Four days passed before this document, with its description of my features in the unfathomable orthography of the Turk, was ready. Even had I received it earlier, it is by no means certain that I could have set out for Damascus at once. Native or Frank, not a resident of Beirut admitted knowing which of her reeking alleyways led to the foothills to the eastward. Abdul threw up his hands in startled horror when I broached the subject of my intended journey. “Impossible!” he shrieked, “There is not road. You be froze in the snow before the Bedouins cut your liver. You no can go. Business good. Damascus no good. Ver’ col’ in Damascus now.”
It cost me a day’s earnings one afternoon among the tavern keepers to revive his flagging memory before he recalled that there was a road to Damascus, and that caravans had been known to pass over it; but even in such good spirits he persisted with great vehemence that the journey could not be made on foot.
The bumboat-man left me next morning at the outskirts of the city and a bend in the road soon hid him from view. For an hour the highway was perfectly level, flanked by rich gardens and orange groves, and thronged with dusky, supple-limbed men and women garbed in flowing sheets. Soon all this changed. The road wound upward, the delicate orange tree gave place to the sturdy olive, the fertile gardens to haggard hillsides, the gay throng to an occasional Arab, grim and austere of visage, leading or riding a swaying camel. Over the dull solitude fell a silence broken only by the rising wind sighing mournfully through the jagged gullies and stocky trees. The summer breeze of the sea level turned chilly and I found it worth while to seek the sunny side of a boulder before broaching the lunch in my knapsack. Nearer the summit of the first range the aspect was less dreary. The cedar forests began and broke the monotony of the ragged landscape. Here and there a group of peasants was grubbing on the wayside slopes. To the north or south a flat-roofed village clung to a mountain flank.
How strange and foreign seemed everything about me! The implements of the peasants, the food in my knapsack, the very tobacco in my pipe, every detail of custom and costume seemed but to widen the vast gulf between this and my accustomed world. If I addressed a fellow-wayfarer, he answered back an incomprehensible jumble of words, wound the folds of his unfamiliar garments about him, and hurried on. If I caught sight of a village clock, its hands pointed to six when the hour was midday. Even the familiar name of the famous city to which I was bound was meaningless to the natives, for they called it “Shaam.”
My pronunciation of the word was at fault, no doubt, for though I stood long at a fork in the route in the early afternoon shouting “Shaam” at each passer-by, I took the wrong branch. Some hours I had tramped along a rapidly deteriorating highway before a suspicion of this mistake assailed me. Even then, with no means to verify it, I kept on. At last the route emerged from a cutting, and the shimmering sea almost at my feet showed that I was marching due southward. Two peasants appeared above a rise of ground beyond. As they drew near, I pointed off down the road and shouted “Shaam?” The pair halted, wonderingly, in the center of the highway some distance from me. “Shaam! Shaam! Shaam!” I repeated, striving to give the word an accentuation that would suggest the interrogation point that went with it. The peasants stared open-mouthed, drew back several paces, and peered down the road and back at me a dozen times, as if undecided whether I was calling their attention to some phenomenon of nature or attempting to distract their attention long enough to pick their pockets. Then a slow, half-hearted smile broke out on the features of the quicker witted. He stood first on one leg, then on the other, squinted along the highway once more, and began to repeat after me, “Shaam! Shaam! Shaam.”
“Aywa, Shaam!” I cried.
He turned to his companion. The parley that ensued was long enough to have settled all differences of opinion in politics, religion, and the rotation of crops. Then both began to shake their heads so vigorously that the muscles of their necks stood out like steel hawsers. Two broad grins that were meant to be reassuring distorted their leathery visages. They stretched out their arms to the southward and burst forth in unharmonious duet: “La! la! la! la! la! Shaam! la! la! la! la! la!” The Arab says “la” when he means “no.” I turned about and hurried back the way I had come.
Dusk was falling when I traversed for the second time a two-row village facing the highway. As I expected, there was not a building in any way resembling an inn. For the Arab, even of the twentieth century, considers it a sin that “the stranger within his gates” shall be obliged to put up at a public house. I had already seen enough of the Syrian, however, to know the chief weakness of his character—insatiable curiosity. One thing he cannot do is mind his own business. Is there a trade going on, a debt being paid, a quarrel raging? The vociferations of bargaining, the jingle of money, the angry shrieks drive from his head every thought of his own affairs, and he hastens to join the increasing throng around the parties interested, to offer his advice and bellow his criticisms. I sat down on a boulder at the end of the village.
In three minutes a small crowd had collected. In ten, half the population was swarming around me and roaring at my vain attempt to address them, as at some entertainment specially arranged for their enjoyment. A good half-hour of incessant chattering ensued before one of the band motioned to me to follow him, and turned back into the village. The multitude surged closely around me, examining minutely every article of my apparel that was visible, grinning, smirking, running from one side to the other, lest they lose some point in the make-up of so strange a creature, and babbling the while like an army of apes.
The leader turned off the highway towards the largest building in the village. Ten yards from the door he halted, the multitude formed a semicircle, leaving me in the center like the chief buffoon in a comic opera ensemble, and one and all began to bellow at the top of his lungs. A girl of some sixteen years appeared on the threshold. “Taala hena!” (come here) roared the chorus. The girl ran down the steps. A roar as of an angry sea burst forth as every member of the company stretched out an arm towards me. Plainly, each was determined that he, and not his neighbor, should have the distinction of introducing this novel being.