The Bazaars are long, narrow streets, about twenty feet wide, having small shops along both sides almost open into the roadway. They are frequently covered across with branches of trees for protection from the sunshine. The buyers stand on the roadway, and the seller generally sits upon the raised floor of his little shop. They are divided into Quarters, such as Goldsmiths’ Quarter, Leatherdealers’ Quarter, Cloth Quarter, and so on. The former have their workshops in a large open building adjacent, full of working benches and smelting furnaces, where I observed that much of the goldsmiths’ jewellery work was of silver, dipped in molten gold, which looked very well indeed. The latter have a very large central building, with galleries, where wholesale business seems carried on, and gives some idea of the immense variety of wares made and imported into Damascus, and there used, or perhaps more extensively distributed among the surrounding provinces and other countries. In one of the Bazaars we saw the famous Damascus “Otto of Roses”—a single drop of which on my handkerchief gave out its rich perfume for many months afterwards; also the henna with which the females tint their finger-nails a fine red colour. At the corners of the Bazaars and along their sides, are charcoal fires for cooking cakes, sweetmeats, and roasting coffee and peas, &c.; the former are sometimes as thin as a sheet of brown paper, and very tasteless. There are sherbet sellers and water sellers, moving about with their liquids in full-sized goats’ skin “bottles” carried on their backs. These Bazaars were larger and more businesslike than those of Cairo—extremely Eastern and novel, although not so continuously crowded.
Amongst the mass of goods exposed for sale I was glad to recognise several articles of English manufacture, also those of Italy, France, Switzerland, Austria, Russia, Constantinople, and other markets; but the most interesting were those of Persia, Bagdad, and the East. Of course the principal were those of Damascus manufacture, consisting of silks, woollens, and cottons, table-covers of peculiar patterns, saddlery, coppersmith work, and drugs. There is a very large sale of fruits and vegetables of excellent quality, confections, and bottles of curious liqueurs and preserved fruits, honey, grape-syrup, butter, and other good things. These eatables are carried about, the sellers keeping up a ceaseless hum of street calls, which, mingling with the other noises of a crowded city and the five times a day musical calls to prayer from the numerous minarets, have a peculiar and exciting effect upon the ear of a stranger. “Allah is great! I proclaim that there is no god but Allah, and Mahomet is his prophet.”
The pertinacity of some of the Bazaar dealers is extraordinary, and sometimes ludicrous. If an offer is made, or the least indication be given that you think of buying an article, you will probably find the dealer with his wares sitting at the door of your bedroom waiting an opportunity to renew the negotiation the next morning. They and the dragoman and the hotel waiters seem to have a business understanding. But, speaking generally, a judicious buyer finds the prices of many goods extremely moderate, and travellers often purchase as many Damascus wares as they can afford to carry along with them.
Altogether Damascus is a most interesting city for a European, and is deserving of more time than travellers usually allow themselves for its inspection. It cannot be said to be prospering, and notwithstanding its great fertility, there are Dervishes and other beggars who proclaim their wants. Strangers generally give to get quit of them, and frequent acts of charity are shown by a few of the Moslems. One is a custom deserving of being made known and imitated at home. When desirous of doing an act of charity, a Moslem will pay a water seller for the whole contents of his large leather bottle or waterskin, and then order him to dispense it free to all who need; and so perhaps occasionally with other articles of food. Of all these retail pedlars each urges his own peculiar claim on the public attention. “In the name of the Prophet—Figs!” is not altogether fabulous, as I supposed. The cry of the water or sherbet seller may be, “O thirsty one, come!”—that of the seller of beetroot and cucumbers, “Buy, O father of a family!” But the best cry I have heard of is that of the seller of watercresses—“Tender cresses—if an old woman eats them she will be young again next morning!” Although Braham drew our attention to these cries, of course we were ignorant of their meaning at the time, and the populace generally did not seem to regard them as witty, probably because familiar.
This is the chief city of the Turk in Asia, and until recently the Governor ruled also over the Pashas of Palestine; now I think it is the chief Pasha at Beyrout who does so. There is a considerable garrison at Damascus, and indications are not wanting that it is needed to maintain order. The soldiers seemed a mixture of Turk, Arab, and Syrian natives.
There are two or three Protestant educational missions in Damascus. We met the principals of the Scotch Mission, who informed us that the head of the Irish Mission was then confined to his bed with fever. There seemed no rivalry between them; indeed, they evidently were on friendly terms, as they need to be, for mutual sympathy, in the midst of hostile foes who would attack them if they dared.
Their educational operations occasionally extend to the numerous little villages of the Anti-Lebanon range, and southward into the country of the Hauran, situated east of Hermon and north of the land of Bashan. Here there seems to be a remarkably fine field for schools, which has been hitherto very much neglected—a field in which a comparatively small expenditure might produce rich results. At the central points—where Mahomedanism is strong—little or no progress has been made in enlightening the Moslem inhabitants, even where ample provision has long existed, as in Beyrout, and where education is well advanced amongst the children of Jewish and Christian sects. But in the villages I refer to, the inhabitants are not so much under direct local Moslem intimidation—indeed, a large portion of them are Maronite, a sect allied to the Roman Catholics. Rare opportunities seem to exist for reaching, at very small cost, the poor people of various sects, who seem very willing to learn, notwithstanding the occasional opposition of interested local priests and petty chiefs, especially of the Druses, a singularly proud and exclusive race, whose religion is a mystery, requiring secret initiation, but similar to Mahomedanism. In Beyrout, notwithstanding its large and influential Christian population, I was surprised to be told that no openly declared convert from Mahomedanism would be tolerated there—by law he was, but his life would not be safe. Still the influence of Christian teaching must prevail, and in the Lebanons there is a fine adjacent field.[9]
From the Prophet’s Tower hill, looking toward the sun rising, the plain of Damascus and desert beyond lay spread out like a great map. Except where partially limited by a low ridge of hills, the view was the most extensive I have ever seen, and bounded only by the power of the eye to scan it. But when the eye fails, imagination readily fills up the unseen beyond. Nearly north-east the beautiful ruins of Palmyra or Tadmor, in the desert; and farther east, between the Upper Euphrates and Tigris, lay the cradle of the human race—Mesopotamia—and Padan-Aram, the birthplace of Abram; and still farther beyond lay the once great kingdom of Assyria; while south of these, Media, Babylonia, and Chaldea, in the land of Shinar; and still farther south, Persia and Arabia. What a wealth of historic and sacred interest even in the names! And what are they now? Palestine is a desolation, yet the skeleton of its former self remains entire; but the once rich and fertile valley of the Euphrates is “empty and void, and a waste.” Nineveh—“that exceeding great city”—and Babylon, “the glory of kingdoms and the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency”—travellers now describe as great mounds of mud—even their sites are uncertain. They are “the feeding places of the young lions,” and there “the voice of the messenger is no more heard.” As with an overflowing flood they have been utterly wasted. The ruins of Tadmor—said to have been built by Solomon in the desert—and of Persepolis, the capital of Cyrus of Persia, remain—like oases in the surrounding waste—to astonish the traveller with the magnificence of which they yet speak, and “to show where a garden had been.”
In the distance, travelling southward, we observed a caravan consisting of a long train of camels en route for Bagdad and the Persian Gulf. There was wont to be a very important Eastern trade, of which Damascus and Bagdad were the centres, but of late years it has greatly fallen off, partly because of most unwise taxation by the Turkish Government and partly by the opening of the Suez Canal, both for goods and passengers. Perhaps, however, at no distant day this trade may be much more than re-established by the construction of a railway from some point on the west coast of the Mediterranean, such as Sidon or Gaza, or Port Said, viâ Damascus, to Bagdad and the Persian Gulf.[10] The ground seems nearly level almost the entire distance, and there would certainly be very little private property of any value on the line. By this means Central Asia would be opened up to commerce and Christianity, the great civilizers, and I believe the shortest practicable route to India and the East obtained. If this great project be too long delayed, Russia will have established its rival line southward from the Caspian Sea, and by creating panic in our Indian empire, occasion a military expenditure costing vastly more than such a line of railway would.[11] To England it would be of great national importance, politically and commercially.