You remember how the blind Paul, or Saul, as he was then called, was led into Damascus to the house of a man named Ananias, not the husband of Sapphira, however, or any associate of the champion liar of history. You recall, how, when he came there, he again received his sight and, being converted, was baptized. It was the house of this Ananias, according to Shammas and the guide books, that I visited the other day. I found the Ananias of the present by no means averse to a small gift of silver. He took all my spare change and then asked for more. I later discovered that the authenticity of the house is questioned and there is another Ananias house, which is now used as a chapel. I looked for the house of Naaman the Syrian, and was shown an old building occupied by lepers.
It was in the Street called Straight that Ananias met Paul. This is one of the principal highways of the Damascus of to-day. It leads from the chief gate on the south to the bazaars and is about the only straight street in the city. It goes right through Damascus and is so wide that two or three carriages can pass on it. It is the centre of traffic, and while there I saw caravans of camels, donkeys, and horses bringing in and taking out all kinds of goods. One line of camels was loaded with poplar trees as long as telegraph poles. The ends of the poles dragged in the road as they walked. Behind them came donkeys with panniers of green cucumbers and horses loaded with baskets of Jaffa oranges, each as big as the head of a baby. A mule followed the horses. It was loaded with butter from the interior packed in black leather bottles of the shape and size of a tin dinner bucket.
St. Paul had a lively time in Damascus. He preached in the synagogue and confounded the Jews. After a while the Jews took counsel to kill him, and they watched the gates day and night for that purpose. It was then that his friends took him by night and let him down over the wall in a basket.
This very place is now shown, and I have made a photograph of the spot. The wall is a great structure of stone with a mud parapet on top. There is a house on the top of the wall at the place indicated. This has windows with great bars across them, and it is very easy to imagine how St. Paul might have been let down from such a place when he made his escape.
CHAPTER XXVI
SHOPPING IN THE STREET CALLED STRAIGHT
Let us go this morning for a walk through the bazaars of this the oldest of all the world’s cities. They are more oriental than those of Tunis or Cairo and more quaint than those of Constantinople.
Take the Street called Straight, up which St. Paul came to meet Ananias. It is a vaulted tunnel where the only light comes through little windows in the roof, which rises to a height of about one hundred feet. Suppose you could cover lower Broadway at the top of its third-story windows, and in place of the doors and windows of plate-glass have the walls made up of cave-like stores opening out on the roadway. Let each store have a floor about as high above the street level as the seat of a chair, and let it be filled with the most gorgeous goods of the Orient. Let each have its turbaned or fez-capped merchant sitting on the floor at the front, with workmen similarly dressed labouring away in the rear. The bazaars of Damascus are made up of many such vaulted streets so roofed that only dim light comes in through the little windows high up overhead. The shops are mere holes in the walls, but they are packed full of goods. The walls between them are little more than partitions of boards, and there is hardly a business establishment where the traditional bull of the china shop could turn round without losing his hide. The customers bargain standing out in the roadway, or sitting on the floors of the stores and hanging their heels in the street.
Each trade has its own section and we walk for blocks filled with booths containing only one kind of goods. Here is the saddle bazaar. The air is heavy with the rich smell of leather. Harness hangs from the walls, and inside are saddles for camels, donkeys, and horses. There are gay trappings for Arabian steeds, and leather buckets in which one can carry water with him over the desert. There are also necklaces of blue beads to put on your horses to ward off the evil eye, as well as other charms for the journey.