CHAPTER IX.
PICTURES OF DAMASCUS.
Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon — Entering the City — A Diorama of Bazaars — Aa Oriental Hotel — Our Chamber — The Bazaars — Pipes and Coffee — The Rivers of Damascus — Palaces of the Jews — Jewish Ladies — A Christian Gentleman — The Sacred Localities — Damascus Blades — The Sword of Haroun Al-Raschid — An Arrival from Palmyra.
"Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?" — 2 Kings, v. 12.
Damascus, Wednesday, May 19, 1852.
Damascus is considered by many travellers as the best remaining type of an Oriental city. Constantinople is semi-European; Cairo is fast becoming so; but Damascus, away from the highways of commerce, seated alone between the Lebanon and the Syrian Desert, still retains, in its outward aspect and in the character of its inhabitants, all the pride and fancy and fanaticism of the times of the Caliphs. With this judgment, in general terms, I agree; but not to its ascendancy, in every respect, over Cairo. True, when you behold Damascus from the Salahiyeh, the last slope of the Anti-Lebanon, it is the realization of all that you have dreamed of Oriental splendor; the world has no picture more dazzling. It is Beauty carried to the Sublime, as I have felt when overlooking some boundless forest of palms within the tropics. From the hill, whoso
