CHAPTER XXVIII—FROM DAMASCUS TO JAFFA.—INCIDENTS OF THE TRIP.
Once More in Damascus—Taking the “Short Route”—Starting for Beyrout—The Fountains of Damascus—Rain-Storm in the Anti-Lebanon—Stora and its Model Hotel—Poetical Fancies—A Compliment to Mine Host—The “Doubter” as a Rhymist—Climbing Mount Lebanon—Tropic Suns and Arctic Snows—View from the Summit—A Vision of Fairy-Land—Coming Down on the Double-Quick—In Sight of the Mediterranean—Taking Ship for Jaffa—Sidon to a Modern Tourist—Tyre—Jaffa—A Dangerous Roadstead.
WE have done with Damascus and the country beyond it; we have studied the road to Palmyra and Bagdad, and the overland route to Jerusalem; we have seen the bazaars, the fountains, the slave market, the mosques and the churches, and we have looked from the Salahiyeh hills when the setting sun was gilding the domes and towers of the city. Our carriage is waiting to bear us away to Beyrout, where we will “take ship for Jaffa,” as did the men of Solomon many centuries ago.
We started out of Damascus in a pouring rain, but we didn’t think it would be much of a shower, and kept on. Just outside, we crossed a bridge over the Abana, or rather over one of its seven branches, and then followed the stream upward for a few miles. The Abana formerly flowed in a single stream; the founders of Damascus determined to utilize it for beautifying the city, and well did they perform their work. Here and there, as you ascend the stream, you see dams thrown across to direct first one portion and then another, and from these dams there are artificial canals, sometimes tunneled through the rock, and all leading toward the cluster of domes, and minarets, and roofs that mark the locality of the city.
Through all parts of Damascus the Abana is carried in divisions and subdivisions, now in open channels and now in aqueducts concealed beneath the street. Fountains foam and bubble at every street corner and sparkle in every dwelling; water, clear, bright, and beautiful, is everywhere, and man or beast has no need to thirst.
It is this abundance of water that has created much of the fame of Damascus and made it attractive in the eyes of travellers. Beyond Damascus is the desert, without water or verdure; all around, east, west, north, and south, the country is rugged, and more or less barren.
The traveller from Bagdad, from Mecca, from Aleppo, and from other points, has wandered over treeless wastes, where rock and sand are the only objects to greet his eye, and the only water to quench his thirst is the hot and brackish liquid carried in goat skins at his saddle bow. After long and weary days he arrives at Damascus, embowered in gardens, and at every step through her streets he sees a fountain. Is it any wonder that he considers Damascus as second only to Paradise?
The rain didn’t stop, as we had expected. It kept coming steadily during the six hours—that seemed long enough for sixty—between Damascus and Stora.
We warmed and dried ourselves as best we could before going to bed, but there was a good deal of moisture in our clothes when we got up in the morning. We didn’t feel particularly gay, especially as the morning was cold and the rain was continuing, but there was nothing to do but to push on. The steamer was due at Beyrout that day, and would leave in the evening, and if we missed her we should be stuck there for ten days.