But come, let us go to the silver bazaar.
This, like the warehouse establishment, is under one roof. It is composed of scores of silversmith shops or booths scattered over a large room of more than an acre. Each merchant has his own little quarter. He sits behind a desk or counter, and has a rude, old-fashioned safe at the rear. At the right and left, or still farther back, are his mechanics, who are working in silver and gold, making all sorts of jewellery. Each has a little anvil before him and a miniature furnace with a blow pipe, by which he melts and shapes the metal to the desired form. The pounding can be heard everywhere. We ask some of the merchants to show us their wares. They bring out heavy chains of silver, and gold rings set with diamonds and pearls and some magnificent pigeon-blood rubies. There are millions of dollars’ worth of jewellery under this roof.
The customers are both men and women, the former in gowns and turbans and the latter in great black sheets with veils over their faces. We stop and watch the buying and selling. There is a woman looking at a bracelet of gold. The jeweller weighs it on rude little scales and then adds the cost of the labour. The woman is not satisfied with the price. She calls him a thief, and demands that he do not rob her children of bread. It may be an hour before the bargain is made.
I am frequently asked what one can buy in these oriental cities which is worth while taking home. Damascus is a good shopping place for the tourist. Since it is somewhat off the main line of travel, one can pick up oriental things comparatively cheap. I have bought several rugs which have come here by caravan from Bokhara, two of which are at least one hundred years old. I will not give the prices except to say that they are much below those at which they could be bought in New York, and the merchant has agreed to pay the duties upon them and to deliver them to my house in Washington.
Among the many other things sold are silk head shawls such as are used by the Bedouins, and table covers of red or black woollen cloth embroidered with silk.
A great many Americans take home brassware from Damascus, and not a few purchase swords inlaid with silver and with the Damascus blades for which the city has been noted for ages. Some of these swords are imitations imported from Germany, while other “oriental” wares come from Manchester, being made especially for this trade. Indeed, one must keep his eye open if he would buy genuine curios in any part of the world.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE VEILED WOMEN OF DAMASCUS
Ho! Ye bold, bright-eyed, fair-skinned girls of America! Forget the infinity of changing styles with which you are free to please us every year and take a look at your sisters of Damascus in far-away Syria.