In the Near East, coffee manners and customs are much the same today as they were fifty or even one hundred years ago. Witness Damascus. The following pen picture of the cafés in this ancient city was written in 1836 to accompany the drawing by Bartlett and Purser, which is reproduced here; but it might have been written in 1922, so slight have been the changes in the setting or the spirit of the original coffee house that Shemsi first brought to Constantinople from Damascus in 1554.[370]
Street Coffee Service in Constantinople
The Cafés of the kind represented in the plate are, perhaps, the greatest luxury that a stranger finds in Damascus. Gardens, kiosques, fountains, and groves are abundant around every Eastern capital: but Cafés on the very bosom of a rapid river, and bathed by its waves, are peculiar to this ancient city: they are formed so as to exclude the rays of the sun, while they admit the breeze; the light roof is supported by slender rows of pillars, and the building is quite open on every side.
A few of these houses are situated in the skirts of the town, on one of the streams, where the eye rests on the luxuriant vegetation of garden and wood: others are in the heart of the city: a flight of steps conducts to them from the sultry street, and it is delightful to pass in a few moments from the noisy, shadeless thoroughfare, where you see only mean gateways and the gable-ends of edifices, to a cool, grateful, calm place of rest and refreshment, where you can muse and meditate in ease and luxury, and feel at every moment the rich breeze from the river. In two or three instances, a light wooden bridge leads to the platform, close to which, and almost out of it, one or two large and noble trees lift the canopy of their spreading branches and leaves, more welcome at noonday than the roofs of fretted gold in the "Arabian Nights." The high pavilion roof and the pillars are all constructed of wood: the floor is of wood, and sometimes of earth, and is regularly watered, and raised only a few inches above the level of the stream, which rushes by at the feet of the customer, which it almost bathes, as he sips his coffee or sherbet. Innumerable small seats cover the floor, and you take one of these, and place it in the position you like best.
Perhaps you wish to sit apart from the crowd, just under the shadow of the tree, or in some favourite corner where you can smoke, and contemplate the motley guests, formed into calm and solemn groups, who wish to hold no communion with the Giaour. There is ample food here for the observer of character, costume and pretension: the tradesman, the mechanic, the soldier, the gentleman, the dandy, the grave old man, looking wise on the past and dimly on the future: the hadge, in his green turban, vain of his journey to Mecca, and drawing a long bow in his tales and adventures: the long straight pipe, the hookah with its soft curling tube and glass vase, are in request: but the poorer argille is most commonly used.
From sunrise to set, these houses are never empty: we were accustomed to visit one of them early every morning, before breakfast, and very many persons were already there: yet this "balmy hour of prime" was the most silent and solitary of the whole day; it was the coolest also: the rising sun was glancing redly on the waters: there was as yet no heat in the air, and the little cup of Mocha coffee and the pipe were handed by an attendant as soon as the stranger was seated. His favourite Café was the one represented in the plate: the river is the Barrada, the ancient Pharpar. Never was the sound of many waters so pleasant to the ear as in Damascus: the air is filled with the sound, with which no clash of tongues, rolling of wheels, march of footman or horsemen, mingle: the numerous groups who love to resort here are silent half the time; and when they do converse, their voice is often "low, like that of a familiar spirit," or in short grave sentences that pass quickly from the ear.
