Now turn your eyes to the city itself. There it lies under these magnificent mountains with its luxuriant gardens and orchards surrounded by deserts. Within and without silver poplars cast their green shadows over the houses. The town has been compared to a pearl. It is shaped very like one. My guide, Shammas, who stands beside me, tells me that it looks like a camel, and a second glance shows me the head and neck of the beast reaching out to a point where lies a railway station of the road going to Mecca. The road itself is the long neck of the camel and farther back is the body, the minarets forming the hump. “Now look again,” says Shammas, “and see if it is not like a fan!” “Very much so,” I reply, “and it is also like a great spoon with a long slender handle and large oval bowl.”
To come down to details, Damascus is an expanse of pearly white tinged with the pink of its roofs. The buildings rise high over the green, and out of them, like fingers pointing to heaven, are the minarets of two hundred mosques, with the mighty dome of the Great Mosque in the centre. At the right of the latter are the arched roofs of bazaars which have been famous for ages, while away off from the rest is a big yellow building with a roof of red tiles. That is the centre of Moslem fanaticism, where for centuries thousands of Mohammedan soldiers have been quartered. At times, a few years ago, even they have let loose their religious fury and slaughtered Christians living in the city.
Damascus is a Mohammedan city. It has about three hundred thousand people, four fifths of whom follow the Prophet. It has also about thirty thousand Greeks, eight thousand Jews, and lesser numbers of Syrians, Armenians, Persians, and Druses. These people are very devout. One sees them reading their Korans in their shops, and at the mosques I have observed a score or more of the Faithful washing themselves before they go into their prayers. The mosques are full of turbaned men, old and young, who pray singly and in groups, and in many one finds companies of worshippers under a leader. There are also many classes listening to the explanations of the Koran by the priests, and there are men reading by themselves.
But come down with me from the hill and take a stroll through the city. This is Sunday, and we shall first visit the mosques. There are seventy large ones, where sermons are preached every Friday, and one hundred and seventy-seven which might be called chapels, connected with which are Mohammedan schools. Many of these mosques have libraries, and in all of them the chief study is theology, including the Koran and the traditions of the prophets. After that comes law, then philosophy, logic, and grammar. Modern sciences are unknown, and all other branches of learning are entirely neglected.
One of the chief centres of Moslem religious life is the Great Mosque. This is one of the finest of Mohammedan churches. It stands in the centre of the city and covers about seven acres, or almost twice as much space as the Capitol at Washington. In the great court paved with marble is a fountain, said to mark the half-way station on the route from Constantinople to Mecca. It is there that the worshippers bathe parts of their bodies before going to their prayers. On the other side of this enormous court is the mosque proper, the oblong floor of which covers an acre. Many great columns uphold its roof, and other columns stand between it and the court.
Entering this room, we find two thousand men and perhaps a hundred women at worship. Nevertheless, the building seems empty. The worshippers are scattered over the floor. The women are alone, and the men dare not look at them. They are closely veiled and do not notice us as we go by. Most of the men are on their knees or sitting upon the floor. Before coming into the church all have removed their shoes, which now lie beside or in front of them. The floor is covered with costly rugs, presents from devout Mohammedans. Think of roofing a large field, upholding the roof by mighty columns, and then carpeting that field with oriental rugs any one of which would be fit to hang upon your walls as a treasure, and you have a suggestion of the picture now before us.
There are strange things in the mosque. In its centre is a marble chapel supposed to stand over the ashes of the head of John the Baptist. Men are sitting before the chapel with their heads toward Mecca, and they rise and fall as they pray to John the Baptist, the forerunner of Christ, and to Mohammed as the prophet of God. Thus religion, like politics, makes strange bedfellows.
The transportation monopoly of the Bedouin and his camel is threatened to-day by the invading automobile and motor truck
