CHAPTER XXVIII—FROM DAMASCUS TO JAFFA.—INCIDENTS OF THE TRIP.
Once More in Damascus—Taking the “Short Route”—Starting for Beyrout—The Fountains of Damascus—Rain-Storm in the Anti-Lebanon—Stora and its Model Hotel—Poetical Fancies—A Compliment to Mine Host—The “Doubter” as a Rhymist—Climbing Mount Lebanon—Tropic Suns and Arctic Snows—View from the Summit—A Vision of Fairy-Land—Coming Down on the Double-Quick—In Sight of the Mediterranean—Taking Ship for Jaffa—Sidon to a Modern Tourist—Tyre—Jaffa—A Dangerous Roadstead.
WE have done with Damascus and the country beyond it; we have studied the road to Palmyra and Bagdad, and the overland route to Jerusalem; we have seen the bazaars, the fountains, the slave market, the mosques and the churches, and we have looked from the Salahiyeh hills when the setting sun was gilding the domes and towers of the city. Our carriage is waiting to bear us away to Beyrout, where we will “take ship for Jaffa,” as did the men of Solomon many centuries ago.
We started out of Damascus in a pouring rain, but we didn’t think it would be much of a shower, and kept on. Just outside, we crossed a bridge over the Abana, or rather over one of its seven branches, and then followed the stream upward for a few miles. The Abana formerly flowed in a single stream; the founders of Damascus determined to utilize it for beautifying the city, and well did they perform their work. Here and there, as you ascend the stream, you see dams thrown across to direct first one portion and then another, and from these dams there are artificial canals, sometimes tunneled through the rock, and all leading toward the cluster of domes, and minarets, and roofs that mark the locality of the city.
Through all parts of Damascus the Abana is carried in divisions and subdivisions, now in open channels and now in aqueducts concealed beneath the street. Fountains foam and bubble at every street corner and sparkle in every dwelling; water, clear, bright, and beautiful, is everywhere, and man or beast has no need to thirst.
It is this abundance of water that has created much of the fame of Damascus and made it attractive in the eyes of travellers. Beyond Damascus is the desert, without water or verdure; all around, east, west, north, and south, the country is rugged, and more or less barren.
The traveller from Bagdad, from Mecca, from Aleppo, and from other points, has wandered over treeless wastes, where rock and sand are the only objects to greet his eye, and the only water to quench his thirst is the hot and brackish liquid carried in goat skins at his saddle bow. After long and weary days he arrives at Damascus, embowered in gardens, and at every step through her streets he sees a fountain. Is it any wonder that he considers Damascus as second only to Paradise?
The rain didn’t stop, as we had expected. It kept coming steadily during the six hours—that seemed long enough for sixty—between Damascus and Stora.
We warmed and dried ourselves as best we could before going to bed, but there was a good deal of moisture in our clothes when we got up in the morning. We didn’t feel particularly gay, especially as the morning was cold and the rain was continuing, but there was nothing to do but to push on. The steamer was due at Beyrout that day, and would leave in the evening, and if we missed her we should be stuck there for ten days.
We wrote in the visitors’ book some complimentary things about the hotel at Stora before we went to bed in the evening. One was a macaronic verse, the first line English, the second French, the third German, and the fourth Spanish. This was the combined effort of the party; then the Judge and I broke into verse as follows:
“At Stora we, half dozen tourists,
Have fared unexpectedly well,
For hostess and host, we, as jurists,
Declare they can keep a hotel.”
Then the “Doubter,” remembering the hardships of his ride to and from Baalbek, broke out with a nursery rhyme like this:
“We went up from Baalbek to Stora,
And, riding, grew sorer and sorer.
This rough land of the Prophet,
If I ever get off it,
Sure, I’ll not come again, begorra!”
We had suspected that the “Doubter” was of Hibernian origin, and now we knew it. He owned up and said that his ancestors were among the Kings of Tipperary. But his poetic production did not find a place in the book, for the reason that it was not complimentary to the country, and did not reflect the opinions of the rest of the party.
Up we went on the eastern slope of Mount Lebanon, the air growing colder, and the clouds enveloping us more and more densely as we ascended. I sat on the box and shivered, and vowed not to be caught again in such a scrape. By-and-by we were at the summit. There was an inch or so of snow on the road, and more on the rocks, and the wind was sharp enough to shave with. I was chattering like a magpie, and would have given something for a cup of hot tea, or something that would warm me. Kalil pointed to the sea, which just then appeared below us through a rift in the clouds, and its reflection in the warm sunlight was something pleasing to look upon.
It was a long way down—fifty-six hundred feet—but we were good for it. Kalil turned down the brake a little, not enough to prevent the turning of the wheels, and not enough to keep back the horses, who went on at full speed. Now the air grew warmer, now the clouds broke away and fled over the mountain top, now the snow grew thinner and soon disappeared, now we could see Beyrout hovering like a bird over the land that skirts the bay, and looking bright and genial in the warm sunlight. The Mediterranean rippled and sparkled in the sunlight; far out on the water we could see stipples of white sails, and here and there we could discover the long, dark streaks on the horizon that marked the path of a steamer. The waves broke over the rocky beach with
an uneven surge, and a silver thread widening as it advanced its winding way among the rocks showed us where lay the river that reaches the sea just north of the city.
Winter was left behind as we descended the mountain at a break-neck pace; spring opened upon us, and soon the spring was succeeded by the warmth of summer. We were once more among the palm trees; oranges and citrons twinkled on the branches that bore them, and reflected back the golden light of a Syrian sun. The dim lines on the water developed into waves; the ships, at first faintly outlined, revealed all the details of spars and rigging, and the confused mass clinging to the land and marking the locality of Beyrout developed into the many colored domes, and towers, and roofs of an Oriental city; and as we drew rein at the door of the hotel, close to the water’s edge, we forgot our troubles, and breathed an atmosphere warm and invigorating as September.
It was rather rough when we went on board the steamer which was to take us to Jaffa, and the wind increased during the night, so that by morning it was a respectable gale. The steamer was to start at daybreak, and stop at Caifa, half way to Jaffa, but the wind was so high that she didn’t go. She started once, but the sea was so rough that the captain hesitated and came to anchor again. We contemplated Beyrout that day and part of the next, and we had a similar contemplation of Caifa. The agent came out in a boat, and said he could not get a single lighter to venture out, as there was a very heavy sea breaking on the shore. So without landing or receiving any freight, we departed; some passengers went ashore, among them several who had tickets for Jaffa, but were fearful that they would not be able to land there. Among the deck passengers were several Jews who were coming to Palestine to settle and make their fortunes. The story that the Rothschilds had bought Palestine from Turkey, or rather had taken it, as a collateral for a loan which Turkey could not pay, was current among them.
We passed between Beyrout and Caifa, the port of Saida, the ancient Sidon, which disputed with Tyre the mastery of the seas. It was once a great city; now it is a dirty, ill-kept town, with a population of not more than eight or nine thousand, and with a commerce so insignificant that it does not pay the steamers to call there. Where it formerly boasted an extensive fleet, it has not now a single vessel larger than a fishing boat!
We pass in front of Tyre, one of the oldest, as it was once one of the most powerful cities of the East. It has been many times destroyed and rebuilt, and a careful investigator can find the remains of at least a dozen different cities either in its ruins or in the historic accounts. At present there are less than four thousand inhabitants, Christian and Moslem, in the proportion of half and half.
Jaffa has always borne a bad reputation on the score of safety, as it has no port where ships can lie, and is not even protected by projecting headlands Its harbor is an open roadstead, and if the wind blows from the south or west, or any point of compass between them, boats cannot venture out on account of the heavy surf. In summer the weather is generally favorable, but not always so, while in winter it is about an even wager for or against communication between ship and shore. Our captain said that in some winters he had been able to land at Jaffa every trip, and in other winters he could not land at all. I heard of one man who wanted to go to Jerusalem, and had gone past Jaffa five times unable to land there. And I heard a dragoman say that he had gone to Jaffa nine times, and never failed to land each time. You see the difference between good and ill luck.
If we had arrived on any of the previous eight days, we would have been unfortunate; two steamers had gone past in that time, one of them with three hundred pilgrims for Jerusalem, which were carried to Port Said, and would be brought back from there. But the morning we sighted Jaffa the weather was propitious, and as we cast anchor the ship was soon surrounded by boats ready to take the passengers ashore. We lost no time, as we were fearful a wind might arise and detain us, and so we closed our bargain for transportation to land at the usual rate of one franc for each person, including our baggage.
