Old Testament--the New, too, for that matter--is dramatized here in a
manner and a setting that would discourage the artificial stage. Not a
group but might have stepped out of the Bible pages. This man leading a
little donkey--a woman riding it--their garb and circumstance the
immutable investment of the East: so the patriarchs journeyed; so, two
thousand years later, Joseph and Mary travelled into Egypt. No change,
you see, in all that time--no change in the two thousand years that have
followed--no change in the two thousand years that lie ahead. Wonderful,
changeless East! How frivolous we seem in comparison--always racing
after some new pattern of head-gear or drapery! How can we hope to
establish any individuality, any nationality, any artistic stability
when we have so little fixed foundation in what, more than any other one
thing, becomes a part of the man himself--his clothing?
These hills are interesting. Some of them have verdure on them, and I
can fancy Abraham pasturing his flocks on them, and with little Isaac
chasing calves through the dews of Hermon. It would not be the "dews of
Hermon," but I like the sound of that phrase. I believe history does not
mention that Abraham and Isaac chased calves. No matter; anybody that
keeps flocks has to chase calves now and then, and he has to get his
little boy to help him. So Abraham must sometimes have called Isaac
quite early in the morning to "go and head off that calf," just as my
father used to call me, and I can imagine how they raced up and down and
sweat and panted, and how they said uncomplimentary things about the
calf and his family, and declared that there was nothing on earth that
could make a person so mad as a fool calf, anyhow.
Travel on the highway has increased--more camels, more donkeys, more
patriarchs with their families and flocks. Merchandise trains follow
close, one behind the other. Dust rises in a fog and settles on the
wayside vegetation. Here and there on the hillsides are villas and
entertainment gardens.
A widening of the valley, an expanse of green and bloom, mingled with
domes and minarets; a slowing down of speed, a shouting of porters
through the sunlit dust, and behold, we have reached the heart and
wonder of the East, Damascus, the imperishable--older than history, yet
forever young.
XXVI
THE "PEARL OF THE EAST"
It is the oldest city in the world. It is the oldest locality mentioned
in the Bible, if the Garden of Eden theory be true. I suspect that
Noah's flood washed away the garden, and that his grandson, Uz, wanted
to commemorate the site by building a city there. At all events, Uz
built Damascus, according to Josephus, and he could not have picked a
better location than this wide, level plain, watered by these beautiful
living streams. That was about 2400 B.C., which means that Damascus was
already an old city--five hundred years old, or more--when Abraham
overtook Chedorlaomer, King of Elam--Tidal, King of Nations, and two
other kings--these four having captured Abraham's nephew, Lot, "who
dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed."
A matter of four kings did not disturb Abraham. He had a better
combination than that. He armed his trained servants, three hundred and
eighteen in number, "born in his own house," and went after those kings
and "smote them and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand
of Damascus, rescued Lot and brought back the goods."
That is the first Bible mention of Damascus, and it was no doubt a
goodly city, even then. After that it appears, time and again, in both
the scriptures, and one never fails to feel its importance in the
world's story. Five hundred years after Abraham, Thothmes III. thought
it worth while to cross over from Egypt to conquer Damascus, and after
still another five hundred years King David ravaged the country round
about and set up a garrison here. Those were not frequent changes.
Damascus does not do things frequently or without reflection. I believe
the Medes came next, and after them the Romans, and then, quite
recently--recently for Damascus, I mean--only thirteen hundred years
ago--the Mohammedans took the place and have held it ever since.
And Damascus herself has remained unchanged. Other cities have risen and
prospered and perished even from memory. They did not matter to
Damascus. Nothing matters to Damascus. It may have altered its
appearance a trifle now and then, but not materially. It is the same
Damascus that Abraham knew and that David conquered. I can see both of
these old fellows any time I look out of my hotel window; also, the
three hundred and eighteen servants born in Abraham's household--all the
tableau of the ancient city that has remained forever young.
"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 Victoria _is_ grand, 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 a burden, 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
them they 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 and a 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 mosque we 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 hire are 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 the
_Quaker City_ pilgrims--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
Temple of 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 634 A.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 workmanship and 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. Clearly Habib
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 the
_Kurfuersters_, 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 this paragraph
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 strange to 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.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] The pedler of bread cries, "O Allah who sustaineth us, send trade!"
The pedler of beverages, "O cheer thine heart!"
XXVII
FOOTPRINTS OF PAUL
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 which
corner 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: