Damascus is a centre of the faith, second only to Mecca. The Greek cathedral is hustled into a corner, and guarded by a great white minaret. A second great mosque is built on the west, outside the town, its architect having lost his head for so placing it, to be given back to him—so says the grim Arabic inscription—when the sanctuary stands in the middle of Damascus. On the west of the town is a brown fortress, outwardly formidable, inwardly a ruin—fit emblem of Turkish rule.
From the silversmiths’ bazaar we visited the exterior of the southern wall of the mosque, jumping over a narrow street, and running along the house-roofs. Here we found a fine Byzantine doorway, with a well-carved cornice, and along its frieze the famous Greek inscription: “Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.”
On the 4th of July we left this fascinating city for the cooler retreat in the mountains, where the English Vice-Consul was staying. Passing once more up the narrow valley, with its green groves amid desolate crags, we crossed the Saharah, or desert plateau, and, diverging towards the right, we made for a fine gorge, with high precipices. The Barada, a clear, broad, green stream, here comes slipping rapidly down over ledges of rock and through deep pools, and by its channel is the mud village called Sûk Wâdy Barada. The river makes a sudden bend at the gorge, and passes between high rocks, burrowed with tombs, which are in many cases inscribed with barbarous Greek texts. The stream falls over a low precipice, and forms a broad pool—a delightful bathing-place, reminding me on each visit of Naaman’s boast about this very river, “better than all the waters of Israel.” A more picturesque spot than this gorge, with its Roman road cut in the cliff, its cemetery, its tall poplars and rushing stream, its crags, above which is the traditional tomb of Abel, we did not again meet. This place is the ancient Abila, and its name is still recognisable in the tradition of Abel’s tomb, where, after carrying the corpse for a hundred years, Cain was allowed to lay it down. On the 24th of July we revisited the gorge, and inspected the antiquities. A tablet, cut in the side of the precipice above the ancient road, identifies the town as Abila, and is repeated again a little farther on; below it is an aqueduct tunnel, and lower down the valley, on the left bank opposite the village, are remains of a small temple. On this visit we discovered no less than six inscriptions previously unknown, all on tombstones.
Crossing the stream, just above the waterfall, by a single arch, we continued along the left bank. The Barada has worn a deep bed, and on either side the remains of petrified leaves and stems are visible in the rude conglomerate of the banks. The stream pours over boulders and broken blocks, and is half-covered with luxuriant bushes. Gradually ascending, the road leads into the long plain of Zebdâny—a sort of repetition of the Stûra plain on a smaller scale, flanked on the west by the ragged and castellated ridges of the Anti-Lebanon, and on the east by a range of equal height. The plateau is bare and treeless, except towards the north, where are groves of poplar. Through the centre runs the river, its course marked by green bushes. In the middle of the plain it springs up suddenly from a great blue pool, or small lake, of unfathomable depth, resembling the springs of Antipatris mentioned in the last chapter. The stream is here actually broader than at the gorge, and emerges in full volume from the earth. The basin is of hard yellow rock. At first the stream is sluggish, the banks clayey and grassy, fringed with tall canes; and the water of the pool is full of fish and frequented by water-fowl; lower down, however, the fall is very rapid, and, from the gorge to Damascus, the current is extremely quick.
The western mountains were already dark in the blue afternoon shadow, as we began to climb the white slopes to the east of the plain. Here, at a height 5000 feet above the sea, our summer camp was to be fixed, at the village of Bludân, below the Consul’s house.
On the 11th of August the Consul rode down to Damascus, accompanied by Mr. Wright and myself. On this occasion I was able to see something of Damascus by night, guided by the missionary; and in the afternoon we penetrated into one of the slave-markets, ascending a rickety staircase to a miserable wooden verandah, on to which the little rooms opened. In one chamber was a negress, gaily dressed, seated on a straw mat, and dandling a small black baby. She seemed in very good spirits; but her next-door neighbour was nursing a sick child, and looked unhappy enough. In the third room were three negresses, and a white girl, pale and thin, who, instead of greeting us in the jovial manner of the black women, drew her veil round her and fled into an inner chamber. Theoretically, the purchase of fresh slaves is forbidden in the Turkish dominions; but there are two of these slave establishments in Damascus—one just behind or in a mosque—and newly-imported slaves from Africa arrive here every year.
On the following day I was honoured by Hallet Pacha, Governor-General of Syria, with an invitation to accompany the Consul to breakfast. About ten a.m. we were driven through the bazaar, and arrived at the Pacha’s house, on a terrace above the green meadow, west of the town. A tent was spread in the garden, and the Governor, a man of immense corpulence, sat on a velvet sofa within. His staff sat round, wearing red fezzes and black frock-coats.
The Pacha belonged to the Old Turkish party, and cordially hated all “pagans.” The breakfast was studiously Oriental in character, no French dishes being allowed, and no wine offered. A great brass tray, on a plain wooden stand, formed a table for eight people. Among the guests were Mohammed S’aid Pacha—the fierce Kurd who broke in the mountaineers of Nâblus for the Turks—Holo Pacha, and other dignitaries. The first course consisted of tomato soup and macaroni, with lemons; rissoles of rice, and mutton cutlets in bread-crumbs followed, with little dishes of caviar, and bowls of leben, or sour milk, with cucumbers; next came a kind of sweet muffins; then six dishes of various vegetables stuffed with rice, and a broiled chicken; last of all, a huge pilau, and dessert of figs and melons.
Though hungry at first, I was quite unable to eat a quarter of the amount consumed by the Pacha, and ceased to wonder at the almost universal obesity of the Turkish dignitaries. The guests all ate from their hands; and the conversation was such as would not be countenanced in an ordinary barrack-room, though apparently much enjoyed by the Pacha and his staff.
To suppose this picture to be universally characteristic of Turkish high life would no doubt be an error; able and honest men are not altogether wanting among the Government officials of high standing, and Midhat Pacha, the immediate predecessor of my host, has since become famous as a patriot and statesman; but it is the misfortune of Turkey, that the majority of the governing class are men ignorant and fanatical, sensual and inert, notoriously corrupt and tyrannical, who have succeeded only in ruining and impoverishing the countries they were sent to govern.