We wished to visit the house of the famous Abd-el-Kader, but found it impossible. Twenty years ago, this man filled a prominent place in history, but he is now nearly forgotten. He was born in 1807 in Algeria; he was descended from a long line of Emirs; his father was noted for the wisdom and liberality of his rule over the Algerian province of Oran. When the French occupied Algiers, Abd-el-Kader was one of their fiercest opponents, and from 1831 to 1847 he maintained an active warfare, interrupted by a few brief truces. In the last mentioned year he was captured and taken to France, but was soon released, on condition that he should not return to Algiers, nor take arms in any way against the French. The terms of the contract have been faithfully kept, and he has ever since been on the best terms with France.
He resided for some years in Constantinople, and then moved to Damascus, where he spends the greater part of his time. He continues to wear the Algerian dress, and his dark hair and beard make a striking contrast to his snow-white garments.
Those who have met him say that he is a thoroughly courteous and highly polished gentleman, and in looks and bearing he is “every inch a king.”
Damascus is the most thoroughly Oriental in character of all the cities now in easy reach of the traveler. Constantinople and Cairo have each a large foreign population, and can number their Franks by thousands, but Damascus has less than a hundred of them, including missionaries, merchants, and nondescript Occidentals, who have wandered there by chance. The houses, bazaars, mosques and baths are to-day what they were five hundred years ago, and the Moslem is so averse to progress, that there is no great probability of any important change for five hundred years to come.
As you wander through the streets of Damascus or stand in its crowded market places, you are carried back to the days of Haroun-al-Raschid, and gaze upon the pictures that became familiar to you in your boyhood perusal of the Arabian Nights. You forget the Present, you are living in the Past, and, full of bewilderment, you scan the title page of your note-book to make sure that you really tread the earth in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
I had missed the Turkish bath in Constantinople; I could have taken one any morning and therefore postponed it until too late. In Damascus I determined not to be so negligent, and accordingly arranged to try the Oriental bath on the second day of my stay. Gustave agreed to go with me, and we consulted our guide about the time and place. Imagine our astonishment when Mohammed informed us:
“You must get up at five o’clock in ze morning and I takes you to ze bestest bath in Damas. Ze bath shut up at seven o’clock, and you get no bath then afterwards.”