Before going to the mosque we went to the site of the house of Naaman, the leper; a leper-hospital now occupies the spot. And speaking of lepers, we afterwards went to the leper-hospital and saw half a dozen of the victims of this dreadful disease. Some were blind, some had the face, some the arms, and some the legs, much swollen, and the face and hands of one were covered with scales. Under the edges of these scales the flesh was raw and inflamed, and we were told that some of the patients in the hospital were masses of sores.
The Great Mosque occupies a quadrangle one hundred and sixty-three yards long by one hundred and eight wide. Part of this quadrangle is a court surrounded by cloisters resting on stone pillars; the rest of the space is occupied by the mosque, which is four hundred and thirty-one feet by one hundred and eight. We removed our boots and put on our slippers before entering the building. The interior is divided into three aisles by two ranges of Corinthian pillars, which support round arches. In the centre is a dome one hundred and twenty feet high by fifty feet in diameter, and standing on four massive pillars. The floor is of stone and covered with soft carpets, and here and there on the carpets, were the Moslems at their prayers. Our attention was particularly attracted by one devout old Jew, who wore a phylactery upon his forehead and who appeared to be utterly unconscious of what was going on around him. On the eastern side of the mosque there is an elaborately carved Keebbek, or shrine, and below it is a cave, in which the head of John the Baptist is said to be preserved in a casket of gold.
There are three minarets to the mosque; the most important is the minaret of Jesus, at the south-eastern angle, and two hundred and fifty feet high.
There is a Moslem tradition that when Jesus comes to judge the world, He will descend on this minaret, enter the mosque, and call before him men of every sect and nationality. We climbed to the top of one of the minarets, and obtained from it a fine view of the city.
Mosques, bazaars, houses, mud walls and flat roofs, remains of Roman and Saracenic columns, streets and court-yards, formed the scene before us. Further off were the gardens, the olive and orange groves of Damascus; the Abana sparkled in the sunlight like a band or thread of silver; the barren hills beyond formed a sharp contrast to the fertile plain; and away in the distance we could distinguish a belt of desert. Another mosque, whose minaret is covered with blue encaustic tiles, attracted our attention, and we longed to visit it. To our disappointment we learned that admission was then impossible.
A visitor to Damascus should take advantage of the first clear afternoon, to proceed at a late hour to the Salahiyeh hills, so as to look upon the city at sunset. The road is pleasant and picturesque, and leads gently upward beyond a village that lies between the hill and the city. An hour’s ride brings one to a point where the whole plain is spread out like a map at the spectator’s feet.
Embowered in gardens and tinted by the lights that varied every moment, Damascus looked to us as much like an earthly paradise as anything in the Orient. Away to the east was the range of Anti-Lebanon; to the north was the plain, with a strip of desert, and to the south the plain stretched away and broke into the hills in the distance. We could trace out the shape of the city, and follow with the eye the direction of its principal streets; the tall minarets and bright domes of the mosques formed salient features of the landscapes, and altogether the scene was thoroughly Oriental. It was from this hill that Mohammed looked and pronounced Damascus the most beautiful city of the world, and promised the most dutiful of his attendants, that they should be appointed to dwell there.