight-cars crowded with them were attached behind, and we crawled across the mountains with that cargo of holy men, who poured out at every other station and prostrated themselves, facing Mecca, to pray for our destruction. At least, I suppose they did that. I know they made a most imposing spectacle at their devotions, and the Moslem would hardly overlook an enemy in such easy praying distance.
However, we crossed the steeps, skirted the precipices safely enough, and by-and-by a blue harbor lay below, and in it, like a fair picture, the ship—home. We had been gone less than a week—it seemed a year.
At some time last night we crossed over the spot where the Lord stirred up a mighty tempest and a great fish to punish Jonah, and this morning at daybreak we were in the harbor of Jaffa, "the beautiful," from which port Jonah sailed on that remarkable cruise.
We were not the only ones there. Two other great excursion steamers lay at anchor, theArabicand theMoltke, their decks filled with our fellow-countrymen, and I think the several parties of ship-dwellers took more interest in looking at one another, and in comparing the appearance of their respective vessels, than in the rare vision of Jaffa aglow with morning. Three ship-loads at once! It seemed like a good deal of an invasion to land on these sacred shores. But then we remembered how many invasions had landed at Jaffa—how Alexander and Titus had been there before us, besides all the crusades—so a modest scourge like ours would hardly matter. As for that military butcher, Napoleon, who a little more than a century ago murdered his way through this inoffending land, he shot four thousand Turkish prisoners here on the Jaffa sands, after accepting their surrender under guarantee of protection. We promised ourselves that we would do nothing like that. We might destroya pedler now and then, or a baksheesh fiend; but four thousand, even of that breed, would be too heavy a contract.