Travels in Africa, Egypt, and Syria, from the year 1792 to 1798

by William George Browne

Yet the distinction between a good and a bad governor is, even here, sufficiently felt; the population and commerce of Damascus being on the increase, by the justice and equity of the present Pasha; whereas, both had been materially injured by the violence of Jezzar.

At this moment the shops in the extensive bazars, much larger than those of Aleppo, are all opened, and furnished with every species of commodity, and each caravan brings a supply of persons who, shunning oppression elsewhere, come here for temporary profit or fixed residence. The rent of houses, though still low, is sensibly increasing, and the suburbs spreading by new buildings.

The Pashalîk is the first in Asia. The present Pasha is Abdallah, a man of about fifty years of age, tall and personable, and of noble extract, his ancestors having been invested with Pashalîks in the last century. It is hardly necessary to mention, that every Pasha has absolute power of life or death, there being no appeal from his jurisdiction.

The inhabitants of Damascus were formerly noted for their maltreatment of the Franks, but at present I found the pride of their ignorance somewhat abated, and observed no difference between them and other Oriental citizens. It is deeply to be regretted, that religion, intended to conciliate mankind, should be the chief cause of their ferocity against each other, and should, in an equal proportion, have mingled poisons and antidotes. The Mohammedan himself a god, all the rest of mankind dogs! can any benefit recompense the pride, the fury, the eternal enmity, destruction, and slaughter, inwoven into the very soul by such misanthropic dogmata?

A striking contrast exists between the inhabitants of Damascus and those of Aleppo. The Aleppîns are vain and seditious; the Damascenes, on the contrary, sober, industrious, and unostentatious. The females and children have commonly regular features and a fair complexion: the dress of the women nearly the same as at Constantinople, white muslin veils, except the prostitutes, who, as usual all over the East, expose their faces. To paint the face is an improvement unknown among the Oriental fair, save the Greeks alone.

The charitable establishments in Damascus are numerous, among which may be noted that constructed by Sultan Selim, for the reception of strangers; though his munificence have been since diverted into other channels. The building consists of a vast quadrangle, lined with a colonade. It is entirely roofed in small domes, covered with lead. The mosque is grand. The entrance supported by four large columns of red granite. It is covered with a cupola, and has two minarets. A handsome garden lies adjacent. The apartments are numerous, and the kitchen or mutbach, on the side opposite to the mosque, is suited to the grandeur of the establishment.

The celebrated Asad Pasha, mentioned by Niebuhr and Volney, left an only daughter, of whom, on her marriage with Mohammed Pasha Adm, sprang the present Pasha Abdallah. Mohammed Pasha Adm was preceded by Osmân, and succeeded by two of his own brothers successively, the last of whom, named Derwîsh, was expelled by the intrigues of Jezzâr, who gained his office, and married the daughter of Mohammed Pasha Adm. This marriage of ambition, not of affection, terminated in a divorce a year after. Among other instances his bad treatment of this lady, it is recorded that Jezzâr, meeting her one day in the house, where she happened to have cab-cab, or Arabian pattens on her feet, pulled a pistol from his cincture, and fired it at her, saying, “Art thou the wife of an Arabian peasant? dost thou forget that thou art the wife of a Pasha?”

Jezzâr retained his ill-won pashalîk of Damascus only a few years; his government was a continual scene of oppression and cruelty, and he is supposed to have extorted from the people not less than twenty-five thousand purses, or about a million and two hundred thousand pounds sterling; and to have put to death near four hundred individuals, most of them innocent. His own misconduct and suspicious designs, when leading the caravan to Mecca, conspired with the machinations of his enemies at the Porte to deprive him of his office: but living monuments of his cruelty remain, in the noseless faces and earless heads of many of the Damascenes. Thus driven from Damascus, he returned to his former pashalîk of Acré and Seidé, where he remains. This government, which he held along with that of Damascus, he has retained upwards of twenty-seven years.

Jezzâr was succeeded by the present Pasha Abdallah, whose administration, though eminent as before observed for equity, is yet liable to the charge of mismanagement of the public revenue, and of an indecorous timidity. Under the energetic sway of Jezzâr, the sacred caravan had met with no obstructions on its route; but that of the present year, not only found the reservoirs for water destroyed or damaged, so that many camels perished for want of that indispensable article, but even the pilgrims were insulted by the Arabs, probably incited by the arts and malicious revenge of Jezzâr. By dint of bribes, however, at the Porte, Abdallah prevented his expected deprivation.

In the province of Damascus there are no taxes upon commodities of any kind, so far as I could discover. The land-tax, and the capitation-tax on Christians, constitute the only resource, except contingencies; as fines, and avanias, or arbitrary exactions. The miri, or public revenue, may amount to ten thousand purses, or half a million sterling.