THE EARTHLY PARADISE
damask decoration and damaskeened metal-work. Many of the greatest men of earth have trodden its streets or fought before its walls or worshiped at its shrines. Abraham the Hebrew, Tiglath-pileser the Assyrian conqueror, Herod the Great, Paul of Tarsus, Khaled the "Sword of Allah," Baldwin of Flanders, Louis VII. of France, Nureddin the Syrian, Saladin the Kurd, Tamerlane the Tartar—such are only a few of the names which come to mind as we gaze upon the time-stained, battle-worn, but still rich and haughty city. To tell adequately the story of this most ancient of capitals would necessitate covering all the centuries of human history.
At the foot of the hill we shall find a tram-car waiting to take us to a modern hotel with electric lights and city-water, and in the evening we can hear a phonograph in any one of a hundred cafés, or visit moving-picture shows in the Serai Square, where a tall column commemorates the completion of the telegraph-line to Mecca. Yet, for all these recent innovations from the Western world, the real Damascus is quite unchanged. It is still the most brilliant, entrancing, fanatical and intolerant of Moslem cities, the one which best preserves the manners and customs of the early centuries of Islam. Indeed, this is to-day the typical Arabian Nights city; for Cairo, where those thrilling fairy tales were first related, is rapidly becoming Europeanized through British influence, Constantinople is thronged with Greeks and
[ 91 ]
