_ Chapter 44 - Extracts from Note-Book--Mahomet's Paradise and the Bible's--Beautiful
Damascus the Oldest City on Earth--Oriental Scenes within the Curious Old
City--Damascus Street Car--The Story of St. Paul--The "Street called
Straight"--Mahomet's Tomb and St. George's--The Christian Massacre--
Mohammedan Dread of Pollution--The House of Naaman--
The Horrors of Leprosy
The next day was an outrage upon men and horses both. It was another
thirteen-hour stretch (including an hour's "nooning.") It was over the
barrenest chalk-hills and through the baldest canons that even Syria can
show. The heat quivered in the air every where. In the canons we almost
smothered in the baking atmosphere. On high ground, the reflection from
the chalk-hills was blinding. It was cruel to urge the crippled horses,
but it had to be done in order to make Damascus Saturday night. We saw
ancient tombs and temples of fanciful architecture carved out of the
solid rock high up in the face of precipices above our heads, but we had
neither time nor strength to climb up there and examine them. The terse
language of my note-book will answer for the rest of this day's
experiences:
"Broke camp at 7 A.M., and made a ghastly trip through the Zeb Dana
valley and the rough mountains--horses limping and that Arab
screech-owl that does most of the singing and carries the water-
skins, always a thousand miles ahead, of course, and no water to
drink--will he never die? Beautiful stream in a chasm, lined thick
with pomegranate, fig, olive and quince orchards, and nooned an hour
at the celebrated Baalam's Ass Fountain of Figia, second in size in
Syria, and the coldest water out of Siberia--guide-books do not
say Baalam's ass ever drank there--somebody been imposing on the
pilgrims, may be. Bathed in it--Jack and I. Only a second--ice-
water. It is the principal source of the Abana river--only one-
half mile down to where it joins. Beautiful place--giant trees all
around--so shady and cool, if one could keep awake--vast stream
gushes straight out from under the mountain in a torrent. Over it
is a very ancient ruin, with no known history--supposed to have been
for the worship of the deity of the fountain or Baalam's ass or
somebody. Wretched nest of human vermin about the fountain--rags,
dirt, sunken cheeks, pallor of sickness, sores, projecting bones,
dull, aching misery in their eyes and ravenous hunger speaking from
every eloquent fibre and muscle from head to foot. How they sprang
upon a bone, how they crunched the bread we gave them! Such as
these to swarm about one and watch every bite he takes, with greedy
looks, and swallow unconsciously every time he swallows, as if they
half fancied the precious morsel went down their own throats--
hurry up the caravan!--I never shall enjoy a meal in this
distressful country. To think of eating three times every day under
such circumstances for three weeks yet--it is worse punishment than
riding all day in the sun. There are sixteen starving babies from
one to six years old in the party, and their legs are no larger than
broom handles. Left the fountain at 1 P.M. (the fountain took us
at least two hours out of our way,) and reached Mahomet's lookout
perch, over Damascus, in time to get a good long look before it was
necessary to move on. Tired? Ask of the winds that far away with
fragments strewed the sea."
As the glare of day mellowed into twilight, we looked down upon a picture
which is celebrated all over the world. I think I have read about four
hundred times that when Mahomet was a simple camel-driver he reached this
point and looked down upon Damascus for the first time, and then made a
certain renowned remark. He said man could enter only one paradise; he
preferred to go to the one above. So he sat down there and feasted his
eyes upon the earthly paradise of Damascus, and then went away without
entering its gates. They have erected a tower on the hill to mark the
spot where he stood.
Damascus is beautiful from the mountain. It is beautiful even to
foreigners accustomed to luxuriant vegetation, and I can easily
understand how unspeakably beautiful it must be to eyes that are only
used to the God-forsaken barrenness and desolation of Syria. I should
think a Syrian would go wild with ecstacy when such a picture bursts upon
him for the first time.
From his high perch, one sees before him and below him, a wall of dreary
mountains, shorn of vegetation, glaring fiercely in the sun; it fences in
a level desert of yellow sand, smooth as velvet and threaded far away
with fine lines that stand for roads, and dotted with creeping mites we
know are camel-trains and journeying men; right in the midst of the
desert is spread a billowy expanse of green foliage; and nestling in its
heart sits the great white city, like an island of pearls and opals
gleaming out of a sea of emeralds. This is the picture you see spread
far below you, with distance to soften it, the sun to glorify it, strong
contrasts to heighten the effects, and over it and about it a drowsing
air of repose to spiritualize it and make it seem rather a beautiful
estray from the mysterious worlds we visit in dreams than a substantial
tenant of our coarse, dull globe. And when you think of the leagues of
blighted, blasted, sandy, rocky, sun-burnt, ugly, dreary, infamous
country you have ridden over to get here, you think it is the most
beautiful, beautiful picture that ever human eyes rested upon in all the
broad universe! If I were to go to Damascus again, I would camp on
Mahomet's hill about a week, and then go away. There is no need to go
inside the walls. The Prophet was wise without knowing it when he
decided not to go down into the paradise of Damascus.
There is an honored old tradition that the immense garden which Damascus
stands in was the Garden of Eden, and modern writers have gathered up
many chapters of evidence tending to show that it really was the Garden
of Eden, and that the rivers Pharpar and Abana are the "two rivers" that
watered Adam's Paradise. It may be so, but it is not paradise now, and
one would be as happy outside of it as he would be likely to be within.
It is so crooked and cramped and dirty that one can not realize that he
is in the splendid city he saw from the hill-top. The gardens are hidden
by high mud-walls, and the paradise is become a very sink of pollution
and uncomeliness. Damascus has plenty of clear, pure water in it,
though, and this is enough, of itself, to make an Arab think it beautiful
and blessed. Water is scarce in blistered Syria. We run railways by our
large cities in America; in Syria they curve the roads so as to make them
run by the meagre little puddles they call "fountains," and which are not
found oftener on a journey than every four hours. But the "rivers" of
Pharpar and Abana of Scripture (mere creeks,) run through Damascus, and
so every house and every garden have their sparkling fountains and
rivulets of water. With her forest of foliage and her abundance of
water, Damascus must be a wonder of wonders to the Bedouin from the
deserts. Damascus is simply an oasis--that is what it is. For four
thousand years its waters have not gone dry or its fertility failed.
Now we can understand why the city has existed so long. It could not
die. So long as its waters remain to it away out there in the midst of
that howling desert, so long will Damascus live to bless the sight of the
tired and thirsty wayfarer.
"Though old as history itself, thou art fresh as the breath of
spring, blooming as thine own rose-bud, and fragrant as thine own
orange flower, O Damascus, pearl of the East!"
Damascus dates back anterior to the days of Abraham, and is the oldest
city in the world. It was founded by Uz, the grandson of Noah. "The
early history of Damascus is shrouded in the mists of a hoary antiquity."
Leave the matters written of in the first eleven chapters of the Old
Testament out, and no recorded event has occurred in the world but
Damascus was in existence to receive the news of it. Go back as far as
you will into the vague past, there was always a Damascus. In the
writings of every century for more than four thousand years, its name has
been mentioned and its praises sung. To Damascus, years are only
moments, decades are only flitting trifles of time. She measures time,
not by days and months and years, but by the empires she has seen rise,
and prosper and crumble to ruin. She is a type of immortality. She saw
the foundations of Baalbec, and Thebes, and Ephesus laid; she saw these
villages grow into mighty cities, and amaze the world with their
grandeur--and she has lived to see them desolate, deserted, and given
over to the owls and the bats. She saw the Israelitish empire exalted,
and she saw it annihilated. She saw Greece rise, and flourish two
thousand years, and die. In her old age she saw Rome built; she saw it
overshadow the world with its power; she saw it perish. The few hundreds
of years of Genoese and Venetian might and splendor were, to grave old
Damascus, only a trifling scintillation hardly worth remembering.
Damascus has seen all that has ever occurred on earth, and still she
lives. She has looked upon the dry bones of a thousand empires, and will
see the tombs of a thousand more before she dies. Though another claims
the name, old Damascus is by right the Eternal City.
We reached the city gates just at sundown. They do say that one can get
into any walled city of Syria, after night, for bucksheesh, except
Damascus. But Damascus, with its four thousand years of respectability
in the world, has many old fogy notions. There are no street lamps
there, and the law compels all who go abroad at night to carry lanterns,
just as was the case in old days, when heroes and heroines of the Arabian
Nights walked the streets of Damascus, or flew away toward Bagdad on
enchanted carpets.
It was fairly dark a few minutes after we got within the wall, and we
rode long distances through wonderfully crooked streets, eight to ten
feet wide, and shut in on either aide by the high mud-walls of the
gardens. At last we got to where lanterns could be seen flitting about
here and there, and knew we were in the midst of the curious old city.
In a little narrow street, crowded with our pack-mules and with a swarm
of uncouth Arabs, we alighted, and through a kind of a hole in the wall
entered the hotel. We stood in a great flagged court, with flowers and
citron trees about us, and a huge tank in the centre that was receiving
the waters of many pipes. We crossed the court and entered the rooms
prepared to receive four of us. In a large marble-paved recess between
the two rooms was a tank of clear, cool water, which was kept running
over all the time by the streams that were pouring into it from half a
dozen pipes. Nothing, in this scorching, desolate land could look so
refreshing as this pure water flashing in the lamp-light; nothing could
look so beautiful, nothing could sound so delicious as this mimic rain to
ears long unaccustomed to sounds of such a nature. Our rooms were large,
comfortably furnished, and even had their floors clothed with soft,
cheerful-tinted carpets. It was a pleasant thing to see a carpet again,
for if there is any thing drearier than the tomb-like, stone-paved
parlors and bed-rooms of Europe and Asia, I do not know what it is.
They make one think of the grave all the time. A very broad, gaily
caparisoned divan, some twelve or fourteen feet long, extended across one
side of each room, and opposite were single beds with spring mattresses.
There were great looking-glasses and marble-top tables. All this luxury
was as grateful to systems and senses worn out with an exhausting day's
travel, as it was unexpected--for one can not tell what to expect in a
Turkish city of even a quarter of a million inhabitants.
I do not know, but I think they used that tank between the rooms to draw
drinking water from; that did not occur to me, however, until I had
dipped my baking head far down into its cool depths. I thought of it
then, and superb as the bath was, I was sorry I had taken it, and was
about to go and explain to the landlord. But a finely curled and scented
poodle dog frisked up and nipped the calf of my leg just then, and before
I had time to think, I had soused him to the bottom of the tank, and when
I saw a servant coming with a pitcher I went off and left the pup trying
to climb out and not succeeding very well. Satisfied revenge was all I
needed to make me perfectly happy, and when I walked in to supper that
first night in Damascus I was in that condition. We lay on those divans
a long time, after supper, smoking narghilies and long-stemmed chibouks,
and talking about the dreadful ride of the day, and I knew then what I
had sometimes known before--that it is worth while to get tired out,
because one so enjoys resting afterward.
In the morning we sent for donkeys. It is worthy of note that we had to
send for these things. I said Damascus was an old fossil, and she is.
Any where else we would have been assailed by a clamorous army of donkey-
drivers, guides, peddlers and beggars--but in Damascus they so hate the
very sight of a foreign Christian that they want no intercourse whatever
with him; only a year or two ago, his person was not always safe in
Damascus streets. It is the most fanatical Mohammedan purgatory out of
Arabia. Where you see one green turban of a Hadji elsewhere (the honored
sign that my lord has made the pilgrimage to Mecca,) I think you will see
a dozen in Damascus. The Damascenes are the ugliest, wickedest looking
villains we have seen. All the veiled women we had seen yet, nearly,
left their eyes exposed, but numbers of these in Damascus completely hid
the face under a close-drawn black veil that made the woman look like a
mummy. If ever we caught an eye exposed it was quickly hidden from our
contaminating Christian vision; the beggars actually passed us by without
demanding bucksheesh; the merchants in the bazaars did not hold up their
goods and cry out eagerly, "Hey, John!" or "Look this, Howajji!" On the
contrary, they only scowled at us and said never a word.
The narrow streets swarmed like a hive with men and women in strange
Oriental costumes, and our small donkeys knocked them right and left as
we plowed through them, urged on by the merciless donkey-boys. These
persecutors run after the animals, shouting and goading them for hours
together; they keep the donkey in a gallop always, yet never get tired
themselves or fall behind. The donkeys fell down and spilt us over their
heads occasionally, but there was nothing for it but to mount and hurry
on again. We were banged against sharp corners, loaded porters, camels,
and citizens generally; and we were so taken up with looking out for
collisions and casualties that we had no chance to look about us at all.
We rode half through the city and through the famous "street which is
called Straight" without seeing any thing, hardly. Our bones were nearly
knocked out of joint, we were wild with excitement, and our sides ached
with the jolting we had suffered. I do not like riding in the Damascus
street-cars.
We were on our way to the reputed houses of Judas and Ananias. About
eighteen or nineteen hundred years ago, Saul, a native of Tarsus, was
particularly bitter against the new sect called Christians, and he left
Jerusalem and started across the country on a furious crusade against
them. He went forth "breathing threatenings and slaughter against the
disciples of the Lord."
"And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there
shined round about him a light from heaven:
"And he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, 'Saul,
Saul, why persecutest thou me?'
"And when he knew that it was Jesus that spoke to him he trembled,
and was astonished, and said, 'Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?'"
He was told to arise and go into the ancient city and one would tell him
what to do. In the meantime his soldiers stood speechless and awe-
stricken, for they heard the mysterious voice but saw no man. Saul rose
up and found that that fierce supernatural light had destroyed his sight,
and he was blind, so "they led him by the hand and brought him to
Damascus." He was converted.
Paul lay three days, blind, in the house of Judas, and during that time
he neither ate nor drank.
There came a voice to a citizen of Damascus, named Ananias, saying,
"Arise, and go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire at
the house of Judas, for one called Saul, of Tarsus; for behold, he
prayeth."
Ananias did not wish to go at first, for he had heard of Saul before, and
he had his doubts about that style of a "chosen vessel" to preach the
gospel of peace. However, in obedience to orders, he went into the
"street called Straight" (how he found his way into it, and after he did,
how he ever found his way out of it again, are mysteries only to be
accounted for by the fact that he was acting under Divine inspiration.)
He found Paul and restored him, and ordained him a preacher; and from
this old house we had hunted up in the street which is miscalled
Straight, he had started out on that bold missionary career which he
prosecuted till his death. It was not the house of the disciple who sold
the Master for thirty pieces of silver. I make this explanation in
justice to Judas, who was a far different sort of man from the person
just referred to. A very different style of man, and lived in a very
good house. It is a pity we do not know more about him.
I have given, in the above paragraphs, some more information for people
who will not read Bible history until they are defrauded into it by some
such method as this. I hope that no friend of progress and education
will obstruct or interfere with my peculiar mission.
The street called Straight is straighter than a corkscrew, but not as
straight as a rainbow. St. Luke is careful not to commit himself; he
does not say it is the street which is straight, but the "street which is
called Straight." It is a fine piece of irony; it is the only facetious
remark in the Bible, I believe. We traversed the street called Straight
a good way, and then turned off and called at the reputed house of
Ananias. There is small question that a part of the original house is
there still; it is an old room twelve or fifteen feet under ground, and
its masonry is evidently ancient. If Ananias did not live there in St.
Paul's time, somebody else did, which is just as well. I took a drink
out of Ananias' well, and singularly enough, the water was just as fresh
as if the well had been dug yesterday.
We went out toward the north end of the city to see the place where the
disciples let Paul down over the Damascus wall at dead of night--for he
preached Christ so fearlessly in Damascus that the people sought to kill
him, just as they would to-day for the same offense, and he had to escape
and flee to Jerusalem.
Then we called at the tomb of Mahomet's children and at a tomb which
purported to be that of St. George who killed the dragon, and so on out
to the hollow place under a rock where Paul hid during his flight till
his pursuers gave him up; and to the mausoleum of the five thousand
Christians who were massacred in Damascus in 1861 by the Turks. They say
those narrow streets ran blood for several days, and that men, women and
children were butchered indiscriminately and left to rot by hundreds all
through the Christian quarter; they say, further, that the stench was
dreadful. All the Christians who could get away fled from the city, and
the Mohammedans would not defile their hands by burying the "infidel
dogs." The thirst for blood extended to the high lands of Hermon and
Anti-Lebanon, and in a short time twenty-five thousand more Christians
were massacred and their possessions laid waste. How they hate a
Christian in Damascus!--and pretty much all over Turkeydom as well. And
how they will pay for it when Russia turns her guns upon them again!
It is soothing to the heart to abuse England and France for interposing
to save the Ottoman Empire from the destruction it has so richly deserved
for a thousand years. It hurts my vanity to see these pagans refuse to
eat of food that has been cooked for us; or to eat from a dish we have
eaten from; or to drink from a goatskin which we have polluted with our
Christian lips, except by filtering the water through a rag which they
put over the mouth of it or through a sponge! I never disliked a
Chinaman as I do these degraded Turks and Arabs, and when Russia is ready
to war with them again, I hope England and France will not find it good
breeding or good judgment to interfere.
In Damascus they think there are no such rivers in all the world as their
little Abana and Pharpar. The Damascenes have always thought that way.
In 2 Kings, chapter v., Naaman boasts extravagantly about them. That was
three thousand years ago. He says: "Are not Abana and Pharpar rivers of
Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them
and be clean?" But some of my readers have forgotten who Naaman was,
long ago. Naaman was the commander of the Syrian armies. He was the
favorite of the king and lived in great state. "He was a mighty man of
valor, but he was a leper." Strangely enough, the house they point out
to you now as his, has been turned into a leper hospital, and the inmates
expose their horrid deformities and hold up their hands and beg for
bucksheesh when a stranger enters.
One can not appreciate the horror of this disease until he looks upon it
in all its ghastliness, in Naaman's ancient dwelling in Damascus. Bones
all twisted out of shape, great knots protruding from face and body,
joints decaying and dropping away--horrible! _