Syria, the land of Lebanon

by Lewis Gaston Leary

If we think of Damascus as the port of the desert, then its wharves lie along the Meidan. This narrow handle of the spoon-shaped city, which stretches far southward on both sides of the Derb el-Haj or “Pilgrim Road” to Mecca, is a comparatively modern quarter; but it is most akin to the wilderness, and its one long avenue is thronged with Children of the East who have journeyed far to visit what they firmly believe to be the world’s largest and most beautiful city. Long caravans, weary, dusty and heavily laden, are led into the Meidan by wild-looking, shaggy Bedouins. A little flock of sheep on its way to the slaughter-house is driven by no gentle shepherd, but a black-bearded giant armed with rifle and dagger and club. Groaning camels kneel in the street while immense sacks of wheat are untied from their backs and rolled into the vaults of the grain-merchants. We see here the choicest mares of Arabia ridden by tall, stalwart Hauran Druses whose cruel, handsome faces, wrapped around with flowing headgears of spotless white, look down upon the hurrying crowds with a haughty contempt. Yonder group of strangely dressed fellows with red and white cloths bound about their brows are Chaldeans from Baghdad. The shops here seem very poor and shabby in comparison with the bazaars of the older quarters; but the simple country folk, and even the proud Bedouin Arabs, stand spellbound before the astounding wealth and bewildering tumult of the great city.

The south end of the Meidan is known as the Gate of Allah—though it has no gate; for it is here, amid impressive ceremonies, that there starts the annual Pilgrimage to Mecca.[36] Back to the same Bab Allah straggle, four months later, a sick and exhausted remnant who have survived the journey to the holy city, to bear henceforth the envied title of haj or “pilgrim.” Then cholera or plague breaks out with renewed virulence.

Of the ancient fortifications of Damascus, only a short, ruinous piece now remains. The city is surrounded, between the houses and the orchards, by an almost unbroken succession of cemeteries. In the burying ground of the Orthodox Greeks is the small, unimpressive tomb of St. George, who is said to have assisted the Apostle Paul in his escape over the wall. This cannot, of course, be the same St. George who killed the dragon, as the hero of that famous exploit was not born until nearly three hundred years after the time of Paul.

In the large Moslem cemeteries at the southeast of the city are the tombs of Mohammed’s muezzin, two of his nine wives, and his favorite child, Fatima. Not far from the sepulcher of the Prophet’s daughter, though outside of the cemetery, is buried an unfortunate Jew who aspired to the hand of Fatima. The presumptuous lover is said to have been stoned to death, and his grave is now entirely hidden under a great heap of the rocks which passing Moslems still cast upon it as a sign of their contempt.

Just outside of Damascus, also, is a sad house of “life more terrible than death.” It was once, they say, the residence of proud Naaman, and it is still tenanted by lepers who, alas, have known no Elisha and washed in no healing Jordan. My Syrian friends were afraid even to enter its court, but I talked with eight of the thirty or forty inmates. Some were voiceless and shapeless—grotesque, horrible caricatures of humanity. But there was still a “little maid” in the House of Naaman. Miriam was a pretty, slender girl, just beginning to burst into the bloom of early Eastern adolescence. She seemed the very incarnation of health and youthful joy, and could hardly stop laughing long enough for me to take her photograph. Yet I could not laugh with her; for on the rich brown of her cheek was a tiny pinkish swelling, and close beside her graceful form crouched an awful figure, loathsome, unsmiling and unwomanly, like which she would some day be.

Over the now closed Kisan Gate at the southeast corner of the city wall is a small, bricked-up window, through which tradition says that St. Paul was let down in a basket. Unfortunately for the story, this part of the fortification dates from the Turkish occupation. The bend of the wall includes, however, as it probably has always done, the Jewish Quarter. The Hebrews of Damascus are unique among their coreligionists of Palestine and Syria in that they are not comparatively recent immigrants drawn back to the land of their fathers by Zionist ideals, but are descended from ancestors who settled here in very ancient times.[37] Some of them bear family names which can be read in the earliest census lists of the Old Testament. Many of them are very estimable people; but I cannot describe the quarter where they live, further than to state that it is the most filthy and malodorous place I have yet visited. I am not especially squeamish; I have often, for the sake of the human interest found there, traveled in Mediterranean steerages and lived in the slums of great capitals; but after a brief glimpse of the Jewish Quarter of Damascus, I beat an ignominious retreat. There are said to be houses there whose interiors are wonderfully beautiful; but I am not going back to see them.

There are in all five “quarters” in Damascus: the Christian and the Jewish at the east, the peasant market of the Meidan at the south, the suburb of el-Amara north of the Barada, and the Moslem heart of the city. The “Street called Straight,”[38] which cuts across the center of the bazaar district from east to west, may roughly be considered the dividing line between the Jewish and the Christian Quarters. The flippant jest to the effect that the writer of the Acts said only that the thoroughfare was “called” straight, is hardly justified by the facts. This is, in fact, the straightest, longest street in all Damascus, as well as one of the widest. It was once divided into three parallel roadways by Corinthian colonnades, some few remains of which can still be found. To-day it is covered for half its length with a high, arching metal roof, and contains many of the largest and most modern stores in the city.

Beside this busy bazaar the Damascus Moslems show the tomb of the disciple Ananias, whose memory they hold in great respect. His reputed residence, which lies some distance away in the center of the Christian Quarter, is in charge of Latin monks. All that remains of the house is a low, cave-like chapel, twenty or more feet below the street. By itself, however, this fact furnishes no argument against the correctness of the location; for the level of every crumbling, undrained Syrian city constantly rises century by century.

Turning now into the Moslem Quarter, we pass through a tasteful little garden, closely planted with shade trees, and enter an unpretentious building. Here rests one of the greatest Moslem heroes and the most formidable opponent of the Crusaders—the invincible Salah ed-Din, whose sonorous name we Franks pronounce “Saladin.” It seems very strange that the tomb of this valiant champion of Islam was long unhonored, if not entirely unknown, by the inhabitants of Damascus, until it was discovered fifty years ago by an American missionary. The original casket of walnut has since been replaced by an exquisitely carved marble sarcophagus, upon which lies a cover of green silk. In a niche of the wall at the foot of the tomb now hangs the large bronze wreath given by the German Emperor in memory of his visit to Damascus. One hopes that it was a Christian spirit of forgiveness which prompted the placing of a Maltese cross on this tribute to the Crusaders’ greatest foeman. But as soon as the Christian emblem was noticed by the custodian of the tomb, the wreath was removed from its original position on the sarcophagus.