walking you constantly get glimpses through heavy doorways of fountains,
marble tanks of running water, of a blooming tree or a rose-trellis in
a marble court, of a garden of flowers. The crooked, twisted, narrow
streets, mere lanes of mud-walls, would be scarcely endurable but for
these occasional glimpses, and the sight now and then of the paved,
pillared court of a gayly painted mosque.
One ought not to complain when the Arab barber who trims his hair gives
him a narghileh to smoke during the operation; but Damascus is not so
Oriental as Cairo, the predominant Turkish element is not so picturesque
as the Egyptian. And this must be said in the face of the universal
use of the narghileh, which more than any other one thing imparts an
Oriental, luxurious tone to the city. The pipe of Egypt is the chibouk,
a stem of cherry five feet long with a small clay bowl; however richly
it may be ornamented, furnished with a costly amber mouthpiece, wound
with wire of gold, and studded, as it often is, with diamonds and other
stones of price, it is, at the best, a stiff affair; and even this
pipe is more and more displaced by the cigar, just as in Germany
the meerschaum has yielded to the cigar as the Germans have become
accessible to foreign influences. But in Damascus the picturesque
narghileh, encourager of idleness, is still the universal medium of
smoke. The management of the narghileh requires that a person should
give his undivided mind to it; in return for that, it gives him peace.
The simplest narghileh is a cocoanut-shell, with a flexible stem
attached, and an open metal bowl on top for the tobacco. The smoke is
drawn through the water which the shell contains. Other narghilehs have
a glass standard and water-bowl, and a flexible stem two or three yards
in length. The smoker, seated cross-legged before this graceful object,
appears to be worshipping his idol. The mild Persian tobacco is kept
alight by a slowly burning piece of dried refuse which is kindly
furnished by the camel for fuel; and the smoke is inhaled into the
lungs, and slowly expelled from the nostrils and the mouth. Although
the hastily rolled cigarette is the resort of the poor in Egypt, and is
somewhat used here, it must be a very abandoned wretch who cannot afford
a pull at a narghileh in Damascus. Its universality must excuse the long
paragraph I have devoted to this pipe. You see men smoking it in all
the cafés, in all the shops, by the roadside, seated in the streets, in
every garden, and on the house-tops. The visible occupation of Damascus
is sucking this pipe.
Our first walk in the city was on Sunday to the church of the
Presbyterian mission; on our way we threaded a wilderness of bazaars,
nearly all of them roofed over, most of them sombre and gloomy. Only in
the glaring heat of summer could they be agreeable places of refuge. The
roofing of these tortuous streets and lanes is not so much to exclude
the sun, I imagine, as to keep out the snow, and the roofs are
consequently substantial; for Damascus has an experience of winter,
being twenty-two hundred feet above the sea-level, nearly as high
as Jerusalem. These bazaars, so much vaunted all through the Orient,
disappointed us, not in extent, for they are interminable, but in
wanting the picturesqueness, oddity, and richness of those of Cairo. And
this, like the general appearance of the city, is a disappointment
hard to be borne, for we have been taught to believe that Damascus is a
Paradise on earth, and that here, if anywhere, we should come into that
region of enchantment which the poets of the Arabian Nights' tales
have imposed upon us as the actual Orient. Should we have recognized, in
the low and partially flooded strip of grassland through which we drove
from the mouth of the Abana gorge to the western gate of the city, the
green Merj of the Arabian poets, that gem of the earth? The fame of it
has gone abroad throughout the world, as if it were a unique gift of
Allah to his favorites. Why, every Occidental land has a million glades,
watered, green-sodded, tree-embowered, more lovely than this, that no
poet has thought it worth while to celebrate.
We found a little handful of worshippers at the mission church, and
among them—Heaven forgive us for looking at her on Sunday!—an
eccentric and somewhat notorious English lady of title, who shares the
bed and board of an Arab sheykh in his harem outside the walls. It makes
me blush for the attractiveness of my own country, and the slighted
fascination of the noble red man in his paint and shoddy blanket, when
I see a lady, sated with the tame civilization of England, throw herself
into the arms of one of these coarse bigamists of the desert. Has he
no reputation in the Mother country, our noble, chivalrous
Walk-Under-the-Ground?
We saw something of the missionaries of Damascus, but as I was not of
the established religion at the court of Washington at the time of my
departure from home, and had no commission to report to the government,
either upon the condition of consulates or of religion abroad, I am not
prepared to remark much upon the state of either in this city. I should
say, however, that not many direct converts were made either from
Moslemism or from other Christian beliefs, but that incalculable good
is accomplished by the schools which the missionaries conduct. The
influence of these, in encouraging a disposition to read, and to inquire
into the truth and into the conditions of a better civilization, is not
to be overestimated. What impressed me most, however, in the fortune
of these able, faithful servants of the propagandism of Christian
civilization, was their pathetic isolation. A gentleman and his wife of
this mission had been thirty years absent from the United States. The
friends who cheered or regretted their departure, who cried over them,
and prayed over them, and followed them with tender messages, had passed
away, or become so much absorbed in the ever-exciting life at home as
to have almost forgotten those who had gone away to the heathen a
generation ago. The Mission Board that personally knew them and lovingly
cared for them is now composed of strangers to them. They were, in fact,
expatriated, lost sight of. And yet they had gained no country nor any
sympathies to supply the place of those lost. They must always be, to a
great degree, strangers in this fierce, barbarous city.
We wandered down through the Christian quarter of the town: few shops
are here; we were most of the time walking between mud-walls, which have
a door now and then. This quarter is new; it was entirely burned by the
Moslems and Druses in 1860, when no less than twenty-five hundred adult
male Christians, heads of families, were slaughtered, and thousands more
perished of wounds and famine consequent upon the total destruction of
their property. That the Druses were incited to this persecution by the
Turkish rulers is generally believed. We went out of the city by the
eastern gate, called Bab Shurky, which name profanely suggested the
irrelevant colored image of Bob Sharkey, and found ourselves in the
presence of huge mounds of rubbish, the accumulations of refuse carted
out of the city during many centuries, which entirely concealed
from view the country beyond. We skirted these for a while, with the
crumbling city wall on the left hand, passed through the hard, gray,
desolate Turkish cemetery, and came at length into what might be called
country. Not that we could see any country, however; we were always
between high mud-walls, and could see nothing beyond them, except the
sky, unless we stepped through an open door into a garden.
Into one of these gardens, a public one, and one of the most celebrated
in the rhapsodies of travellers and by the inventive poets, we finally
turned. When you are walking for pleasure in your native land, and
indulging a rural feeling, would you voluntarily go into a damp swale,
and sit on a moist sod under a willow? This garden is low, considerably
lower than the city, which has gradually elevated itself on its own
decay, and is cut by little canals or sluiceways fed by the Abana, which
run with a good current. The ground is well covered with coarse
grass, of the vivid green that one finds usually in low ground, and is
liberally sprinkled with a growth of willows and poplars. In this garden
of the Hesperides, in which there are few if any flowers, and no promise
of fruit, there is a rough wooden shed, rickety and decaying, having,
if I remember rightly, a balcony,—it must have a balcony,—and there
pipes, poor lemonade, and poorer ice cream are served to customers. An
Arab band of four persons, one of them of course blind of an eye,
seated cross-legged on a sort of bedstead, was picking and thumping a
monotonous, never-ending tune out of the usual instruments. You could
not deny that the vivid greenery, and the gayly apparelled groups,
sitting about under the trees and on the water's edge, made a lively
scene. In another garden, farther on around the wall, the shanty of
entertainment is a many-galleried shaky construction, or a series of
platforms and terraces of wood, overhanging the swift Abana. In the
daytime it is but a shabby sight; but at night, when a thousand colored
globes light it without revealing its poverty, and the lights dance
in the water, and hundreds of turbaned, gowned narghileh-smokers and
coffee-drinkers lounge in the galleries, or gracefully take their ease
by the sparkling current, and the faint thump of the darabouka is heard,
and some gesticulating story-teller, mounted upon a bench, is reeling
off to an attentive audience an interminable Arabian tale, you might
fancy that the romance of the Orient is not all invented.
Of other and private gardens and enclosures we had glimpses, on our
walk, through open gates, and occasionally over the walls; we could
imagine what a fragrance and color would greet the senses when the
apricots are in bloom, and the oranges and lemons in flower, and how
beautiful the view might be if the ugly walls did not conceal it. We
returned by the saddlers' bazaar, and by a famous plane-tree, which
may be as old as the Moslem religion; its gnarled limbs are like the
stems of ordinary trees, and its trunk is forty feet around.
The remark that Damascus is without monuments of its past needs
qualification; it was made with reference to its existence before the
Christian era, and in comparison with other capitals of antiquity.
Remains may, indeed, be met in its exterior walls, and in a broken
column here and there built into a modern house, of Roman workmanship,
and its Great Mosque is an historical monument of great interest, if not
of the highest antiquity. In its structure it represents three
religions and three periods of art; like the mosque of St. Sophia at
Constantinople, it was for centuries a Christian cathedral; like the
Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem, it is built upon a spot consecrated by
the most ancient religious rites. Situated in the midst of the most
densely peopled part of the city, and pressed on all sides by its most
crowded bazaars, occupying a quadrangle nearly five hundred feet one
way by over three hundred the other, the wanderer among the shops is
constantly coming to one side or another of it, and getting glimpses
through the spacious portals of the colonnaded court within. Hemmed in
as it is, it is only by diving into many alleys and pushing one's way
into the rear of dirty shops and climbing upon the roofs of houses, that
one can get any idea of the exterior of the mosque. It is, indeed, only
from an eminence that you can see its three beautiful minarets.
It does not appear that Chosroes, the Persian who encamped his army in
the delicious gardens of Damascus, in the year 614, when he was on his
way to the destruction of Jerusalem and the massacre of its Christian
inhabitants, disturbed the church of John the Baptist in this city. But
twenty years later it fell into the hands of the Saracens, who for a
few years were content to share it with the Christian worshippers. It
is said that when Khâled, the most redoubtable of the Friends of the
Prophet, whose deeds entitled him to the sobriquet of The Sword of God,
entered this old church, he asked to be conducted into the sacred vault
(which is now beneath the kubbeh of the mosque), and that he was there
shown the head of John the Baptist in a gold casket, which had in Greek
this inscription: “This casket contains the head of John the Baptist,
son of Zachariah.”
The building had been then for over three centuries a Christian church.
And already, when Constantine dedicated it to Christian use, it had for
over three hundred years witnessed the worship of pagan deities. The
present edifice is much shorn of its original splendor and proportions,
but sufficient remains to show that it was a worthy rival of the temples
of Ba'albek, Palmyra, and Jerusalem. No part of the building is older
than the Roman occupation, but the antiquarians are agreed to think
that this was the site of the old Syrian temple, in which Ahaz saw the
beautiful altar which he reproduced in the temple at Jerusalem.
Pieces of superb carving, recalling the temple of the Sun at Ba'albek,
may still be found in some of the gateways, and the noble Corinthian
columns of the interior are to be referred to Roman or Greek workmen.
Christian art is represented in the building in some part of the walls
and in the round-topped windows; and the Moslems have superimposed upon
all minarets, a dome, and the gay decorations of colored marbles and
flaring inscriptions.
The Moslems have either been too ignorant or too careless to efface all
the evidences of Christian occupation. The doors of the eastern gate are
embossed with brass, and among the emblems is the Christian sacramental
cup. Over an arch, which can only be seen from the roof of the
silversmiths' bazaar, is this inscription in Greek: “Thy kingdom, O
Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout
all generations.”
It required a special permit to admit us to the mosque, but when we were
within the sacred precincts and shod with slippers, lest our infidel
shoes should touch the pavement, we were followed by a crowd of
attendants who for the moment overcame their repugnance to our faith in
expectation of our backsheesh. The interior view is impressive by reason
of the elegant minarets and the fine colonnaded open court. Upon one of
the minarets Jesus will descend when he comes to judge the world. The
spacious mosque, occupying one side of the court, and open on that side
to its roof, is divided in its length by two rows of Corinthian columns,
and has a certain cheerfulness and hospitality. The tesselated marble
pavement of the interior is much worn, and is nearly all covered with
carpets of Persia and of Smyrna. The only tomb in the mosque is that of
St. John the Baptist, which is draped in a richly embroidered cloth.
We were anew impressed by the home-like, democratic character of the
great mosques. This, opening by its four gates into the busiest bazaars,
as we said, is much frequented at all hours. At the seasons of prayer
you may see great numbers prostrating themselves in devotion, and at all
other times this cool retreat is a refuge for the poor and the weary.
The fountains of running water in the court attract people,—those who
desire only to sit there and rest, as well as those who wash and pray.
About the fountains and in the mosque were seated groups of women,
eating their noonday bread, or resting in that dumb attitude under which
Eastern women disguise their discontent or their intrigues. This is, at
any rate, a haven of rest for all, and it is a goodly sight to see all
classes, rich and poor, flocking in here, leaving their shoes at the
door or carrying them in their hands.
The view from the minaret which we ascended is peculiar. On the horizon
we saw the tops of hills and mountains, snowy Hermon among them. Far
over the plain we could not look, for the city is beset by a thicket of
slender trees, which were just then in fresh leafage. Withdrawing our
gaze from the environs, we looked down upon the wide-spread oval-shaped
city. Most conspicuous were the minarets, then a few domes, and then
thousands of dome-shaped roofs. You see the top of a covered city,
but not the city. In fact, it scarcely looks like a city; you see no
streets, and few roofs proper, for we have to look twice to convince
ourselves that the flat spaces covered with earth and often green
with vegetation (gardens in the air) are actually roofs of houses. The
streets are either roofed over or are so narrow that we cannot see them
from this height. Damascus is a sort of rabbit-burrow.
Not far from the Great Mosque is the tomb of Saladin. We looked from the
street through a grated window, to the bars of which the faithful have
tied innumerable rags and strings (pious offerings, which it is supposed
will bring them good luck) into a painted enclosure, and saw a large
catafalque, or sarcophagus; covered with a green mantle. The tomb is
near a mosque, and beside a busy cotton-bazaar; it is in the midst of
traffic and travel, among activities and the full rush of life,—just
where a man would like to be buried in order to be kept in remembrance.
In going about the streets we notice the prevalence of color in portals,
in the interior courts of houses, and in the baths; there is a fondness
for decorating with broad gay stripes of red, yellow, and white. Even
the white pet sheep which are led about by children have their wool
stained with dabs of brilliant color,—perhaps in honor of the Greek
Easter.
The baths of Damascus are many and very good, not so severe and violent
as those of New York, nor so thorough as those of Cairo, but, the best
of them, clean and agreeable. We push aside a gay curtain from the
street and descend by steps into a square apartment. It has a dome like
a mosque. Under the dome is a large marble basin into which water is
running; the floor is tesselated with colored marbles. Each side is a
recess with a halfdome, and in the recesses are elevated divans piled
with cushions for reclining. The walls are painted in stripes of blue,
yellow, and red, and the room is bright with various Oriental stuffs.
There are turbaned and silken-attired attendants, whose gentle faces
might make them mistaken for ministers of religion as well as of
cleanliness, and upon the divans recline those who have come from the
bath, enjoying kief, with pipes and coffee. There is an atmosphere of
perfect contentment in the place, and I can imagine how an effeminate
ruler might see, almost without a sigh, the empire of the world slip
from his grasp while he surrendered himself to this delicious influence.
We undressed, were towelled, shod with wooden clogs, and led through
marble paved passages and several rooms into an inner, long chamber,
which has a domed roof pierced by bulls'-eyes of party-colored glass.
The floor, of colored marbles, was slippery with water running from the
overflowing fountains, or dashed about by the attendants. Out of this
room open several smaller chambers, into which an unsocial person might
retire. We sat down on the floor by a marble basin into which both hot
and cold water poured. After a little time spent in contemplating the
humidity of the world, and reflecting on the equality of all men before
the law without clothes, an attendant approached, and began to deluge us
with buckets of hot water, dashing them over us with a jocular enjoyment
and as much indifference to our personality as if we had been statues. I
should like to know how life looks to a man who passes his days in
this dimly illumined chamber of steam, and is permitted to treat his
fellow-men with every mark of disrespect. When we were sufficiently
drenched, the agile Arab who had selected me as his mine of backsheesh,
knelt down and began to scrub me with hair mittens, with a great show of
energy, uttering jocose exclamations in his own language, and practising
the half-dozen English words he had mastered, one of them being
“dam,” which he addressed to me both affirmatively and
interrogatively, as if under the impression that it conveyed the same
meaning as tyeb in his vocabulary. I suppose he had often heard wicked
Englishmen, who were under his hands, use it, and he took it for an
expression of profound satisfaction. He continued this operation for
some time, putting me in a sitting position, turning me over, telling me
to “sleep” when he desired me to lie down, encouraging me by various
barbarous cries, and slapping his hand from time to time to make up by
noise for his economical expenditure of muscular force.
After my hilarious bather had finished this process, he lathered me
thoroughly, drenched me from head to heels in suds, and then let me put
the crowning touch to my happiness by entering one of the little rooms,
and sliding into a tank of water hot enough to take the skin off. It is
easy enough to make all this process read like a martyrdom, but it is,
on the contrary, so delightful that you do not wonder that the ancients
spent so much time in the bath, and that next to the amphitheatre the
emperors and tyrants lavished most money upon these establishments, of
which the people were so extravagantly fond.
Fresh towels were wound round us, turbans were put on our heads, and we
were led back to the room first entered, where we were re-enveloped in
cloths and towels, and left to recline upon the cushioned divans; pipes
and coffee were brought, and we enjoyed a delicious sense of repose
and bodily lightness, looking dimly at the grave figures about us, and
recognizing in them not men but dreamy images of a physical paradise. No
rude voices or sharp movements broke the repose of the chamber. It was
as in a dream that I watched a handsome boy, who, with a long pole, was
handling the washed towels, and admired the unerring skill that tossed
the strips of cloth high in the air and caused them to catch and hang
squarely upon the cords stretched across the recesses. The mind was
equal to the observation, but not to the comprehension, of this feat.
When we were sufficiently cooled, we were assisted to dress, the various
articles of Frank apparel affording great amusement to the Orientals.
The charge for the whole entertainment was two francs each, probably
about four times what a native would have paid.
XIV.—OTHER SIGHTS IN DAMASCUS.
DAY after day we continued, like the mourners, to go about the streets,
in the tangle of the bazaars, under the dark roofs, endeavoring to see
Damascus. When we emerged from the city gate, the view was not much
less limited. I made the circuit of the wall on the north, in lanes, by
running streams, canals, enclosed gardens, seeing everywhere hundreds
of patient, summer-loving men and women squatting on the brink of every
rivulet, by every damp spot, in idle and perfect repose.
We stumbled about also on the south side of the town, and saw the
reputed place of St. Paul's escape, which has been lately changed.
It is a ruined Saracenic tower in the wall, under which is Bab Kisan,
a gate that has been walled up for seven hundred years. The window does
not any more exist from which the apostle was let down in a basket, but
it used to be pointed out with confidence, and I am told that the basket
is still shown, but we did not see it. There are still some houses on
this south wall, and a few of them have projecting windows from which a
person might easily be lowered. It was in such a house that the harlot
of Jericho lived, who contrived the escape of the spies of Joshua. And
we see how thick and substantial the town walls of that city must have
been to support human habitations. But they were blown down.
Turning southward into the country, we came to the tomb of the porter
who assisted Paul's escape, and who now sleeps here under the weight
of the sobriquet of St. George. A little farther out on the same road is
located the spot of Said's conversion.