Thus we looked upon the city which is doubtless the oldest in the world. More than three thousand years it has flourished; more than thirty centuries it has stood there a city—the beautiful city of the plain. Nations have appeared and vanished. Kingdoms and empires and republics have risen and fallen, but Damascus has stood unchanged. Thrones have crumbled, dynasties have come and gone. Statesmen and poets and scholars have lived their brief period of existence, brief and insignificant. In the centuries that have rolled over Damascus Saracen, Roman, Moslem, and Christian have besieged the city; twice it has been the center of empires, and many times it has been the seat of power that was felt far away. Though never formally occupied by Christians, it was one of the early centers of Christianity, and for nearly three centuries this was the predominant religion. And later in its history the armies of the Mohammedan empire went forth from Damascus, spreading the religion of the Prophet to Spain on the one hand, and to Hindos-tan on the other. Damascus was then the seat of an empire the greatest on the globe, extending from the Himalayas to the Atlantic. Wealth was poured into her coffers, and she became the richest as well as the mightiest capital. Though she has declined she has not fallen, and presents to-day a picture of serene and well-deserved prosperity.
Damascus without the bazaars would be Hamlet without Hamlet. Here you see the Orient in its perfection. Instead of shops scattered through the city, as in the West, all trades, or rather all the persons in one trade, are brought together. The bazaars of Damascus have had a world-wide celebrity for centuries, and there are none in the East better than they. You can buy there anything you want, from a. slave to a cigarette, and from a sewing needle to a parure of diamonds. You can wander for hours and days in the bazaars; in the slipper bazaar, the tobacco bazaar, the seed bazaar, the mercers’ bazaar, the tailors’ bazaar, the clog bazaar, the silversmiths’ bazaar, the spice bazaar, the book bazaar, the old clo’ bazaar, the iron bazaar, the pipe bazaar, and other bazaars to the number of a dozen or more.
There is a general similarity in the bazaars, so far as the externals are concerned; the shops are little pens, from four or six to ten feet square, where the merchant sits or squats on the floor, and the customer sits on the little bench in front. The front of the shop is entirely open during the day; it can be shut at night, but the locks by which it is held are of a very primitive and very flimsy pattern. If the owner wishes to go away in the day time he spreads a net in front during his absence, and this is his card to say he is “out.” The merchant does not press you to buy, and he generally seems not to care whether you buy or not.
In the slipper bazaar you pass shop after shop where Oriental slippers of all patterns and values are sold; in the tailors’ bazaar you find shop after shop where tailors are at work upon Oriental garments, and so you go on through one bazaar after another.
A few articles for sale, such as ear and nose drops, rings and brooches, generally contained in a locked show-case, a foot square, and the same in height; the shop-keepers exhibited their goods, but did not press them for sale; many of them stopped work to stare at us, while others stuck to their business with Oriental indifference. A small anvil, a few hammers, pliers and rollers, and a small fire of charcoal, kept in flame by a bellows of goat-skin comprise the whole outfit of a workman. The entire arrangement could be stowed in a good-sized hat.Part of the street called Straight is occupied by bazaars, and there is a network of them on both sides of it.
In the silversmith’s bazaar each man occupies a space about six feet square, in a sort of large hall, with low roof and many supporting pillars; this space contains both work-room and salesroom.
In the arms bazaar there are all sorts of odds and ends of cimetars, matchlocks, sabres, pistols, lances, and the like. The famous Damascus blades were offered to us, but they were not of that fine temper that permits you to tie one of them into a knot, and so we did not buy. An antiquarian would be at home in this bazaar, and find many things to suit his fancy.