As far as I can learn, there was never a slave trade and slave employment half as extensive in the Orient as that which flourished in the United States less than twenty years ago.
Slaves in the East are a family possession, and are not reckoned as a specific item of wealth.
We had been told not to fail to see some of the private houses of Damascus, as they are specially famous for their elegance. To wander about the city you would not suppose that it has many rich interiors, but you find on investigation that mud walls frequently lead to something rich inside. Judge not by appearances in Damascus. We entered some of the Moslem court yards, but were not allowed to see the inside of the houses. We saw some Christian houses richly adorned and decorated, but they will all come within the general description at the beginning of the preceding chapter. There were many luxurious houses of Christian natives destroyed in 1860, and few of these have been built. The Christian quarter still bears the marks of Moslem hate, in the large areas that lie in ruins. The whole Christian quarter was burned, and about two thousand five hundred Christians were massacred.
Despite the protection now extended to them by foreign powers, the Christians of Damascus do not feel safe, and are constantly dreading a fresh outbreak of hostilities.
Two Jewish houses that we visited had evidently cost a great deal of money; the dining room of one is finished in marble carving around the entire wall, and the cost of this one apartment was said to be ten thousand pounds.
In one of the Jewish houses, the hostess invited us to seats in the room where herself, the ladies of her household, and a couple of visitors were squatted on divans and smoking nargilehs. They were much surprised that the lady of our party didn’t smoke, and they wanted to stain her nails with henna and paint her eye-lashes.
One of the lady visitors was a cantatrice, the Patti or Nilsson of Damascus, and at the request of the hostess we were favored with a song. Her voice was a sort of rough falsetto, and there was little melody or rhythm about the song when considered from a European point of view. How tastes differ! Such a song would not be listened to in Europe or America, except from curiosity; and the song of Patti would, doubtless, be of no consequence in Damascus. Our guide told us that this lady has sung herself rich, and that she frequently receives twenty or thirty pounds for an evening’s entertainment.
We passed a very pleasant hour in this house, and shall long hold it in remembrance. I don’t believe we should have enjoyed it half as well if the master had been at home, as I have a strong suspicion that we should not have been invited to drink coffee and smoke with the ladies.