rimfuVimYfES!!? LISRA"v 3 9002 06551 5430 vHI DAMA& 1111 ¦ ¦m^iyirfl:f Women.— Hospitality.— The Bedouin Woman and the Lamb .—A Bedouin Baby .—Simple Food of the Bedouin . Dress. — Weapons. — Riches in Flocks and Herds. — Camels.— The Sleib Arabs.— ' Ghuzus.'— Blood Feuds — Contempt for Agriculture.— Great Extent of Country through which they wander.— Their Objection to encamp near Babylon - - 220 Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER XX. A RIDE ALONG THE SEA-SHORE. PAGE Beyrout. — View of the Town. — The British Syrian Train ing Institution. — Seller of Water Jars. — Beyrout Sea shore. — Early Start for Sidon and Tyre. — Palm Trees. — Flowers. — Crossing the Damur. — Neby Yunas. — The 'Great Fish.' — Sidon. — Ancient Tear Bottles. — Lamps. Orchards. — Sarepta . — Alexander's Causeway. — Tyre. — Door-key. — Ruins.- — Fishermen. — Tyrian Dye. — Ancient Pools of Ras-il-Ain. — Mount Hermon. — Tomb of Hiram. — English School at Tyre. — Hasbeya. — British Syrian School. — View from Hermon - 236 CHAPTER XXI. RACES AND RELIGIONS. Arabic the Language of the Country. — Mohammedan Sects. Sunnites— Metfiwileh.— The Nusairiya. — The Rev. Mr. Lyde. — The Bedouin Arabs. — The Druze. — The Chris tians. — The Greek Church. — Greek Catholics. — Maron- ites. — Priests and Monks wishing to become Protestants. — The Hauran Priest. — The Probationer. — Difficulties of Missionary Work among the Maronites, Jacobites, and Armenians. — The Jews. — Protestants and their Missions 256 CHAPTER XXII. SUNDAY IN DAMASCUS. Early Services in Eastern Churches.— Sunday Market. — Native Protestant Service. — English Service. — Sunday Schools - - - . - 293 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. CHAPTER I. DAMASCUS. ' The head of Syria is Damascus.'* Standing on a projecting spur of Gebal Salah-iya, a branch of anti-Lebanon, and looking down on the great plain below, we see spread out before us, en circled by woods and orchards, one of the most ancient cities in the world, Damascus— a well-known town in the time of Abraham ;-f- and, according to Josephus, built by Uz,j grandson of Shem. Yet at the present day, as we stand and gaze at the white city with its minarets and towers nestling in the midst of a bed of green — a pearl set in emeralds, as it has [often been called — with the hills of Bashan, and the waste solitary desert stretching far away into the distance beyond, we- see no decayed ruined city, but a town teeming with population, numbermg, with all its suburbs, probably 180,000 souls, trading still with many foreign lands, Egypt, Turkey in Europe, Persia, and India, while it is the centre of the world to the * Isa. vii. 8. t Gen. xv. 2. % Gen. x. 22, 23. 1 2 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. innumerable villages which lie thickly scattered about in the mass of orchards which stretch far away around the capital of Syria. Erom the height on which we stand, we can dis tinctly see the outline of the city, and some of its most conspicuous buildings. The principal part of the city hes directly before us, while the suburb of the Meedan stretches in a long narrow line towards the south-west. The shape of the city is peculiar, and has been compared to a spoon, the Meedan being the handle ; or to a tadpole, the same suburb being the tail. The principal buildings that we can dis tinguish are the Great Mosque, with its three tall minarets ; the Greek Church, a building large and massive, like a warehouse, but with no tower or steeple to indicate its use ; the old minaret at the east end of the town, marking the beginning of Street Straight, and the dark ruined walls of the citadel, built in 1219. The view, especially when the strong sunlight is softened by the approach of sunset, is one of the most beautiful in the whole land ; and we never stand on this hill without calling to mind Mahomet's ex clamation as he stood nearly on the same spot : that as there is but one paradise for man, his should not be on earth; and therefore he would not enter Damascus. I am afraid had he entered it, his delight would have, to a great degree, vanished. ' All is not gold that glitters.' Damascus, as well as Naples, also called an earthly paradise, are both lovely beyond expression when seen from a distance ; but unhappily the delusion is DAMASCUS. 3 soon scattered when you walk along the narrow, dirty, ill-paved streets, and breathe the polluted air of many a lane. But we must not follow Mahomet's example, and turn our back on Esh Sham— the name by which the natives know Damascus — but, just waiting to notice the Kubbet el Arbaln, or grave of forty Moslem saints high up on the steep hill above us, we ride down from our elevated post of observation through the village of Salahiya, containing some thousands of inhabitants, glancing as we pass at the dwellings of the Kurds, a wild, bigoted race, who may chance to throw a few stones at us Franji Christian dogs, as we ride along. At the foot of the village, a little to the right, are myrtle groves,* which the Damascenes delight to visit in the winter, when the berries are ripe and fit for eating ; but which are not really half so pretty as some spots on the Lebanon, where quantities of myrtle grow wild. I must not forget to mention that the people of Salahiya cultivate flowers ; and, during the summer months, men may be seen going about with trays of pretty plants on their heads, trying to sell them in the city: only I am sorry to say it needs some caution in purchasing them, for the people know quite well how to dispose of plants, minus roots. As soon as we leave the village, we find ourselves in a broad road with many fine houses on each side ; one of which was the dwelling-place of Midhat Pasha, when he was Governor-General of Syria. Over the door of one of the best of the houses, we notice a very ugly charm, hanging up to * Isa. xii. 19 ; Zech. i. 8. 1—2 4 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. preserve it from the evil eye. We soon reach a part of the road prettily shaded by rows of poplar-trees ; and on our right hand we notice a large building, erected by Ibrahim Pasha, of Egypt, about forty years -ago as barracks; but it is now used as a military hospital, and we see some of the poor fellows looking out of the windows as we pass. This is the only hospital the town possesses ; and many a poor sufferer languishes in his miserable home, in sore need of good nursing, good food, and good doctoring. Turning a little to the right, we soon reach the river Barada, or Abana,* just as it enters the city ; and, crossing the little bridge, we pass the diligence- office, under the management of a French company, just as the horn of the diligence is heard, and the people crowd around the gate to see who has arrived from Beyrout. We hasten through the people — remembering how the arrival of the stage-coach in some quiet parts of our own land is still hailed with delight as the one great excitement of the day — and soon reach an open space with a fountain in the centre, and several large build ings around it. The first is a prison for debt and minor offences ; and we notice some of the poor manacled prisoners sweeping the space in front of their melancholy abode. We have several prisons in Damascus, but they are all, without exception, miserable places ; and the poor wretches who are confined in them are badly fed, while they soon become the prey of the worst vermin. A prisoner who has no friends to bring him food from * 2 Kings v. 12. DAMASCUS. 5 time to time soon finds himself in a sorry plight. Op posite the prison is the post and telegraph office. Though the city is such a large one, there is but one postman and an assistant. Poor Ismaeel has plenty to do ; and though he rides through the town on a clever little white donkey, he and his man frequently cannot succeed in delivering all the letters on the day they arrive ; and I am afraid the good man sometimes waits till he has two or three letters to deliver at the same house before he brings them. He charges half a piastre, or one penny, for each letter he leaves at a house. Between the prison and the post-office stand the Seraglia buildings, the three thus forming three sides of a square. On the ground-floor of the Seraglia are also prisons, where people are confined for a short time, corresponding, in some measure, to our Houses of Detention. Over these prisons is the official resi dence of the Wali, or Governor-General of Syria, where he transacts business. It is tolerably com-' fortable, but cannot boast any splendour, either of architecture or decoration. In the same building are also held the meetings of most of the Miglis, or town councils. If we were to take a little turning, leading to a street behind the post-office, we should come to a fairly good hotel, to which all European travellers resort ; but our road leads straight on, and then we pass the gate of the old citadel, where Turkish soldiers mount guard. Within is the prison where the worst prisoners are kept, such as murderers ; it is called the Prison of Blood. Almost opposite the old 6 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. citadel is the Military Seraglia and the barracks, with a large open square in front, in which the soldiers are drawn up on parade-days. Then, turning to the' left, we ride through the strange Eastern Bazaars, crowded with people in all kinds of costumes ; rich Damascenes and poor Fella heen, Persians and Bedouins, women moving about like very substantial ghosts, wrapt up in white izzars or sheets, which envelop them from head to foot, everyone busily engaged in buying or selling. As we ride along, it is difficult to avoid treading on the street-dogs which abound in every quarter ; poor, miserable, quarrelsome creatures, such as the greatest lover of dogs could never admire, much less pet. The picture of two or three of these half-starved dogs fighting over a dirty bone, or tearing the flesh from a dead animal, thrown just outside the city walls to rot, is one of the most repulsive anyone can imagine. At night they lie down and sleep in rows in the middle of the streets ; and when any casual passer-by disturbs them, they raise a howling* which would wake the heaviest sleeper. Each horde has a special district of its own; and should a single dog wander away by chance from his fellows, and invade the street of his neighbours, he will have the whole of the wild pack upon him, and will have a hard run to escape their clutches. The children are constantly pelting them with large stones ; and when you try to check them, they answer, ' Oh, it is only a dog !' Strange to say, the dogs seldom, if ever, turn upon their persecutors; and hydrophobia is almost unknown. When we see what * Psa. lix. 6—14. DAMASCUS. 7 low, miserable, dirty creatures these street-dogs are, it .adds tenfold bitterness to the insult sometimes heaped upon us by Moslems, when they call us, 'Dogs of Christians.' Yet even to these wretched dogs every dweller in Damascus owes a debt of gratitude ; for they are almost the only scavengers of the streets, into which each house empties its refuse daily. A dust-cart is an unknown luxury ; and did not these poor despised creatures feast on the heaps of rubbish to be found at each street-corner, the sanitary state of the town would be far worse even than it is. Occa sionally the Government is seized with a fit of reform, and sends out men to sweep the streets ; but, un happily, it never perseveres in such good deeds. As a rule, httle attention is paid to the state of the town by the ruling powers, except, perhaps, when a new Wali has just entered on his office, and wishes to make the circuit of the city. Then men will be sent round, knocking at every door, and bidding the people clear away any rubbish that may be lying before their houses, because the Governor is coming, and the way must be ' prepared before him.'* Fortunately for the ¦cleanliness of the town, a change is not unfrequently made in the Government. If we continue our ride through the Bazaars, pass ing along Street Straight, we shall reach the Jewish and Christian quarters. The former can boast few public buildings of importance, except the synagogues, and even they possess no great beauty. In the Christian quarter are two Greek churches, as well .as many other churches belonging to the different * Matt. iii. 3. 8 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. Eastern sects, such as Syrian, Armenian, etc. The Lazarists, also, have large buildings, with a chapel, schools, laundry and dispensary upon the establish ment and support of which large sums must have been expended. Then we have the church and schools of the Irish Presbyterian Mission, which for many years has been carrying on a good work in conjunction with the American Presbyterians ; while the English are repre sented by the British Syrian Schools, with a large schoolhouse at a little distance from Bab Shirkie, or the Eastern Gate, in which a number of children belonging to the Greek Church, with about sixty Jewesses, are daily taught to read the Scriptures in their own language. The same society has also a school for Moslem girls, a third for boys and girls in the district of the Meedan, a night and blind school, and a staff of Bible- women to visit among the grown people. This society would gladly extend its opera tions into other parts of this benighted city, and into- the still more benighted villages around, were it more liberally supported by friends at home. Into whatever part of the town we penetrate, we look in vain for broad, open streets, with rows of good substantial houses. Without exception, the streets- are narrow, and the exterior of most of the houses unpleasing, to say the least. The exclamation of most new-comers is, 'What a collection of hovels!' The walls are of a drab colour; there seem to be no- windows on the ground-floor, and the roofs are flat, so we can expect little outside beauty ; but if we knock at the door of one of these gloomy-looking, prison-like DAMASCUS. 11 abodes, and seek admittance, we shall be astonished as soon as the door is opened and we have reached the end of a little passage : then we shall find our selves in a spacious quadrangle, with lemon-trees and perhaps vines and flowers in the centre. Upon this court, which is paved with marble or some other stone, all the windows and doors open. The large houses have several courts and many fountains, indeed one house is said to contain three hundred rooms ; but though some, both of the Moslems and Jews, can boast grand and almost palatial residences, there is in ah a sad want of what we Enghsh consider comfort. On entering a room in a Damascus house, we notice one peculiarity, and that is what is called the ' atabeh,' a strip of the floor on a level with the door-step from three to five feet wide; the rest of the floor of the room is raised about a foot and a half higher. In large houses this atabeh is paved with black and white marble, and has recesses, or niches, at each end, in which are often kept the nargilehs (water-pipes for smoking), or the lamps. All the natives drop their shoes and ' kubkabs,' or wooden sandals, on the atabeh before stepping up on the mat which covers all the rest of the room ; and we poor Europeans are some times taken to task by well-conducted natives for our wasteful habit of treading on our mats with boots, which of course wear and soil them more quickly than the feet. My husband always removes his boots, or else remains in the atabeh, when he enters a native house ; but happily for me, the native women know our custom, and generally beg me not to trouble myself, though occasionally I have had to do so in 12 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. Moslem houses, and to walk in my stockings over cold marble floors. The furniture of a native house, free from European innovations, is simply a raised divan round the three sides of a room, generally low along the two sides and high at the end, the place to which honoured guests are always invited. The divan is covered with silk or cloth, or a bright-coloured chintz with a strip of white calico, edged with lace or crochet, laid on it to keep it clean. The back is formed of hard stiff cushions ; but directly a guest enters he is entreated to rest on the divan, and little soft pillows are placed at his side on which to rest his elbow. One or two Persian carpets are spread on the floor over the mat, or more if the people are wealthy. At one end of the atabeh generally stands the large wedding-box of Damascus- work, walnut-wood inlaid with mother-of-pearl, in which the mistress of the house brought her trous seau on the day of her marriage, and in which she now keeps most of her own and her children's clothes. In many houses the sitting-room is also used for a sleeping-room, but most of the larger ones have upper rooms which are used for that purpose. The beds are spread on the floor, and rolled up and hidden behind a curtain in the day-time. But in many of the houses we now see a few European chairs arranged along the atabeh, and perhaps a little table and some showy gilt mirrors, hung so high on the walls that it is impossible for the tallest man to get a glimpse of his face in them. Bedsteads also are being gradually introduced ; and occasionally a stove may be seen in the winter, instead of the pan of charcoal which is generally used DAMASCUS. 13 to warm a room. We hardly ever see a bookcase in a native house, and we miss the pictures and flower- vases, and various knick-knacks, and cosy armchairs, and little tables, which give a home-feeling to our Enghsh sitting-rooms. Of course in a city like Damascus we have many kinds of houses — that is, we have large, middle-sized, and small houses, to suit the different ranks of society ; but all are built on the same plan, a number of rooms opening upon a central court, and with no doors or passages connecting one room with another : an arrange ment pleasant enough in summer-time, but not so comfortable in winter, when we must leave the warm fireside, or rather stove-side, and go out into the open air, even when the ground is covered with snow, every time that we have to go from one room to another. The houses of the poor are very miserable, each room perhaps inhabited by a whole family, and some are filthy in the extreme. One of the poorest quarters in the Christian part of the town is the Hananiya, the district which surrounds the supposed site of the house of Ananias.* It is not necessary to describe many of the scenes of poverty and sickness and misery which are daily seen by those who visit among the poor in Damascus. Unhappily they are easily equalled in our own country; but with this difference, that in England constant efforts are being made of all kinds to minister to the sick, to help the poor, and to reclaim the fallen, while in Damascus we have no workhouses, no hospitals, and no reformatories. * Acts ix. 10. 14 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. The care of public order is in the hands of the Zabtiehs, or armed police, who have stations in many parts of the city ; and are so miserably paid that I am afraid a very small bribe often induces them to let evil-doers escape, while sometimes they purposely arrest an innocent man that they may get a bribe to let him free. A few years ago, Midhat Pasha established a superior order of policemen, who are required to dress in a pretty uniform, and were promised good pay. They were expected to bring the town into much better order in many respects, and did so for a time ; but unfortunately the promised pay was not forthcoming, and the poor men now have the greatest difficulty in securing even a small part of their wages. Disputes about land or property of any kind, quarrels between neighbours, questions of marriage and divorce, offences against the law — such as murder or theft — are brought before the several Mijlisses to which they belong, and of which there are about half a dozen ; namely, the police court, the criminal, the commercial, the town council, and court of appeal, etc. Of course I cannot presume to criticize the govern ment ; probably in theory it is good, but it is often said that false witnesses can be hired for a small sum, while bribery guides the hand of justice only too often. A good man from a distant town came once to Damascus on some simple law business which might have been settled very shortly ; but the poor fellow had to wait, and wait, and wait, till he was fairly tired out, and his purse completely emptied. He had to give bribe after bribe to get a hearing ; his funds DAMASCUS. . 15 were exhausted, and yet he wished very much to see a certain official, but the soldier on guard refused him admittance. He told us, ' I did not know what to do. At last I bethought myself that I had a little tobacco left, so I rolled up a cigarette, and offered it to the man. He told me directly, '' Wait till I reach the end of the passage, and when my back is turned slip in."' Still, considering the lack of efficient government, life and property are as a rule safe in Damascus ; but when any theft or violence is committed, it is not easy to get justice done, as we know to our cost. A favourite mare was once stolen from our stable, and though my husband, by taking the matter into his own hands, recovered her, the thief, a well-known bad character, was not arrested for three months, though proved by papers, of which we gained posses sion, to be undoubtedly guilty of the deed. In going in and out among the people, we often hear sad com plaints of the difficulty of obtaining even-handed justice, and of the heavy taxes which weigh them down to the very ground. At night the city presents a gloomy aspect. The Bazaars are dimly lighted with small oil-lamps few and far between, and the rest of the town is left in almost entire darkness; but no one, under pain of being arrested, is allowed to go out after dark with out carrying a lantern, The rich have a large lamp, something like a London street-lamp, carried before them, which is generally ornamented with pieces of coloured glass, and lighted with two candles or with paraffine oil. The poorer carry small hand-lanterns, 16 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. or not unfrequently a Chinese lantern, which is very convenient, as it can be folded up and put into the pocket. The city has several large gates, such as Bab (or gate) us-Salam, Bab Tooma, Bab-ul-Hadeed, and last, not least, Bab Shirkie, or the Eastern Gate, which at present has no particular grandeur, as only one of the side archways is used ; but in old times it was formed of a large archway in the centre, now blocked up, and a smaller one on each side. It was evidently an imposing entrance to the Street Straight, which no doubt was bnce the grand thoroughfare or ' Corso ' of Damascus, lined throughout its entire length with imposing rows of lofty pillars. Each little section of the town is provided with very large wooden doors, which divide the town into quarters, and are kept by watchmen, most of whom are very poor, and some old and blind. The latter make good door-keepers, and are wonderfully clever at discover ing who goes in and out. They lie down on the ground close to the gate, wrapt in their big cloak, or abai ; and when they hear the cry, ' Iftah ya Haris !' (' Open, 0 watchman !') they rise and do so, expecting to receive a farthing or halfpenny for their trouble. Though there are no pubhc clocks in Damascus, they generally find out the time very accurately, and we frequently employ one of these blind watchmen to awaken us, when any one of our household has to rise about 2.30 a.m., to be ready in time for the diligence to Beyrout. At night* we are sometimes disturbed by the sound * Matt. xxv. 6. DISTANT VIEW OP DAMASCUS. DAMASCUS. 19 of a marriage procession passing along the street, with lighted torches, and singing and talking, on its way to the church, or to the bridegroom's house; while by day we hear occasionally a low, sad chant, and, looking out of one of our upper windows, see in the road below a funeral passing on its way to the Tell or Hillock — a rude cemetery outside the town. If it is a Christian's funeral, we shall see walking in front, among a crowd of men, five or six black-robed priests, carrying banners and a large cross, and singing a monotonous chant as they go. Then comes the coffin, borne on men's shoulders, generally without a lid, so that the face and form of the deceased is exposed to view. The coffin is seldom black, but often violet or pink, with white bands. The women, wrapt in their white izzars, follow behind. There is little order, and still less solemnity, in the whole procession. Funerals, of course, take place very soon after death, always within twelve, sometimes within two hours;* and many are carried past the tomb of St. George, a man who is said by tradition to have helped St. Paul to make his escape from Damascus. His grave is very near the part or the old wall where it is thought the great Apostle was let down in a basket.-f- The people have little idea of controlling their grief, and always give vent to their feelings in loud cries and lamentations, which can be heard at some distance ; and it is very sad to hear the sudden wail break forth from a house where death has just taken place. In some parts of the country, women are still * Acts v. 5, 6, 10. t Acts ix. 25. 2—2 20 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. hired to mourn as a mark of respect to the deceased.* In Damascus, if a rich man dies, the court of his house, which should be kept spotlessly clean, is strewn with ashes of charcoal ; the divans in the chief sitting- room are covered with black ; the coffee-cups, used in serving visitors with coffee, are replaced by black ones, and the guest, after drinking it, and making the customary salaam, must say, not ' Daimie,' ' May it be always so,' as usual, but, 'May God remove sorrow from you,' or something to that effect. I should add that great numbers of friends and relations sometimes assemble at a funeral, and they must all be feasted and entertained. The poor widow dresses herself in black, or brown, and goes for some days with her hair dishevelled, and hanging down under her black mandeel ; and all the family abstain from visiting for many months. I cannot say much for the native graveyards in Syria. They are almost always unen closed and uncared for. The Moslem women certainly often adorn the graves with myrtle, or palm-branches, on Thursday evenings ; but the different Christian sects pay little heed to the state of their cemeteries. In riding about Lebanon, and in many other parts of the country, we often notice ancient stone-coffins lying by the side of the roads ; but, at the present day, even a slight wooden coffin is not always used. The Moslems carry the body to the tomb in an open bier,f and lay it in a carefully prepared grave — some times in a bed of sweet spices ; and in some of the Christian villages, and even among the poor of Damascus, the same custom prevails. * Jer. ix. 17, 18 ; 2 Chron. xxxv. 25. f Lute vii. 14, 15. CHAPTER II. THE MOHAMMEDAN QUARTER. The Mohammedan quarter of Damascus is so large, and so varied, that it is difficult to know where to begin when we attempt to describe it. There are large districts of poor houses, many of them damp and unhealthy; and, on the other hand, there are splendid dwellings, inhabited by Emirs and Pashas. In one respect, the Moslem is a great contrast to the Jewish quarter. The latter is always alive and noisy; plenty of people, men, women, and children, are always moving about, and talking ; but you may pass along many streets of private houses in the Moslem quarter, and scarcely see a creature, or hear a sound, for the Mohammedans greatly dislike noise. The men are away all day at their shops, and the women, except the very poor, are seldom allowed to leave their houses : occasionally they go to the bath, or pay some special visit to their friends. Many of the streets in the Moslem quarter are very narrow; and the upper stories of the houses frequently pro ject, and almost touch those on the opposite side; while the windows, if there are any, are carefully latticed, so that if any poor woman tries to get a peep at the street below, she will not be seen. 22 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. It is sad work to go from house to house among the Moslems. The poor are often very poor, and ignorant, and bigoted ; and the rich proud, and idle, and suspicious of Christians, and yet on the whole pleased to receive visits from European ladies, as such an event is a little break in the monotony of their lives. At one house we are always sure of finding a hearty welcome : and that is in the harem of a Pasha of European reputation. His principal house stands in a quiet part of the city ; and most of the neighbour ing houses belong to him and his dependents. Our chief acquaintance is the eldest wife of the prince himself, a dear old lady of about sixty. In the summer she will receive us in an upper room, nicely furnished, with a window looking out on a large garden, through which flows the Barada — the ancient Abana ; but in the winter, in a small room on the ground-floor. Her house is always carefully kept; and she has a fine state-room, which is not very often used — she seems to prefer resting on the low divan in her own little sitting-room. One of her daughters- in-law, and her children, are generally with her ; but none of the other and younger wives are admitted into her house ; and when we, one day, asked to be introduced to them, she led us to a door opening into the next house ; but declined to accompany us her self. It is very sad to see the pain of her position, set aside in one sense for younger women, though still consulted and esteemed by the prince as a friend. Her daughter-in-law is a fine-looking woman — once a great beauty. And I remember hearing her relate THE MOHAMMEDAN QUARTER. 23 one day how, when she was recovering from an illness, her sister came to visit her, and began to talk about the marriage that was to be celebrated that evening, and she asked, 'Whose marriage?' 'Why, your husband's !' was the reply. Till then she had been his only wife ; and she said, what a blow the news was to her at the time ! and, indeed, it still seemed a grief to her ; but, as she expressed it, ' It is our fate ; we cannot help it ;' and one comfort, she added, was, that as the new wife was of inferior rank, he did not bring her home ; but kept her in a house a few doors distant. This prince, the head of this house, is an estimable man for a Mohammedan ; and yet such is the tale of his home — probably, a far happier one than most Moslem homes. He is very careful about his wives, and strict with them ; even the old lady cannot venture into the next house to see a sick grandchild without wrapping herself up so completely in a dark izzar, that she could not possibly be known ; and she is never allowed to pay any visits. Occa sionally the women of his household go to the bath, or drive out in the summer-time to a country house that he has about four miles from the city. He has, I believe, a strong sense of the proper modesty and humility that a woman should show; and is not always gratified at the freedom with which European travellers (ladies) question him when they have an opportunity. Such ladies he will only honour with a very distant salaam. Some writers are induced in the present day to look with a favourable eye on Mohammedanism, or at least strive to paint it in the fairest colours they can. 24 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. I only wish such gentlemen could be admitted to the best-conducted hareem, and listen to the ordinary conversation of the women. We often are painfully reminded of the saying, 'Can anyone touch pitch and not be defiled ?' Some of the women are very ready to own the pain of their degradation, and to wish they had the peace and happiness of Christian marriage, often saying, ' Oh, how we wish we were like you, married once, married always, and not subject to being dismissed for the slightest offence !' It is a rehef to turn the conversation, when possible, from the sins and delinquencies of husbands to affairs of household management, or even of dress, and then gradually and cautiously to lead to higher and holier subjects. The very arrangement of a Moslem house, professedly to protect women, shows the impurity of thought and mind that makes such arrangements necessary. When we knock at the door of a Moslem house, it is always opened most carefully, with inquiries as to who we are. Then we are admitted into a small outer court; and if there are any gentlemen in our party, they are shown into a little room close to the door, where the men of the house receive their guests, but the ladies are shown into the inner court, or hareem ; and even in the hareems the veils are kept ready at hand, and I have seen a Moslem lady hastily veil herself because her brother-in-law came in. They will gladly show us over their house, and some of the houses are really very fine, but, to European ideas, very comfortless in their arrangements. They may even take us to the roof. In all the Moslem quarter we shall find the roofs protected, not by pretty painted THE MOHAMMEDAN QUARTER. 25 balustrades, as in the Christian quarter, but by high mud walls, the purpose being, not only the praise worthy one of preventing accidents* but to protect their women from observation ; and nothing provokes the anger of Mohammedans more than to see people walking on the roof, and peeping over these walls, either on to their neighbour's rooff or the court below. Anyone guilty of such an act may be sum moned before the police. In fact, in one part of the town, the Meedan, the feeling of jealousy and suspicion is so strong, that the roofs can hardly be used at all, which is a great privation in an Eastern land; but before recommending the alteration of any of these customs, we must try to purify the minds of the people by the introduction of Christian teaching. When the fountain becomes pure, the streams will be pure also. It is not easy to write about the occupation of Moslem women. The rich keep Nubian slaves to do the chief part of their household work ; but the ladies generally superintend the cooking and keep a certain watch over the servants, but beyond this I fear they have very little occupation worthy of the name. A few of the rich work a pretty kind of silk embroidery, or do crochet, and some of the poor do certain kinds of work for the merchants, for which they receive very poor pay indeed. A Moslem woman who knows any thing of plain needlework is a great rarity ; but all, with hardly an exception, put out their clothes to be made by Christian dressmakers; and when war or cholera breaks out and carries off many of the hus bands and fathers, the poor wives and daughters are * Deut. xxii. 8. t 2 Sam. xi. 2. 26 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. left in a terribly destitute state, having no resources to fall back upon, no means of earning an honest livelihood, Though the Koran owns that women have souls, they are not admitted to the mosques, and only a few repeat the appointed prayers at home, and they are pointed out as pious women. Many wives, I fear, suffer harsh treatment from their husbands, and wife- beaters can plead the sanction of the Koran, which says, ' Virtuous women are obedient ; but chide those for whose refractoriness ye have cause to fear, and scourge them;' and many a poor wife has to bear rough treatment, as the cries from Moslem houses often testify. If you inquire, 'What can be the matter in that house ?' you are told, ' Oh, it is only a man beating his wife.' On one occasion, an American gentleman writes, that when living for a time near a Mohammedan house, he heard one day bitter cries proceeding from his neighbour's dwelling, and the sound of blows. He longed to interfere ; but of course it was impossible for him to try and enter a Moslem hareem, and gradually the cries ceased ; but, to his horror, next day a funeral was seen issuing from the house. The poor wife had fallen a victim to her husband's cruelty. In truth, we can hardly draw too dark a picture of the general state of domestic life among Mohammedans ; but schools expressly for Moslem girls have been opened in Beyrout and Damascus, and in many other parts of the land Moslem children may be found in Christian schools. Enghsh ladies and native Bible-women are labouring among them, though far fewer in number than they THE MOHAMMEDAN QUARTER. 27 ought to be, and one great result has been that the condition of the women is gradually improving. As far as we can learn, no Moslem girl taught in one of the Christian schools in Beyrout has ever been divorced, nor been subjected to the annoyance of having a second wife brought home to the hareem. Moslem husbands have thanked the teachers for the gentle, patient wives they have provided for them. Not long ago the native inspector of the British Syrian Schools was accosted, in the streets of Beyrout, by a Moslem, who asked, 'Are you not the husband of Sitt Fumia ?' (the head teacher of the school for Moslem girls). He replied, ' Yes, I am.' ' Then,' said the Moslem gentleman, 'do ask your wife to visit mine ;'. adding that she had been one of Fumia's pupils, and that he was anxious that she should continue to exercise an influence over her. He proceeded to ex plain that his own temper was naturally so bad, that for a long time he had delayed seeking a wife, thinking it would be no possible use to marry, as he felt sure he should quarrel with any woman in a very short time, and divorce her; but he said that his wife was so gentle and sweet, and well-behaved, that though they had been married for some time, they had not quar relled, and that he really thought she was improving his temper. He was naturally anxious that this state of things should continue, and therefore wished the teacher to visit his wife from time to time. One of the first lessons the teacher has to impart to a Moslem child is not to curse or swear, for bad words flow from the hps of rich and poor alike, as water •does from a fountain. I have frequently had Moslem 28 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. ladies to visit me, and even their exclamations of delight at pictures or curiosities from England have been words which I should be very sorry to write down, while their words of anger or vexation it is needless to describe. But, with all this impurity of life and language, the Mohammedans, both men and women, are careful to avoid outward defilement. Some, while talking civilly to a Christian, will most carefully avoid touching his hand when making the salaam, lest they should have to spend seventy years in purgatory to wash out the contamination ; others, of a bigoted sect, will not refuse to give water to a thirsty traveller though he be a Christian, but if he touches the jar with his lips, they will break it as soon as he passes on. All our Mohammedan visitors will carefully draw their long robes around them and look nervously anxious if our little pet dog should by chance enter the room where they are, and show any signs of wishing to give them a welcome. They will, of course, observe most exactly all the appointed hours of prayer, and whether jour neying on the road or working on board ship, or paying a visit, or labouring in the fields, they will immediately cease their occupations, and spreading their prayer-carpet, if at home, or their cloak, if abroad, on the ground, will fall on their knees and go through all the outward form of worship ; but while their lips are repeating the prescribed formulary, their thoughts are too often full of business, and, like the Irishman who repeated his Ave Marias and Pater Nosters from the top of a tree, that he might watch, and if need be, scold, his labourers as he proceeded, so THE MOHAMMEDAN QUARTER. 29 do they not unfrequently interrupt the course of their prayers to desire their servants to do such and such things. The prayers, of course, are preceded, when practi cable, by the washing of hands and- feet, ears and mouth : and certainly the cool shady mosque, with its fountain of running water in the centre of the court and all the conveniences for the prescribed bathing, presents a very attractive place of worship during the hot months of an Eastern summer. The Koran, too, though in its English dress one of the dreariest of compositions, seems in its original Arabic to possess a strange fascination for the Mohammedan. He loves the accurate precision and the beauty and cadence of its language, and no doubt finds that its teaching has little to -offend and much to please the lower or simply animal part of man's nature. It falls in, too, in a special way with the peculiar bent of the Arabian mind. Whatever be the cause, we must confess that it is no uncommon sight to see a Moslem intently studying the Koran while sitting in his shop waiting for customers. In their homes the Moslems treat the Koran with the greatest outward respect, keeping it generally in an ornamented case, which they hang on the wall of their best room : they dare not touch it if they are aware of having incurred any defilement, and do not allow a dog of a Christian to purchase it if they can avoid it ; in fact, on its cover is inscribed these words : ' The hands of the unclean (or uncircumcised) shall not touch it.' They hate the idea of a trans lation being made of their holy book into any profane language, and indeed declare that the true Koran can 30 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. be expressed only in Arabic. I fear most of the Moslems are better acquainted with it than many Christians are with the Bible. Blind Moslems and others have learned the whole of the book by heart, so that it is a common boast that if all the copies in the world were destroyed, they could immediately reproduce it, word for word, from the lips of those who have committed it to memory. These blind Mohammedans are employed to march in procession before funerals from the house of the deceased to the mosque, and thence to the graveyard, reciting portions of the Koran, and are also employed by the relatives to visit the graves at certain times to repeat passages, believing that they will comfort the soul of the de parted, which is supposed to hover at certain times about his last resting-place. Sometimes they are sum moned to the bedside of a sick person in the hope that the words of the Koran repeated over him may pro mote his recovery. Blind men are also frequently admitted to the hareems to teach the women the Koran, an office which no man having sight would be permitted to hold. Not unfrequently, too, a blind man may be seen at the head of a boys' school, teach ing the lads to repeat, the Koran. And yet this book, which is so much studied, is full of foohsh legends. Ishmael is purposely put in the place of Isaac, and he is said to have been offered up by Abraham : Mary, the mother of our Lord, is confused with Mary the sister of Moses, and most of the Scripture stories inter woven in the Koran are thus perverted ; and when we remonstrate, they assure us that our version of the Bible is an incorrect one. Yet the minds of many of THE MOHAMMEDAN QUARTER. 31 the Moslems are full of the most absurd legends, such as that the men before the flood could walk in the sea, catch the fish with their hands, and hold them up to the sun and roast them, and many such tales. The Ulema, or sacred teachers, dress in long robes and white turbans, and have a great influence over the people, but like most other rehgions, that of Mohammed is split up into a great number of sects, differing in doctrine and practice, and often hating and despising one another. It has often been said that Christianity, while it is so split up into rival churches and sects, will never make much head against the unity of the Mohammedans ; but a httle peep behind the scenes soon reveals the existence of the Sunnites, the Shi-ites, the Sufites, and the She- daliya, and many more, and prove that the vaunted unity is all a fallacy. Some are so bigoted that they will hardly look at a Christian, while some are very friendly. Some, and their number is not a small one, have studied the Bible carefully, and embraced many of its most sacred doctrines. Most Mohammedans have a terrible fear of bells, thinking that they call together evil spirits. On one occasion some Moslems had come to our house about business, which, with great difficulty, had nearly been brought to the conclusion that we wished ; but it was suddenly brought to a standstill by the inopportune sounding of our school-bell. They instantly gathered up their papers, and with all haste took their leave, and the whole affair fell to the ground ; and yet they were not poor ignorant men, but men of some stand- 32 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. ing. Mohammedans, it need hardly be said, are very careful not to destroy life. It matters not how many kittens a cat has, not one must be drowned, but all reared, or rather, I am afraid, sometimes left to starve. Provision is, however, made for cats : an old mosque has been turned into an asylum, or, as it is called, a school for cats, and anyone who has more cats than he needs, can send the superfluous ones thither. Some pious Moslems, thinking to perform a very meritorious act, feed the poor, half-starved street dogs, unclean animals though they be, every Friday. I cannot say if the following is the production of a Moslem or Christian pen, but I am afraid the former must most likely have the credit : ' Praise to Him who feeds the worms, In the silent vale ! Provides their portion every day, Protects them in the dangerous way. No doubt they praise Him too, and pray, In the silent vale !' Would the Mohammedans cared as much, when in flamed by religious zeal, for the life of a Christian as for a poor httle worm ! The Moslems' sacred day is Friday, and on that day thousands assemble for worship and preaching in the Great Mosque, which is said to contain 30,000 people. It stands near the centre of the city, and covers a large space of ground. It is supposed to be very ancient ; probably it was first a heathen temple, then it was converted into the Christian Church of St. John, and now it is one of the most famous of mosques of the Mohammedans. If we go up a little staircase from the Booksellers' Bazaar, and climb over THE GREAT MOSQUE, DAMASCUS. THE MOHAMMEDAN QUARTER. 35 the roof of some of the houses, we shall get a good view of a ruined archway, one of the finest and most ancient of the Roman remains in Damascus ; and we shall be able to see for ourselves the well-known Greek inscription, written in very large characters, on the mosque itself : ' Thy kingdom, 0 Christ, is an everlasting kingdom; and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations;' being an adaptation of the words in Psalm cxlv. 13. The mosque has three graceful minarets, from the summits of which a fine view of the city and surrounding country and hills can be obtained. One of the minarets is called the Minaret of the Bride ; and a second that of Jesus ; and the Moslems believe that Christ will descend upon this minaret when He comes to judge the world, The third minaret is simply called the Western Minaret. Great crowds often assemble in this mosque, but no Christian is on any account allowed to be present during prayer-time. At other times, on pay ment of a considerable fee, strangers may gain per mission to inspect the building. It is about 143 yards long, and 41 \ yards wide, and passages from the Koran are inscribed on the walls. The two principal objects of interest are the tomb of John the Baptist, said to contain his head, in the interior of the mosque ; and, in an outside court, the tomb of the famous Saladin. The Mohammedans believe in seven great prophets, the greatest of whom is Mohammed, While they only give to Christ the second place, they confess that He is greater than the other prophets, but yet say that He is inferior to Mohammed, As the Jews are still 3—2 36 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. looking for their Messiah, so the Mohammedans are, especially at this time, looking for a Muhdi or guide, who shall reduce all the conflicting religions of the world into one religion of peace and harmony ; and many believe that Christ Himself will be that Muhdi. As I have said before, no Christian is allowed, as a rule, to be present at a service in a mosque, but I must make one exception. It is not difficult for Europeans to obtain permission to enter a little mosque, just beyond the barracks, at the hour when the dancing dervishes go through their strange per formances. .This service is quite different from that of the howling dervishes in Egypt ; a wild, fanatic, foolish ceremony which few people care to see twice. That held in Damascus is a quiet and solemn, though at the same time strange and almost absurd, service. It is conducted with all due decorum. The dervishes wear long robes and drab felt hats of a conical shape. The part of the mosque reserved for them is floored with wood and enclosed with a low balustrade, outside which spectators are allowed to stand. At the appointed time, an old sheikh takes his place, not in a pulpit, but on a sacred rug— sacred because it is said to have belonged to a near relative of the Prophet. At his side stands a younger sheikh, who acts as his assistant, or curate. The dervishes, generally about forty or fifty in number, arrange themselves in rows, kneeling on the ground, resting on their heels, with head bent down, apparently in silent prayer or meditation. A low soft music, some times sweet, sometimes very discordant, is played at intervals, and prayers repeated. Then the dervishes THE MOHAMMEDAN QUARTER. 37, rise to their feet, remove their cloth robes, and let down a long under garment like a petticoat, which has been girded up round their waists, and begin to whirl round, at first quietly, with arms folded on their breasts, and then more and more rapidly, with first one and then both arms extended. The quick motion dilates the petticoats, and reminds one of the nursery days when, as children, we delighted in making ' cheeses.' Though the space is small, they move with great regularity, and never jostle one another ; the younger sheikh moves quietly among them, guiding and directing them. At last, exhausted, they are compelled to cease, and while they are resting, the music is played again. This performance is repeated several times, and I should mention, that as they march round the enclosure, each dervish, as he passes the sacred rug, bows at each end of it, and carefully abstains from turning his back on it by suddenly twisting himself round. Before the conclusion of the service, the younger sheikh repeats a prayer resembling the bidding prayer used before the Cambridge University sermon, begin ning, ' We. pray for his Highness the Sultan, for his excellency the Wali, for the different Pashas,' etc., etc. Then, before leaving the mosque, the old sheikh rises to his feet, and the first dervish approaches him and kisses his hand, the sheikh saluting him on his cheek; the dervish then takes his place at his side, and the second does the same, and the third, and so on till all are arranged round the enclosure, with this difference only, that the second dervish has not only to kiss the old sheikh, but the first dervish, so 38 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. that the last dervish has to kiss all his companions. After bestowing and receiving this mark of brotherly charity, they all leave the mosque and return to their various occupations. They are supposed to be de scendants of the Prophet; some have wild-looking, desperate countenances, while others are mild and gentle in appearance. We have often employed one of them in making mats for our rooms, and have always found him obliging. Of course all Dervishes are looked upon by Mohammedans as specially holy men, a distinction which, strange to say, they share with madmen, whose ravings are listened to with great reverence. The chief fast of the Mohammedans is that of Ramadan, which lasts thirty days. No eating or drinking is allowed from sunrise to sunset; and therefore many of the rich literally turn day into night, and night into day, spending most of the day in sleep, and the night in feasting. But this fast is a terrible ordeal to the poor, who must work, and yet must not let a drop of water pass their lips till the sun goes down below the horizon. We have often been stopped by lads, asking us eagerly, 'How long still V The sound of the sunset-gun is indeed wel come to all Mohammedans at this time. A very hght meal is ready for them the moment the gun is fired, to be followed by a substantial one a little later, a very wise arrangement, avoiding the danger of taking too heavy food immediately after a long fast. I cannot say that the effect of this fast is a very- salutary one on the people ; probably more quarrels and fights occur while they are thus suffering from THE MOHAMMEDAN QUARTER. 39 the pangs of hunger and thirst, than at any other season of the year. Two great days among the Moslems of Damascus are the one when the pilgrims start for Mecca, and the other when they return: Jews, Moslems, and Christians all turn out on these occasions, and the streets are literally thronged with people hurrying on to try and find a place where they may get a peep at the procession. Every window commanding a view is secured ; and many go out into the fields outside the city to wait there till it passes. I cannot say it' is a very imposing or even orderly procession ; and it is received by the crowds in silence. Even on the re turn of the Hajj, after all their fatigues and dangers are over, the Damascenes never think of welcoming them with a shout after the manner of Western nations. The chief object on which all eyes are fixed is the mahmel, or sacred canopy, which is carried on the back of a richly caparisoned camel, and contains, I believe, though probably no infidel eyes have ever seen the interior, the sacred carpet, a copy of the Koran, the green flag of the Prophet, and the presents from the Sultan to the shrine at Mecca. Behind the mahmel rides the Pasha of the pilgrims in a kind of palanquin ; and he is surrounded by a number of men, said to be the direct descendants of the Prophet. The most revolting part of the procession is a group of half-mad dervishes, or holy men, naked to the waist, riding on camels, and with long tangled hair hanging about their shoulders. Then a long motley array of pilgrims, men and women, some on camels, some on mules, or donkeys : the women generally ride 40 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. in a rough kind of tatrawan, or covered litter, fixed on a camel's back, each litter carrying two or more people. Every Moslem ought once in his life to make the pilgrimage to Mecca ; but if it is not convenient for a man to go, he sometimes sends a deputy. Thus many men have been several times ; and, with religion, they often contrive to unite a little business, and bring back all kinds of things from Mecca, some looked upon as sacred, because they come from then- holy city, others as simply curious or valuable, because they have been brought for sale by pilgrims from India or Persia. The Damascus pilgrims, if they join the procession, and go all the way by land, are generally absent about four months ; but a great number now go by sea, and thus save time and fatigue. Our friends among the Moslems often bring us little presents when they return from pilgrimage — a few fine dates, a little sacred incense, a few beads, or case of kohl. The two great feasts of the Moslems are the lesser Bairam at the conclusion of Ramadan, and the greater Bairam which is observed in all Mohammedan countries on the day when the pilgrims sacrifice sheep on their arrival at Mecca. CHAPTER III. THE JEWISH QUARTER. The Jews in Damascus number about 5,000 or 6,000, and they hve in a district of the town lying to the south of the street once called the Street Straight.* There are few ancient remains in their quarter, though we read that from the time of Ahab the children of Israel -j- had possessions in the city ; and at the present day, I am sorry to say, the Jewish part of the town is the dirtiest of all, and if we pay a visit to some of our Jewish friends, we shall have to pick our way through heaps of decaying vegetables and all kinds of rubbish, the odour of which is not very inviting or health- giving. At the entrance of the Jewish quarter stands the ' Kishleh ' or Turkish Barracks, and by the way we might visit the Bible shop in connection with the Society for the Promotion of Christianity among the Jews. As we pass along and draw near to some of the richer houses we pass a butcher's shop, where we shall probably see a number of men sitting on httle stools, and busily engaged over the meat, and we shall be told that they are pulling out the sinews.I On entering the Jewish houses, we may at first be struck * Acts ix. 11. t * Kings xx. 34. % Gen. xxxii. 32. 42 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. with the proud, haughty bearing of many of their owners, which nothing but quiet, persistent kindness can melt. They and their forefathers have been dwelling there for centuries, a little distinct colony surrounded by bigoted Mohammedans on the one hand, and Christians belonging to Oriental churches, whom they look upon as little short of idolaters, on the other, and they naturally enough endeavour to hold their own. They dress like the rest of the Damascenes, with only some slight differences, and they ah speak Arabic. They may be called native Syrian Jews, and in this respect are quite unlike the Jews of Jerusalem, who have come from many different countries, wear all kinds of costumes, and speak all sorts of languages. On entering the house of one of the rich bankers, we shall be surprised to find ourselves in a fine court paved with polished stone or marble of two colours arranged in a pattern, a large fountain in the middle, and the reception-rooms arranged at the upper end: the walls* and ceiling of the principal room are much ornamented. They are furnished grandly according to their owner's taste, with partly Eastern, partly Western furniture. There are many rooms, upper and lower, and in some of the bedrooms there are fine French bedsteads, with pretty mosquito nets and very handsome cover lets and cushions, sometimes of silk, but no wash- stands are visible. If we visit this quarter on a feast- day, or on their Sabbath, we shall find the women gaily dressed ; all, even young girls, painted and with * Jer. xxii. 14. COURTYARD OF A HOUSE IN THE JEWISH QUARTER. THE JEWISH QUARTER. 45 high head-dresses adorned with flowers or jewels; many of them standing at the doors or looking out at the windows* and gossiping in a way which seems strange in a Mohammedan country. A girl who does not wish to conform to such practices is mocked and laughed at, and asked if she has no money to spend on paints and perfumes, or if she means to become a nun. We notice that all the married women wear wigs, for the day they are married they have to hide all then- own hah-, though it may be beautiful and abundant. I believe I may say that none of the Jewish men are engaged in tilling the ground. They seem to despise agriculture. The rich men are all money changers or bankers, and lend money out at very high rates of interest. They fear to break the Sabbath by lighting a lamp or kindling a fire or plucking a rose, but they turn a deaf ear to all the holy words against usury ;-f- and not unfrequently we hear that such and such a village belongs to a Jew, that is, he has lent money to the poor villagers, already laden heavily with taxes, at such a rate of interest, that at last the whole village has passed into his hands because they have been unable to repay it. Those who are not bankers have httle shops, and are capital hands at driving good bargains. The poorer people go out and trade with the villages, walking often long distances with heavy packages of calico, etc., on their backs, and return laden with rags or old bones, and two or three fowls and a basket of J 2 Kings ix. 30 ; Ezek. xxiii. 40. t Ex. xxil 25 ; Lev. xxv. 35 — 37. 46 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. eggs, which they sell in the town. They go often on these little journeys in fear and trembling, lest they should be robbed in the lonely roads and their httle hoards taken from them. Certainly they are all wonderfully clever and ingenious in finding ways and means of turning a penny. The greater number, I fear, of the rich Jewish ladies spend foolish, aimless lives ; they think much of dress and pleasure and mere physical enjoyment. They keep many servants, and spend much of their own time in smoking in one another's houses, or in visiting the public gardens and places of amusement. Nearly all the singing women in Damascus are Jewesses, and it is not looked upon as a very reputable profession. Some of the ladies, however, are quiet and sensible, and look well to the ways of their household, but nearly all allow their children great license. Many of the poorer women and children earn money by making a kind of native embroidery called ' gharabaneh.' They are clever, too, at making cakes and preserving dif ferent lands of fruits. The Jews in Damascus are very careful in the out ward observance of their religion. Before sunset on Friday,* all shops are closed, the food prepared, and the lamps and fires lighted, and work of every kind laid aside till sunset on Saturday ; but the greater part of the day is spent in sleeping, wandering about from house to house, and idle gossip. The men, indeed, attend the services in the syna gogues, and some of the married women gather round the door and windows to try and get a sight of the roll * Mark xv. 42 ; Luke xxiii. 54. THE JEWISH QUARTER. 47 of the law. They know nothing of Hebrew, and tak& no part in the service. Many of the rich men have private synagogues in their houses, but even into these women and girls are not allowed to enter at service-time. They tell you that the men do the pray ing for them. Some of the houses look out on the gardens with which the city is surrounded, but otherwise there is- nothing outwardly attractive in this quarter. Some of the rich Jews have country houses, at a village on the banks of the Barada (Abana), about four miles from Damascus. Among these people there is much to interest, and much to sadden. All around you hear the sound of Scripture names, Yacoub, Mousa, Estair, Rufka, or Rebecca ; but few, I fear, are striving to walk in the footsteps of the saints of old. Idolatry* they now abhor, but they make a golden image and worship Mammon. They are very dihgent in the outward observance of all their great feasts and fasts. For many weeks before the celebration of the greatest of all their feasts, the Passover, both men and women are busily occupied in preparation. Everyone must have at least one new suit of clothes ; and the richer women and girls like to have a fresh dress for each of the seven days that the feast lasts. The best of the wheat is always reserved for the Passover-cakes, which is carefully protected from defilement of any kind ; and should a mouse be seen to run over it, all is spoilt: no washing can make it fit to be used for these holy cakes. Shortly before the appointed time * Kom. ii. 22. 48 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. for the feast, it is ground and handed over to the women to be made into large round unleavened cakes, about the thickness of Scotch oat-cake. The houses are carefully cleansed from top to bottom, that not a particle * of leaven may by any chance be found in them. Those who can afford it, buy fresh chintz, or at least fresh white covers, for their divans. If any member of the family has been absent, they try to return home, to keep their feast with their parents. The minds of all, rich and poor, young and old, are directed to all these preparations for at least a month before the actual celebration; but the thoughts of the most educated and devout Jews naturally rise no higher than their dehverance out of Egypt ; while, I fear, the great mass of the uneducated, as well as the women and children, know little even of the Old Testament story, unless they have learned it in the English school. At last, when the evening comes, each family assembles ; the mother and daughters may be present, but do not gather round the Passover-board. Like all other meals, it is served on a round tray placed on a scamla, or a low stool, while the father and sons sit round it on the floor, or on low divans. The family must number four, and if the father has not so many sons, he will summon a servant, or a neighbour who has no family of his own, to sit down with him. The father acts as priest, and he and his sons recite the appointed passages from Holy Scripture, first in Hebrew, then in Arabic. The service is a long one, and, at four different points during its progress, * Ex. xii. 15. THE JEWISH QUARTER. 49 a glass of wine is drunk; but on the occasion on which we were present, only a joint of lamb was placed on the tray, a portion of which, strange to say in contradiction to their own law, was offered to us.* They acknowledge sorrowfully that they cannot now offer sacrifice, as their temple has been destroyed. The feast lasts for a week ; the women sit at home dressed in their festive garments, smoking and chatter ing, and receivmg visitors. The men go from house to house, wishing all their friends a happy feast. They carefully abstain from work of all kinds, specially ob serving the first and seventh days. The Feast of Pentecost,-f- at the end of wheat harvest, is more quietly observed, generally speaking ; and when we have called to wish our Jewish friends a pleasant feast, we have generally found the houses full of sleeping men, and only the women moving about. The latter explain that the men have been sitting up all night, reading a large portion of the law, as they beheve that on that day the law was delivered on Mount Sinai, or, as the women some times express it, they 'have been getting their re ligion;' and we have often longed to see the day when a new hght shall shine on the old law, and the true meaning dawn upon their darkened minds. The Feast of Tabernacles ^ takes place in the autumn, after the vintage and five days after the great Fast of the Day of Atonement. In the court of every house, a tent, or booth of branches, is erected, and it is a time of great rejoicing, of much boisterous mirth. * Ex. xii. 43. f Lev. xxiii. 15—21 ; Acts ii. 1. J Lev. xxiii. 40 ; Ezra viii. 15. 4 50 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. All these feasts, as observed in Damascus, have almost, if not entirely, lost their deep religious meaning. The men can no longer go up to the Holy Temple at Jerusalem to offer praise and sacrifice to God, but spend the time in their own dwellings, too often in rioting and drunkenness, rejoicing, but not before God. The Feast of Purim, or 'casting of lots,'* is also still observed, and the whole Jewish quarter re-echoes all the day with the sound of firing of guns and pistols. You ask what it means, and are told, ' Oh, we are shooting Haman.' f The httle children, too, must have their share in the delight of killing the enemy of their race, and fire off plenty of squibs and little explosive toys. The Jews have many schools for their boys, and have lately started a boys' boarding-school ; but they have done nothing for their girls, who would have remained in utter ignorance if they had not been ad mitted into the Protestant or Roman Catholic schools, which have been now established for some years. Strange to say, the peculiar cast of features known as the Jewish type, the dark hair and long curved nose, is almost unknown in Damascus. Many of the httle Jewish girls in our schools are pretty children, with fair complexions, light hair, and blue eyes. We have sometimes tried to discover if any traces of the ancient tribes remain among them, but they can only tell us that such and such families belong to the tribe of Levi; and the heads of these families still exercise some of the Levitical functions — for instance, a firstborn son is taken to one of these * Esther ix-. 26. t Esther vii. 10. THE JEWISH QUARTER. 51 Levites, and placed in his arms, and he only returns the babe to the parent on receivmg the redemption money. The Khakhams, or Rabbis, still exercise some influence among the people, and are generally obeyed when they put forth some more stringent rules than ordinary about the Sabbath : perhaps forbidding the Jews to go out for walks to the villages on that day, as they are fond of doing, and ordering them to remain in their own quarter ; or raising a protest against excess in smoking or drinking. They are often summoned by the Jews themselves to account for the delay in the coming of their long-looked for Messiah ; and some have declared that they are beginning to lose faith in their teachers, as they have so often told them that at such or such a time He would surely come, and their words have proved vain. Some have declared that they are beginning to think that possibly, after all, the Christians' Messiah may be the true one. 4—2 CHAPTER IV. THE CHRISTIAN QUARTER. The Christians in Damascus number about 20,000; but they are divided into many sects, and little love is lost between the members of the different churches : but in one thing all Damascenes, be they Christians, Jews, or Mohammedans, are united, and that is in admiration and pride of their city — in their eyes no other town can compare with it. We also notice about all Damascenes, perhaps especially among the Christians, a certain degree of refinement; indeed, we have sometimes compared them to the French. They have a habit of making pretty speeches to each other, and of bandying com pliments ; which would seem natural to a Parisian, but which is difficult for English people to appreciate. It is no slight task for a foreigner, or even for a native of a different part of the country, to learn all the proper salutations and their appropriate replies ; and yet, if we wish to ingratiate ourselves with the people, we must make the effort. In mountain villages the people lead an out-door life : and as we pass along, the women at the cottage doors will beg us to come in, and one can easily THE CHRISTIAN QUARTER. 53 go about from house to house ; but Damascus being a Mohammedan city, every door is closed, and we must have some acquaintance with the family before we venture to knock ; and when we do knock, the door will not be opened at once ; the servant will call out ' Man hatha ?' ' Who is this ?' and perhaps peep through a httle latticed hole above the door to see. Many of the Christians' houses are nicely kept, with some of the comforts of European life, glass windows and white muslin curtains, and a chest of drawers or a wardrobe which is now beginning to take the place of the less convenient marriage-box ; and in some houses tables and chairs are beginning to be used, and meals are served on special occasions, and, in a few houses, always, on tables. European cooking, however, is not likely soon to make way among them. They prefer their own dishes, which, though more troublesome in preparation, they consider far more savoury — such as ' kibby,' or meat pounded for a long time in a large mortar, with a heavy pestle, and then mixed with crushed wheat and snowbar, the seeds of the pine. It is then spread out in a large copper dish, made on purpose, and covered with native butter and baked in an oven. This is the most favourite dish of all. Almost an equal favourite is the ' koosa,' or vegetable marrow, which is scooped out, and then filled with finely minced meat, and rice, and boiled in sour leben, that is, curdled milk. Tomatos are prepared in much the same way. Vegetables, such as spinach, asparagus, mallow* and nettles, and the roots of a certain kind of thistle, they seldom cook alone, but always mix a little minced meat with them. * Job xxx. 4. 54 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. A young kid is one of the spring delicacies, and is cooked in a variety of ways, sometimes simply stuffed and roasted, or boiled ; and sometimes ' seethed in its mother's milk,'* that is, boiled in sour goat's milk, or leben, with onions and spices ; but, dressed in this way, it is not considered very wholesome. Beef and pork are never eaten,-}- even by the Christians, in Damascus ; and few will touch hare. They are fond of fowls, or httle birds ; but they are always killed with a knife,} never by strangling. During Lent some of the people eat fried frogs. Their supply of puddings is very scanty. With wheat-starch and milk, and a flavouring of rose-water, they prepare a dish like a corn-flour pudding ; only, instead of putting it into a mould, they pour it into the largest meat-dishes they can find, if they need it for any special occasion, and sprinkle almonds and pistachio nuts over the top. This, and rice milk eaten cold, and one or two kinds of very rich native pastry, form the only varieties which they can make for the second course of a native feast. For such a feast, when served in true Syrian fashion, the cloth will be spread on the floor, and a scamla, or stool, placed in the middle. On this scamla rests a circular tray, on which all the dishes are placed, with a plate of rice between each dish. All sit on the ground cross-legged. The meal will be eaten quickly, and almost in silence, except that the host must urge his guests to eat ; and, with his own hands, occasionally take a titbit§ of meat or fowl, and hand it to one of his chief guests. After the first * Ex. xxiii. 19. + Deut. xiv. 7, 8. X Lev. vii. 26 ; Acts xv. 20. § John xiii. 26. THE CHRISTIAN QUARTER. 55 course, the guests will frequently rise, and the servants will pour water over their hands,* for, of course, they have not used knives and forks, and then they will return for the puddings and fruit. Soon after the meal is concluded, little cups of black coffee are handed round. Many of the Christians in Damascus keep one or more servants ; and for a feast, such as we have de scribed, more help would be got in ; but still, most of the Christian women are always busy with their domestic affairs. As a rule, the father, or one of the sons, will fetch the daily food from the 'sook,' or street of shops, that is, just the meat, and fresh vegetables. Every good housewife will have a well- stocked storeroom, which will supply most of her daily needs. She will have corn for bread, oil for cooking, ohves, raisins and figs, burghul or crushed wheat, and rice, coffee, and sugar, etc. Wheat is generally kept in a high, narrow, wooden box, reach ing almost to the ceiling, with a small opening near the bottom, closed with a little sliding-door. When Imm Selim, or Imm Habeeb, the mistress of the house, discovers that her supply of flour is exhausted, she draws out a certain quantity of wheat from this opening, and piles it up in the middle of her court in a heap. Then she, or her servant, will sit down, and carefully sift it with a large sieve,-f- which she knows how to manage very dexterously ; and thus she con trives to get rid of all the small stones and dust which may have been brought with it from the threshing-floor. She goes over the wheat again and * 2 Kings iii. 11. t Amos ix. 9 ; Luke xxii. 31. 56 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. again, picking out any grains of corn, or wild grass, that may be mixed with the pure wheat. When it is all sifted, she washes it in the fountain by putting a little at the time in a basket, which she dips several times in the water ; and then it is all carried up to the roof of the house, and spread out to dry in the sun. This will take three or four days ; and, when it is perfectly dry, one of the men of the family will take it in a sack to the water-mill to be ground, and of course he will watch the process that he may not lose by the transaction. I hardly know what we should do without our house-tops in a great city like Damascus, where we have no httle gardens around our houses, and only small inconvenient kitchens. All the washing must be done at home, and dried on the house-top ; different kinds of vegetables are prepared for winter use, and must be dried on the house-top ;* our mats and carpets need airing and beating, and that must be done on the house-top. When we want a httle exercise, we shall find purer air and fewer smells on the house-top than in the narrow, dirty streets below ; and when every one is busy, and the house full of noise and bustle, and we want to be quiet.f we can go alone to the house-top. In Damascus, vines are sometimes trained on trelhs-work over one corner of the roof to form a pleasant shade. The stone staircase} leading to the roof is generally from the central court in city houses; but in mountain villages it is often on the outside walls of the houses. In villages it is not at all un common to hear some proclamation made from a * Joshua ii. 6. f Acts x. 9 ; Zeph. i. 5. J Matt. xxiv. 17. THE CHRISTIAN QUARTER. 57 house-top ; perhaps a man has lost his horse or his donkey, and he sends the public crier to announce the fact from the highest roof in the village, in the hopes that it will be restored to him ; and perhaps the governor has some order to give,* or news to com municate, and he will take the same means. During the hot seasons, in large cities, the house-tops become very lively about sunset, when mothers and children, young men and maidens, go up in the cool of the evening to enjoy a little fresh air. Most of the house tops are surrounded by a wooden balustrade ;f but some houses are left without this most necessary pre caution, and occasionally serious accidents take place in consequence ; sometimes children, playing about carelessly on the roof, lose their balance, and fall into the court below, and are killed, or badly injured. But we must leave our favourite house-top, and join Imm Habeeb in the room below. It is her youngest son Michael's feast-day ; and many people will be coming to wish him, ' Every year may you be in health.' In all probability it is not his real birthday ; for most hkely neither he nor his mother know precisely if he was born in January or February ; but it is the feast-day of his patron saint, whose name he bears. Most of the elderly people have little idea of their exact age ; but Michael was a wee baby of a few months old when the terrible massacre of 1860 took place, and his father was murdered. His poor mother remembers only too well with what difficulty she hid him from the men who had just slain her husband before her eyes, and would have slain her * Matt. x. 27 ; Luke xii. 3. f Deut- sxii- 8- 58 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. baby too if they had found him, and discovered that he was a boy. He reckons his age from that fearful time. Younger lads will tell you they were born one or two years before the visitation* of cholera in 1865 ; and the age of still younger children is reckoned from that of 1875, or from the Russian and Turkish War. The people soon began to arrive, for this is a great feast-day, and all the shops belonging to members of the Greek Church are closed, and all work stopped, and the people dressed in their best. I fear many who think lightly of God's appointed day of rest will on no account neglect the strict observance of the saints' days, though, as they are so very numerous, we are tempted sometimes to call them Feasts of Idle ness. We find Michael busy receiving his visitors, and his mother and his brother's young wife moving about busily waiting upon them, preparing the nargilehs, and when they have lighted them, placing them before both men and women, who take a few whiffs and then politely hand the long tube to their next neighbour. As the people must call on every one of their acquaint ance named Michael, they are not expected to pay very long visits on this occasion : and Imm Habeeb will soon come in with her pretty tray of sweets. At each end of this tray there is a high glass dish or sugar-basin, one of which is filled with Turkish Dehght, and the other with one of the many preserves for which Damascus is famed. In the middle of the tray is a glass of water, and in front a little glass dish * Amos i. 1 ; Zech. xiv. 5. THE CHRISTIAN QUARTER. 59 with forks and spoons and a plate of sugar-plums. Each visitor helps himself to a spoonful of one of the preserves ; but before he eats it, turns to Michael and wishes him 'Peace and happiness,' which Michael acknowledges by placing his hand on his heart and then on his forehead, and rephes, 'May you be in health.' As he is a young unmarried man, you may hear occasionally the wish expressed, ' Please God this year we shall have joy of you ;' that is, hear of your wedding. There may be lady visitors as well as men, but we notice the men are invited to take the best seats, and helped to nargilehs and sweets before the ladies. After sweets comes the inevitable coffee. As Imm Habeeb belongs to a well-known family, the stream of visitors will probably continue ah day ; but I am sorry to say that if we try to discover what they all know about St. Michael or any of the Bible saints, we shall find it amounts to very little. They often accuse us of neglecting and despising the saints, and are surprised when we assure them that we reverence them and wish to walk in their footsteps, though we are not required to waste one or two days a week in idleness in their honour. While we are watching the proceedings, the post man, riding on a httle white donkey, comes to the door of the court and hands in a letter. He, poor man, with one assistant, has to dehver all the letters throughout the whole city. We see that the letter causes great joy ; but when we inquire for whom it is, we find to our surprise that it is addressed to a baby a month old, the son of Michael's sister-in-law. Imm 60 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. Habeeb explains that it is from her eldest son, who has been travelling on business for many weeks ; and that as it is a shame for a man to address a letter to his wife, he has sent it to his little son. The young wife, however, is delighted to get news of her husband, who, after a long absence, has at last reached Jerusalem, and now writes that he hopes shortly to return home. She looks with redoubled pride at her child in his cradle, whom his father has not yet seen. As she tells the news to the visitors, we notice that she speaks of her husband as ' say-yidy,' ' my lord,'* a word which is still frequently used in the present day. On our way home we look in at the Greek Church, a large new building, but which cannot boast of much archi tectural beauty; still it is spacious and lofty. The lower part is reserved for men ; the women are hidden away in a screened gallery, and in the streets we notice that a man and his wife never walk side by side ; the man goes on first, and the woman, closely veiled, follows at a little distance. No woman can venture out in Damascus without wrapping herself in an izzar, or white sheet, which covers her completely from head to foot, her face being concealed by a coloured muslin handkerchief or mandeel. Women never think it necessary to take daily open air exercise as we do in England, and it is not thought nice of a woman to let herself be seen going in and out fre quently .-f- Still, in spite of these restrictions, there is a good deal of happy family life among the better educated Christian families in Damascus, and gradually we hope the women will become more and more the * 1 Peter iii. 6. f Titus ii. 5. WOMAN WEARING THE IZZAK. THE CHRISTIAN QUARTER. 63 help-meets and less simply the servants of their husbands; but these restrictions cannot be safely removed till the thoughts and feelings of the people in general are purified by the spread of true Christianity among them. Few things are more painful than to see a Syrian lady, in her wish to become like a European, begin to assert herself in her manner towards her husband. She always contrives to shoot beyond her mark, and while trying to secure greater attention to herself, begins to dictate and rule and forget the due submission of a wife to a husband.* A henpecked Syrian husband is a strange and un pleasant sight, and yet I fear there are such cases. Imm Habeeb's young daughter-in-law we noticed was very gaily dressed on Michael's feast-day ; for all Damascene ladies are fond of bright colours and new dresses, and some are extravagant in their dress, and vex their husbands. We must remember that bright colours suit a bright climate, and also suit their dark complexions, and we must hope that as their minds are better taught they will learn to set less value on mere outward adornment.-f- Married women wear flowers in their hair on any special occasion, and often surprise us by the quantity and value of the jewels they display; but again we must remember that men seldom put money in a savings bank, but invest nearly all their savings in jewels for their wives, which cannot be touched. A man may fall greatly into debt, but his wife's jewels are in her own keeping. The proportion of women who do not marry is very small in the East ; but in great cities there is always * Eph. v. 22. t 1 peter iii. 3. 64 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. found a certain number of unmarried women. These are either supported by their relatives, or have to seek some means of earning their own livelihood. Many poor women, of course, are left widows with children to support, and therefore most parents like their daughters to learn a trade of some kind while they are young, that they may have some resource in time of need. A certain number, though a small one, find employment as teachers in the different Pro testant, Greek, and Catholic schools, which have been opened for girls during the last twenty or thirty years ; but, of course, no women are employed to serve in shops, or in any of the public offices, as in England, and it is not easy for women to find any lucrative employment. The very poor go out as servants, washerwomen or charwomen ; and those who can do nothing else, or have only a little leisure, wind silk for the silk-weavers. Some women are very clever at braiding men's jackets, such as are worn by the kawasses, or official servants of the consuls or bankers. They are generally made of red or blue cloth, and are covered with an elaborate pattern worked in gold or black braid, and can only be made by women who have been taught how to work them. Others are employed in making the soldiers' clothes, and numbers get employment from the tailors, who give them work to do at their own homes, not at the shops; but perhaps the most lucrative trade for women at present is dressmaking, which is almost entirely in the hands of the Christian women. They find plenty to do for the Jewish and Moslem ladies, THE CHRISTIAN QUARTER. 65 who seldom make their own clothes. Many of the young girls earn a few pence by working long strips of crochet-edging for trimming the white covers of the divans, or by embroidering with chenille the grey stuff boots which are much worn in the summer. The men, of course, are employed in many different businesses and professions ; they go into the city every morning, and return home at sunset. Some have shops of various kinds; some are weavers, and some pedlars ; a few are doctors or chemists ; and a certain number are writers at the Seraglio, where Christians are often preferred. Some are tax-gatherers, by no means a safe employment for an honest, upright man. The taxes are still in a certain sense farmed, and though the people groan under the taxation, the Government remains poor, because in the process of collecting, the moneys melt away in some mysterious fashion, Others are barbers, and their business is not only to cut hair and shave their customers, but, when need be, to bleed them or extract their teeth. CHAPTER V. THE BAZAARS. As several of our friends have given us commissions to execute for them in the Bazaars, we must, I am afraid, devote the greater part of a day to making our purchases, and it will be well to begin early. Directly after breakfast we will have our donkeys saddled, and with our faithful attendant Faris, to do the bargaining for us, we will start. We have taken care to ascertam that it is no feast-day of any of the Christian sects, and therefore all the shops will be open : neither is it Friday, the Mohammedan's sacred day, when crowds come into the town to attend service at the Great Mosque, and after that is over they busy themselves with making all their purchases for the week. On Fridays the Bazaars are so full of people that we should hardly get along : it would be like driving our two donkeys through the crowds of Cheapside, with this difference, that we have no sideways ; and though it is true wheeled vehicles are still rarities in Damascus, yet heavily laden animals are not; and men and women, loaded camels and mules, people riding on lively horses and quiet, patient donkeys, must push their way along together through the narrow streets. THE BAZAARS. 67 As it is, we shall find plenty of people in the Bazaars, and our servant will have to walk before us, shouting lustily from time to time to warn the people to get out of our way. ' Daharak f to a man, ' Daharik T to a woman ('Your back!') he will cry; or 'Wejhak, wejhik •' (' Your face f) The women, in their white izzars, will be angry if my donkey rubs its nose against them ; and that proud Moslem will be highly offended if by chance we knock against him. Little children will be playing about, and dogs will be lying asleep in spite of all the bustle, and we shall have to keep our own eyes well open to avoid accidents. We pass first through part of Street Straight,* which runs from Bab Shirkie, the Eastern Gate, through a great part of the city. The main line of this street, and of this street alone, is still straight, though buildings of all shapes and sizes have been erected along it, some projecting more than others. so that it is a very irregular-looking street. Some remains of ancient pillars have been found in it, and part of the Eastern Gate is very old, but most of the present houses and shops are modern buildings. The first part of the street divides the Jewish and Chris tian quarters, and is full of shops for the ordinary kinds of food, meat, bread, fruit, ohves, raisins, etc., sold in poor httle shops ; but at most seasons of the year the abundant supply of fruit and vegetables charm the eye of the Englishman. Apricots and grapes are constantly sold at threepence or fourpence a rattel — a measure equal to five pounds and a quarter; * Acts ix. 11. 68 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. while tomatos, vegetable-marrows and cucumbers, go for a mere song. Part of this street was burned down a few years ago, and was rebuilt during the time that Midhat Pasha was Governor. He insisted on that part of the street being widened and improved; and it is now one of the finest parts of the Bazaar, The shops are still built in the Eastern fashion; that is, each shop is simply a large kind of recess, open in front and raised about two feet from the ground, with shelves round the three sides. The owner sits cross- legged in the middle of the floor, and, often without troubling himself to rise, hands down his goods for the inspection of his customers, who stand in the street, or bargain with him from the back of their horse or donkey, as I have often done. There is seldom more than one man to a shop, and his customers, not he, have to complain of the fatigue of standing. I should have said before, that most of the Bazaars are roofed, some with old matting, but others with good, wooden roofs. These Bazaars are so unlike anything in Europe, that it is always interesting to go about them. Our first purchase must be some silk kafiyas, or handkerchiefs, such as the men wear on their heads when travelling. Some are sold in the shops ; but we shall see a better choice if we pay a visit to one of the silk merchants. So, leaving our donkeys in charge of the servants, we follow Faris through a gateway, and up a high stone staircase, which seems never to be swept, into the upper story of one of the great silk khans, or wholesale houses. Here each of THE BAZAARS. 71 the men, who employ a number of silk weavers, have generally a room in which they display their goods to people, who, like us, wish to purchase one or two specimens. They are usually men of capital, and export considerable quantities to other towns in Syria, and to Constantinople, Alexandria, or Smyrna. We visit two or three of these rooms, and see many beautiful specimens of kafiyas, embroidered table- covers, slippers, and silk izzars for Moslem ladies, and silk girdles for men. We select a few, and leave it to Faris to settle the price. Unhappily Eastern tradesmen never have a fixed price marked in plain figures on each article ; and probably, for everything we buy, we shall have to waste half an hour in haggling about the price. The shopman will perhaps begin with many polite speeches : that from us, his greatly respected friends, he will not ask anything ;* ' all he has is ours.' But this beginning generally alarms us ; we know he probably intends in the end to place a very high price on his valuable gift. After some pressing, he names a sum — probably three times too much — perhaps 100 piastres. Faris immediately offers fifteen; and perhaps, after almost endless discussion, we meet at thirty-five. This bargaining is so worrying and so repugnant to our European ideas, that we often just make a note of anything we like, and send Faris a second time to conclude the bargain at his leisure. Our presence never assists him, as the shop-people always like to think they can reap a fine harvest from English pockets — even from residents. * Gen. xxiii. 11:1 Chron. xxi. 23. 72 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. Leaving the silk khan, we pass through the Bazaar principally devoted to the sale of ' deema,' or striped cotton — a strong material, woven in hand-looms in Damascus itself, and in many other parts of the country. It is used for the long ' kumbaz,' a kind of long robe fastened round the waist by a girdle, worn by the Damascene men. The women occasionally use this ' deema ' for their dresses ; but, unfortunately, the greater number despise this durable, useful pro duct of their own country, and prefer to purchase the cheaper, but far more flimsy, English prints sold in the next Bazaar. Indeed we are astonished, and not unfrequently ashamed, of our own land when we reach the print-Bazaar. Such a display of Manchester goods certainly is never seen in England. The little shops are groaning under piles, sometimes of brilliant red, and sometimes of bright yellow prints, as the prevailing fashion of the year may be. Occasionally the sook may wear a' quieter aspect, when blue is the favourite colour ; for even in Damascus we have fashions. Green, being the sacred colour of the Mahommedans, is never seen as the prevailing hue ; in fact, Moslems strongly object to allow Christians to wear it at all. Mixed with these startling colours for dresses are many pretty cretonnes for divan-covers ; but unhappily English merchants, knowing the weakness of Easterns for bargains, send bright colours, but very poor materials, which they can afford to sell at a very cheap rate. This Bazaar is full of Enghsh goods ; and yet it is almost impossible for an Enghsh lady to make any purchases there. She can neither find quiet colours nor durable material ; and she must THE BAZAARS. 73 send to England for good print, and even for good calico. The Bazaars in Damascus are so varied and so extensive, that I cannot attempt to describe them all. Some have shops of various kinds ; but the greater number are each devoted to the sale of a special article. There is the Spice and Preserved Fruit Bazaar, the Rice and Salt Bazaar, the Silversmith's Bazaar, the Women's Bazaar for selling clothes, old and new, the Coppersmith's Bazaar, and many others ; but we must be content with simply visiting those where we have to make purchases for our friends in England. Close to one of the doors of the Jamia-ul Umwy, or Great Mosque, is the shoemakers' quarter, where we shall find a funny collection of clumsily- made native shoes, little red leather shoes for chil dren, long red leather boots, like Wellington boots, for the Arabs and peasants ; red leather shoes, with pointed toes, for the poorer townspeople ; and pretty pale yellow Chinese-looking slippers for Moslem women. Here we may as well purchase one or two specimens. All the better class of people in Damascus now wear what they call 'elastiques,' that is, black boots from France or England, or made after the European fashion by native shoemakers, and these are sold in another quarter. There is one peculiarity of Eastern city life which we must not forget to mention, and that is that all the native manufactures are made, as it were, in pubhc : for instance, in one part of the city you see a row of hand-looms at work in a number of open shops: anyone passing along the street can see the whole 74 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. operation, and watch the men sitting on the ground with their feet in a deep hole, busily throwing the shuttle from side to side : you can stand in the street and watch the pattern they are producing. At a little distance you pass the open door of a building, and are toldihat it is a soap-factory; and a httle farther on you come to a place where they are making capital pure wheat-starch. From the Shoemakers' Bazaar we go to that for the pretty wood-work for which Damascus is famous, and we find many of the men busy making different articles of walnut-wood, which is afterwards inlaid with mother-of-pearl. They con tinue their work as we pass along, and the noise echoing along the roof is almost deafening. In this Bazaar we shall see many pretty things, and I fear we shall be tempted to spend plenty of money. There are mirrors with inlaid frames ; ' kubkabs,' or wooden clogs, with gay-coloured velvet straps — some for ordinary use, for all the women, and many men too use them at home in their courts — others are nearly a foot and a half high, for the use of brides ; httle tables, which we should use for a work-basket, but which, in native houses, are placed, with a httle saucer on them, before men who smoke cigarettes; there are larger tables, and wedding-boxes, and children's cradles, and many other curiosities, some of them extremely beautiful. Then we must as quickly as possible visit the Brass Bazaar, and purchase a beautiful tray delicately marked with a pretty pattern, and a brass basin and ewer, such as are used in pouring water over the hands of a guest ; the basin, we notice, has a second THE BAZAARS. 75 basin inside it, turned upside down, and is perforated, and on the top is a place for the soap. The ewer is always of an elegant form, like a claret-jug. The water, when poured over the hands, disappears through the perforations. From this Bazaar we go to see the saddlers at work, and this is one of the most thoroughly Eastern parts of the Bazaar. Of course no side-saddles are to be seen, except perchance some old English one may find its way there, left probably by some traveller who had no further use for it. Native women all ride when necessary, for they have no other way of going from place to place; but they ride like the men, astride, on the usual saddle, with a high point in front, and with flat plates of iron for stirrups. Many of the saddles are covered with handsome native embroidery; some with leopard-skins; all are bright in colour. Native bridles are also displayed, and many ornaments for the horses. Here they also make and sell leather girdles, and woven ones also, and leather cases for powder-flasks. As we return home, thoroughly tired out, we notice in one or two places stalls set up in the side streets with curiosities for sale, which the pilgrims have brought from Mecca, pretty china, rice-spoons, straw fans, beads, rose-water bottles, etc. Damascus blades we have nowhere seen ; they are things of the past, but can occasionally still be dis covered in some of the httle shops for the sale of antiquities, and the famous Damascus tiles are no longer made ; they also can only be purchased as old curiosities. Still, we must confess that this ancient 76 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. city, which has seen all the changes of at least 4,000 years, has some vitality left. In spite of Turkish mis rule, in spite of ignorance of the outside world, for many even of its most clever and learned men have scarcely travelled beyond the bounds of the city, in spite of a limited and scanty education, its people are still active and persevering and industrious; still capable * of producing articles which English princes are not ashamed to place among their curiosities, and still able to export various manufactures to distant lands. Babylon and Nineveh have passed away, and Tyre,-f- which once traded with Damascus, is now a small fishing-town, but Damascus still remains a large and populous city. In one thing the Damascenes are deficient, and that is neatness of finish and accuracy and delicacy of design. In this respect they cannot at present com pare with the Hindoos and Chinese, but many of the younger men are anxious to improve, and would gladly learn from English workmen and manufacturers had they only the opportunity. As we passed along the Bazaars we noticed a curious custom : every here and there we saw a net spread over the front of the shop; and when we inquired of Faris the meaning of this, he answered that the shopkeepers had gone away for an hour or two, and that the net was a sign that the shop was closed. It surprised me to see that in such a crowded thoroughfare a man should thus be able to leave all his goods with such a scanty defence as a net ; but I suppose he asks his neighbours to keep an eye on his * 2 Kings xvi. 9—11. t Ezek. xxvii. 18. THE BAZAARS. 77 shop while he is away. Very few, if any of the men, live in the Bazaars, but at sunset they put up a shutter in front of their shops, or rather stalls, lock it, and return to their homes: that Abou Hassein or Abou Ahmed is in the city, or has not yet i-eturned from the city, is an expression we hear in' Damascus as commonly as in London that Mr. Smith or Mr. Brown is in the city. At sunset the Bazaars are left in charge of the watchmen,* who never think of pacing up and down like our policemen, but roll themselves up in their abais, or long cloaks, and lie down sometimes across the doorway of the building they have to protect. They are stationed at certain distances along the now silent streets, which are only dimly lighted by oil- lamps hung from the roofs. Should anyone pass along the Bazaars, they immediately start to their feet and cry out to the next watchman to let him know that people are coming. Should robbers really attempt to break into a shop, notice would thus be soon telegraphed to the nearest station of soldiers, and help sent. The same custom prevails in most Eastern cities, and if any special danger is apprehended, they are obliged to call out to one another every few minutes to avoid a surprise.-(- One market I have forgotten to mention, in de scribing the Bazaars of Damascus, because it is a secret, and yet a well-known one: it is the slave- market. In two or three parts of the town are khans where men and women are bought and sold. The owners do * Psa. cxxvii. 1 ; Cant. iii. 3 ; v. 7. f Isa- lxn- 6. 78 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. not care to let this traffic be known, but I have once gained admittance to the place where black slaves are disposed of to any purchaser. On that occasion there was only one or two young women to be sold, but the owner assured us that, when the pilgrims returned from Mecca, he would have a better supply. In many of the houses of Damascus, both Christian and Mohammedan, you see black slaves, and Ave have counted as many as twelve in one Pasha's house. Some endeavour to make their escape ; and some are kindly treated, because, as their mistresses remark, ' We have paid £30 or £40 for the girl, and we must be careful to keep her in health and strength.' Some seem to get really attached to their master's family. Two or three years ago we frequently visited a poor sick slave in our neighbour's house during her last illness, and we were pleased to see how kindly and tenderly she was cared for both by her mistress and by the children whom she had brought up as her own. I am sorry to say not only poor black Nubians are sold in Damascus, but white slaves, the beautiful Circassian women whom it is said their own relatives not seldom bring into the city to sell for £200 or £300, to adorn the hareem of some rich Pasha. As we return home, about one or two p.m., we notice a group of men standing idle at the corner of one of the streets turning out of Street Straight, and when we ask our man Faris what they are lounging about for so idly, he answers, ' Because, poor fellows, no one has hired them,* though they have been waiting for a job since sunrise.' He explains that when he * Matt. xx. 3—7. THE BAZAARS. 79 needs a labourer to dig the ground, or do any brick laying-work, or to mend the roof, he always comes to this spot to hire one. Men who work at other lands of labour have their stations in other parts of the city. Before entering our house after our fatiguing day in the Bazaars, we may well spend a few minutes in the fresh air outside the Eastern Gate, or Bab Shirkie ; and on the open space of ground between the city and the Greek, Catholic, and Protestant burial-grounds, we may chance to find a large caravan of camels with their owners just encamping. There may be 500 or 600 camels under the charge of a small number of men, who have evidently been thoroughly bronzed by long exposure to wind and weather. If we approach their rough tents, we shall find them surrounded with the loads which have just been removed from the backs of the poor camels; and, on questioning them, they will tell us, in curious, only haK-intelhgible Arabic, that they have just arrived from Bagdad, bringing merchandise, and that they have been only forty days on the road, because they had fair weather. Had it been winter, they would have been seventy daj's, as it is very hard for camels to walk in the mud. They have brought tobacco, silk, and dates, which they will soon dispose of to the Damascus mer chants. It is curious to watch the. camels as they kneel down to rest, each having had one leg doubled up and tied to prevent him from running away. CHAPTER VI. CHILDREN. It has often been noticed that Eastern children do not play, that they are grave, and demure, and spiritless. Certainly climate has had a certain effect on their characters. As a rule they are far more easily managed than the children that assemble in our Ragged Schools, whose wits have been sharpened by want. I should rather compare the children of Damascus to the children of a village in a warm part of England, where the people have been leading quiet, easy-going lives. Some of the children are very difficult to arouse, especially those poor children who have suf fered much from ague : a complaint which seems to have a stupefying effect on the brain ; but the majority have very fair abilities, while a certain number would do credit to any school in England. As a rule, they are pleasant children to teach, as it is easy to draw a response from them, and to discover if you have succeeded in awakening their interest and attention. In our Mission Schools, we have often been surprised to notice how intelligently Jewish children join in the study of the New Testament, so that in questioning a mixed class of Jewesses and Christians, CHILDREN. 81 the former not unfrequently outdo the latter in their answers on the life of our Lord, or even on the Acts of the Apostles. The tale of our Lord's holy life, and death of suffering and shame, seems to come to them with a freshness and reahty which many a Christian. child has lost from lifelong familiarity with the words of Holy Scripture. All the Jewesses in our school able to read fairly well, are expected to join the rest of the class in the study of the New Testament, and many have bought complete Bibles. Occasionally on taking them home, their relatives have torn out the New Testament as an evil book, but happily such an event is now becoming rare. Probably the most com mon fault that we have to contend with is obstinacy ; for the children, as a rule, are little used to any kind of discipline at home, and think it strange that they must bend their wills to their teacher's when they come to school. ' Let your yea be yea, and your nay, nay,' is a saying we have often to repeat in Syria ; not to grown-up poor people only, but to pretty girls of good family, more particularly Jewesses, who cannot state the simplest fact without too often confirming it with an oath. In general, our children dwell together in peace, but occasionally we are called to settle a serious quarrel ; and the cause almost invariably is, that a child has cursed the father or grandfather of its httle companion — an affront which cannot easily be for gotten or forgiven. I hardly know what to say about the charge that our Syrian children do not play. Certainly, as we travel through the villages and towns, we see no out- 6 82 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. door sports, except at the time of any great feast, when huge swings are erected in the streets ; and as a rule the children in the roads look grave and serious ; but in our schools we never find it necessary to teach the children to play. Possibly one effect of education may be to arouse the whole nature of children, and when we hear noisy cries and laughter from the play-ground, we often have to comfort our selves with the thought that he or she who works well, plays well ; though we are afraid that our neigh bours may be shocked at the peals of merry laughter. True there are few, if any, really Eastern playthings to be found ; but the children readily discover the use of any introduced from Europe. Girls ai-e fond of getting a piece of rope and using it for a skipping- rope. The boys occasionally make a kind of sling, and, forming two parties carry on a game which is not always a very agreeable one to passers-by. Cricket and football are unknown, but still we find that at any school-treat the children and native teachers are at no loss to find plenty of lively games. The favourite amusement among the girls is to dress up one of their number as a bride, and go through all the singing and processionizing of an Eastern wedding: while both boys and girls enjoy games resembling our English puss-in-the-corner, and blindman's buff. Boys are fond of leap-frog, and another favourite game called ' khatim,' or the ring. A boy puts a ring on the back of his hand, tosses it, and catches it on the back of his fingers. If it falls on the middle-finger, he shakes it to the forefinger, CHILDREN. 83 and then he is Sultan, and appoints a Vizier, whom he commands to let the boys sing — ' Ding, dong, turn the wheel, Wind the purple thread ; Spin the white, and spin the red, "Wind it on the reel. Silk and linen as well as you can Weave a robe for the great Sultan.' Poor little Moslem children, I am afraid, in the great sadness of the hareem have little spirit for merry games ; but I have often seen the happy, healthy children of one of our teachers enjoying as hearty a romp as any little group of English children. Some times a mother will try to keep her children quiet by telling them a story, such as the following : The Girl and the Kadi. ' Once there was a little girl, who bought a very littlo house ; and while she was sweeping it, she found a very little coin. Then she bought a httle dibs (molasses), and put it on a shelf; but there came a little fly, and drank it all up. So the httle girl went to the Kadi, and complained of the little fly, and said, " 0 Kadi ! judge rightly, or may your eyes be blinded." ' Then the Kadi called, and said, " Depart, you foohsh and shameless girl ; for you have spoken impolitely to the Kadi." ' Said the little girl, " I will not go, until you give a righteous decision." ' Then said the Kadi, " Tell me all your case." 6—2 So she began : 84 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. ' " O Kadi great, I am very small !" Said he, " 'Tis because you are not tall." " O Kadi, I bought a little house." Said he, " Big enough ; you're as small as a mouse." " O Kadi, I swept it with all my might." Said he, " No doubt it was clean and bright." " 0 Kadi, I found a coin so wee." Said he, " 'Twill be for the Kadi's fee." " O Kadi, I purchased dibs so sweet." Said he, " For a sweet girl, that was meet." " O Kadi, I placed it on the shelf." Said he, " Tou are keeping it for yourself." " O Kadi, the little fly, one day, Flew down, and took it all away ; And now I come to plead my cause, I beg you judge her by the laws." Said he, " Whene'er you see a fly, I bid you smite it till it die." The Kadi's words were hardly said, When she espied upon his head A little fly, who gravely sate Upon the Kadi's shaven pate ; So taking the slipper from her foot, The Kadi's head she fiercely smote, Saying, " Whene'er you see a fly, I bid you smite it till it die !" The Kadi groaned with smarting pain ; When she her slipper raised again, To smite a fly upon the pate, Of the Kadi's grave associate. The Naieb grave now sued for grace, And said, " Whate'er adjoins my face, Is mine by heritage and right, And you have no legal right to smite. But in the noble Kadi's name, I'll give you justice all the same." Then filling her hands with shining money, He sent her home to eat bread and honey.' All well-managed native famihes expect their chil- CHILDREN. 85 dren, when they enter the house after an absence of a few hours, to salute their parents, and kiss their hands ; and it is touching sometimes to see a middle- aged man, himself the father of a family, bend low and kiss his aged father's hand. Such customs should be carefully preserved ; while it is necessary constantly to impress on the parents the duty of requiring implicit obedience from their children. Many a child in Syria has lost his life because, when in good health, he has been allowed to have his own way ; then, when he is suddenly attacked with fever or diphtheria (a not uncommon complaint), he utterly refuses to take the medicine or food on which, humanly speaking, his recovery depends. Our teachers are not unfrequently fetched in haste to administer medicine to sick chil dren ; because the parents have failed to induce them to take it, but know that they will not resist the teacher, whom they have learned to obey. In dress our Damascus children differ little from European children, except that they wear a mandeel, or handkerchief, thrown over their heads, instead of a hat or bonnet. In our schools, children of all ranks and of various religions meet together. The richer children delight in any opportunity of displaying their finery ; and on feast-days make, if allowed, a great display of jewels and flowers, and many-coloured dresses, mixing blues, and greens, and violets, and pinks of various shades in painful contrast. On the other hand, some of the poor are very poor ; and come to school in cold weather in such scanty clothing, and with such wan, thin faces, that it makes one's heart ache. We do 86 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. not expect the children to curtsey when they enter the schoolhouse ; but we are careful in requiring the customary salaam, which we expect them to make prettily and gracefully. Many of the early prejudices against education are now giving way in Damascus ; though in each new town or village in which a school is opened for girls, the same objections are urged. At one time it was said, ' Why educate a girl — you might as well educate a cat ?' and for each subject a fresh battle has had to be fought. Many fathers used to object to having their girls taught to write, lest they should make a bad use of it, and be guilty of writing or receiving love-letters. Even now we are often remonstrated with on the utter uselessness of geography ; and when we began to teach girls Arabic grammar, it was by no means an easy matter to persuade the parents to buy books for their children for such a purpose. We are often asked, ' Why teach my girl such and such things ? She is not going to be a writer in the Seraglio !' or law-courts. One other difficulty we have had, and still have occasionally to contend with : many a mother when she makes up her mind to allow her daughter to be taught reading, and writing, and arithmetic, things she is herself perfectly ignorant of, begins to look up to her as a superior being, who must not be disturbed with household affairs; and quietly gives up all hope of getting any assistance from her in cooking, making bread, etc. No doubt in some cases the girls are willing to be regarded as fine ladies, while their poor ignorant mothers act as household drudges ; but I hope such cases are rare. Yet we CHILDREN. 87 have every now and then to impress on the mothers the necessity of giving their children the usual train ing in housekeeping, especially in the elaborate cook ing, of which no wife should be ignorant. Moslem children are usually carried off at an early age to be betrothed, if not married, and we have to teach them as much as possible before they are nine or ten years old ; but of late years such has rarely been the case with Christian or Jewish girls : they are generally married about sixteen or seventeen, but we have known cases where girls have not been married till they were twenty-six, or even thirty. Still, among the poorer classes it is difficult to retain the children after thirteen or fourteen, because the parents like to teach them some trade by which they may, in their turn, add their mite towards defraying the household expenses. The educated young men of the present day are seeking educated wives, but in all our Mission Schools we seek to lay a good foundation for all other learning by making the study of the Bible first and last in all our teaching. In spite of all that has been done by means of Mission Schools, there are still hundreds, nay, thousands of children growing up untaught, untrained, in whom even a wish for better things has not been implanted. One result of the establishment of the school for Moslem girls has been the opening, by the Moslems themselves, of several schools for their daughters. In one respect the little Damascenes remind us of poor children who have lived in the heart of London, and have never seen the sea or the country. Many of the children in Damascus have not been farther 88 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. than the gardens and orchards and river-side just outside the walls of the city, and though they may be eating grapes daily during part of the year, have never seen a vineyard, and so require to have many of the parables explained to them as fully and carefully as the little Londoners. Very few indeed have ever seen the sea, or have the slightest idea of its immensity. We are often amused at the exclamations of lads who may happen to travel with us to Beyrout on first seeing the sea from the heights of Lebanon. One boy was astonished at its apparent height, while he thought the shadow of the little white clouds floating about were Bedouin encampments, while the sailing-ships were Franjy tents. Another little Jewish child, on being taken to Constantinople by her mother, was immensely surprised to find that ' the Great Sea ' was larger than the fountain in their court at home. Considering the great variety of sects and divisions into which the Eastern Church is split up, we are surprised at the accuracy with which httle children answer the question put to them, when their names are first entered on the school-roll, as to the religion of their parents. They may be too young to reply to the usual questions as to their own age, their father's trade, etc., but they seldom, if ever, hesitate as to whether they are Greek Orthodox, or Greek Catholic, Armenian or Syriac, etc. In England we sometimes bemoan the fashion of having a gay party on the occasion of a baby's baptism. Certainly such an occasion should be a glad one, but we shrink from the idea of the solemnity of the occasion being in any measure forgotten in the after CHILDREN. 89 merry-making. The same custom prevails in Syria at the present day : only I fear too often the very service itself is carelessly and thoughtlessly performed. We were invited, not very long ago, to be present at the baptism of a child whose parents belonged to the Greek Church. The service was held in the house of the parents, and at one end of the room was placed a bath filled with warm water, as the night was cold and the baby delicate. After most of the guests had assembled, the priests began to mumble the prayers. The grandmother, who acted as 'Shibeen,' or god mother, carried the child, and walked in procession with the priests, as they went three times round the bath in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Then one of the priests took the baby and dipped it three times in the water, and returned it to the Shibeen, and then administered the Lord's Supper to the little unconscious babe. The words of the service it was impossible to catch, as the invited guests walked in and out of the room and chatted all the time ; even the father and mother of the child, and the Shibeen herself, seemed to have no idea of the solemnity of the service, and simply devoted themselves during the actual service to the entertainment of their guests. The Jews also make a great feast on the occasion of a baby's circumcision,* and invite a great number of people, sometimes even Christians, to their house. The Mohammedans, who do not perform the rite till the child is seven years old, make use of the event for a still greater display of fine clothes and jewels. They hire musicians, and spend large sums on the enter tainment. * Gen. xxi. 4. CHAPTER VII. BETROTHAL AND MARRIAGE. A love-story ! We must not talk of such a thing as a love-story, in the sense we use the term in England, of a young man falling in love with a young girl, and then wooing and winning her. Unhappily wives too often in the East are looked upon as necessary evils, and it is not difficult to find many old proverbs ex pressive of contempt of women. ' Obedience to women will have to be repented of,' says one. 'Women are the whips of Satan,' says another. 'Chide those whose refractoriness ye have cause to fear, and scourge them,' says the Koran ; so it can be easily understood that we must look in vain for much trace of respect and chivalrous devotion to women in the East. Marriage is, generally speaking, a matter of con venience or of gain. The spread of education and the introduction of a purer Christianity is, however, beginning to tell ; and a higher, holier view of mar riage begins to prevail. Still even now, a Moslem or a Druze should have no love-story at all. If a Moslem wishes to add to his hareem, or a Druze to replace his divorced wife, he BETROTHAL AND MARRIAGE. 91 will send out some female relative to conduct the business for him, and to bring him a report of the charms of such and such a girl. They then speak to the father, and the marriage contract is signed in the civil courts, and the wedding-day appointed ; neither the bride nor bridegroom having seen one another. Some years ago, we were asked to be present at the wedding-feast of an aide-de-camp of the late Sultan Abdul Aziz, a good-looking young Turkish officer of about twenty-five. On the day appointed, we went to the bride's house, and found a large company of rich Turkish and Syrian ladies assembled. Sweets were served, and then we were taken into a room where the young bride sat. She was a gentle-looking girl of eleven or twelve, of good family. She was dressed in bright colours, with a coronet of diamonds on her head, and two large brooches of diamonds fastened on her painted cheeks. A light Eastern veil was thrown over her. Talking, laughing, feasting went on for some time, for a large company had assembled; and then the room was suddenly cleared, and the poor little bride left alone, for the cry came, 'The bridegroom is coming!' Quite alone, and with rapid step, he mounted the stair, and for about three minutes was left alone with his bride. He lifted her veil, and for the first time they saw each other. Then he opened the door, and left the house as he entered it; and we went to comfort the poor little frightened, trembling child. The ceremony was over, with no word of prayer or thought of asking God's blessing. The hired singing-women began their music 92 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. and dancing, and we were invited to partake of a grand native dinner. As soon as we could, we left the house, and, joining the gentlemen of our party, went to call on the bridegroom, and offer him our best wishes. He asked us anxiously what his wife was like ; was she young, and fair, and nice ? We praised her to him ; but he said, ' Marriage is such a risk for us — such a lottery ! And we are so often deceived by the go-betweens.' We told him that his bride was young, and that her training was in his own hands ; and we really did hope they might be happy together, but in two or three years' time they were divorced. This is the oft-repeated sad tale of Moslem and Druze marriages. Not many years ago, young men belonging to the different sects of the Eastern Churches had really very little more opportunity of becoming acquainted with their future wives than Moslems or Druzes, but now matters are gradually improving. Still it is a common expression addressed to a woman, ' May you live to marry your son !' — that is, to find him a wife. Not unfrequently, while living in Damascus, have we been visited by anxious relatives for this very purpose. Sometimes three or four native women, strangers to us, will come expressing a sudden and great desire to see our school. We are surprised at first, and perhaps think that they have children they wish us to receive ; but soon we get a hint. We find they take a special interest in the first class; and soon comes a question, 'Have we not So-and-so's daughter under our care? Will we not point her out ?' a request we try to evade if possible. BETROTHAL AND MARRIAGE. 93 Three or four years ago, a young man who had been living in a distant part of the country returned to his native city Damascus to visit his mother and see his relatives ; but his great object was to secure a good wife for himself. He paid few visits, and remained quietly at home; but his mother had a busy and anxious time. I beheve she searched the whole Chris tian quarter for a wife, good enough, pretty enough, clever enough, of good family enough, for her darling son. Generally speaking, we hold aloof from such busi ness, but occasionally we cannot help lending a help ing hand. I remember a young man who for three years came to me repeatedly to recommend him a wife, saying that he looked upon me as a mother, and that I must act a mother's part towards him. Once or twice he begged me to try a certain girl, and see if there would be hope for him in that quarter. At last he came to Damascus, determined to ac complish his purpose, as, he said, his house was getting ruined for want of some one to look after it. Knowing him to be a worthy young man, we allowed him an opportunity of seeing two or three young women in an incidental way. Then followed many talks with him; he came to us to discuss their ap pearance, their manners, their characters. At last he fixed on one of them, and begged that my husband should pop the question for him, as both her family and his being at a distance, he could find no more proper go-between. A solemn interview, therefore, took place in our sitting-room. The girl, of course, looked shy, and pretended all manner of :94 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. objections ; but at last it was arranged that she should ¦consent to an interview with the young man, in presence of a third party, and that her family should he communicated with. To make a long story short, the matter was arranged ; and, as they were both Protestants, the missionary was asked to betroth them. A few friends were invited, the father's letter of consent read, a few speeches made ; prayer was offered, and then the mis sionary pronounced the couple betrothed. After this, the presents from the intended bridegroom to the bride were exhibited, consisting, in this case, simply of a ring and a handsome Bible ; and then a large dish of sweetmeats was handed round, an extra portion being allotted to the bridegroom. A few weeks passed, during which the bride was very busy — not so much in preparing her own clothes, as in making her future husband's trousseau — and then about seven o'clock p.m., on the appointed day, the wedding was celebrated with the ordinary Pro testant service. With this difference only, that the bride was not attended by bridesmaids; but, as a married woman, it fell to my share to lead her in, stand by her during the service, and then lead her out again. Bridesmaids are not allowed in that part of the country; but bridewomen must attend the bride. Simple refreshments, cakes, sweets, coffee, etc., were handed round, the men remaining chiefly in one room, and the women with the bride in the other; and about nine p.m., we prepared to take the bride and bridegroom to their own home in a distant part of BETROTHAL AND MARRIAGE. 95 the city. We went quietly, and few people guessed that we were a bridal-party. A Moslem wedding, and a native Protestant wedding, present the greatest contrast. Midway between, so to speak, are the customs and festivities still in use among the greater number of the members of Eastern Churches. In general, a marriage is arranged almost entirely between the parents; and the account of Eliezer's* mission to find a wife for his master's son is no strange story to Eastern ears. Rebecca,-f- indeed, was consulted, and her consent asked ; but the wishes of a girl belonging to the Greek Church are little considered — in fact, it is considered that if she shows a proper degree of modesty she will cry, and protest against the very idea of matrimony ; and, to the very last, must express the greatest reluctance and repug nance. At the betrothal she will remain in a separate room with her female relatives. The presents from the bridegroom will consist of a ring, a work-box, a watch and chain, some coloured mandeels or hand kerchiefs, and other jewellery, according to the wealth of the bridegroom, or his supposed wealth. Unfor tunately many bridegrooms are induced to spend more than they really possess in these presents, in their anxiety to secure a good match. The father is ex pected to provide a good trousseau for his daughter, and to pay down a certain sum with her. This is one reason why parents are grieved at the birth of many daughters. A father will often say, ' How shall I find money enough to marry them ah ?" The day before the wedding, the bride is taken by a large company of * Gen. xxiv. 1—6. f Gen. xxiv. 58. 96 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. her friends to the public bath, where they spend several hours bathing, singing, eating sweetmeats, etc. ; and the noise can often be heard in the streets, and the passers-by remark, ' Oh, there must be a bride in the bath !' In the evening her hands are elaborately painted with henna in preparation for the morrow. Her adorning for the ceremony occupies a long time ; every superfluous little hair is taken out of her face and neck. She is painted white and red — occasionally a sprinkling of gold or silver leaf is made over her face — her eyes and eyebrows are stained with kahl, and she is dressed in a silk dress of brilliant hue, and adorned with innumerable ornaments* — sometimes her own, but often borrowed for the occasion. After all the preparations are made, she is wrapt in an izzar, and led out, supported on each side by married women, to be conducted to the house of the bride groom. All the company rise and go with her, each carrying a lighted taper ;-f- and with slow reluctant steps she proceeds towards her future home — often one or two hours are occupied in traversing a short distance. If she belongs to a family of importance, tables of refreshments will be spread at the doors of some of her friends, whose houses she may pass on the road. At intervals the women utter the sharp peculiar trill, so familiar to all dwellers in the East. At last, but frequently not till midnight, they arrive at the bridegroom's house. They find three or four priests, perhaps the Bishop himself, awaiting them. A little table in the centre of the room has been fitted up as an altar, with a holy picture, and hghted * Isa. lxi. 10 ; xlix. 18. t Matt. xxv. 1. BETROTHAL AND MARRIAGE. 97 candles, and flowers, and the ceremony begins — seldom, I am sorry to say, is it connected with much solemnity. The people, with their tapers still lighted, crowd into the room ; joking, and laughing, and talk ing, not unfrequently go on while the solemn words are read, and prayer offered, according to the ritual of the Greek Church. Crowns of flowers* or of some precious metal are placed over the heads of the bride and bridegroom, and hand in hand they follow the priests in procession three times round the altar in the name of the Holy Three in One. After the ceremony the bride is taken into another room to be duly inspected. For the greater part of the three or four following days she must remain in this room with eyes cast down and motionless — the gazing-stock of the crowds who flock to see the bride. In the villages I have seen a bride thus exposed to view, seated on a chair, placed on a table in the corner of the room, which was constantly crowded to suffocation ; and one wondered how she had strength to support such an ordeal. Feasting-(- sometimes continues for days ; and a rich man will distribute large quantities of food among the poor. A Jewish wedding generally takes place at the bride's house, not at the bridegroom's ; and the ceremony, of course, is performed by a Rabbi under the usual canopy, according to the Jewish custom. * Cant. iii. 11. t Matt. xxii. 4. CHAPTER VIII. THE COUNTRY ROUND DAMASCUS. The winter in Damascus is sometimes long and dreary; and when the spring comes, all the Damascenes, Jews, Christians and Mohammedans, begin to think it necessary to ' smell the air,' as their expression is. The Jews begin to visit Jobar, by some thought to be built on the site of the ancient Hobah.* It is a large village about three quarters of an hour's ride from the city, and is inhabited entirely by Mohammedans ; but strange to say, the Jews have a synagogue and a few rooms in the court adjoining it. Only the people who have charge of the synagogue live there ; but during the spring and summer we constantly see Jews riding on donkeys laden with beds and bedding, and going out to spend three or four days or a week in these rooms. The synagogue they consider specially sacred and favoured, for they believe that a little paved cell below is sometimes visited by the spirit of Elisha,-|- and sick people are often taken to this cell and left there alone all night in the hope that Elisha's spirit will exercise a healing influence over them. No doubt the change of air from their damp rooms in Damascus * Gen.xiv. 15. f 2 Kings viii. 7. THE COUNTRY ROUND DAMASCUS. 99 to the more open and free air of the country does exercise a good effect upon many. The same may be said of Saidnaya, where the Greek Church has a convent reported to be the favourite abode of the Virgin, and numbers of poor ailing people are carried there to seek her blessing. This village stands high up on the Anti-Lebanon, about six hours' ride from Damascus, and the dry, bracing air from the barren mountains is beneficial to those who may have been suffering from the warm, damp atmosphere of the plain. The convent, like most of the convents in Syria, occupies a capital situation, and about forty nuns are always ready to wait on the visitors and give them accommodation within its walls. Those who cannot leave home for more than a few hours, join the crowds who, on a certain day in Lent, go forth, as they say, 'to meet the monk;' the Catholics, of course, on one day, and the Greeks on another, as they do not observe the same calendar. When questioned who the monk is, they can give no answer, neither does it matter which road they take. Needless to say the monk never comes. Great numbers also go out when the Hajj, or Moslem pilgrims, start for Mecca, or when they return from it. It is certainly a great matter that the dwellers within the walls of a great city like Damascus have so many lovely walks and rides within reach; and when spring comes, the Protestants, as well as the other sects, are right glad to make a few excursions in the neighbourhood. Some rise early in the morning and go out to visit the fountain of the Fijeh, rising at the foot of the eastern side of Anti-Lebanon, a ride of 7—2 100 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. between four and five hours. This is one of the finest fountams in Syria. Here you see the strange spectacle of a ready-made river bursting in one moment from the bosom of a great rock. Over this grand fountain are the ruins of a very ancient temple, built by the Pheni- cians, who seem to have worshipped the waters. The Fijeh rushes away wildly over the rocks till it joins the Barada, which has sprung to life quietly and noiselessly in the fruitful plain of Zebdany, and together forming one river, the Barada, they enter the plain of Damascus. By many this is considered an answer to the question, Where are the two rivers of Damascus,* when we can find but one passing through or near the city ? Others consider that the Awaj, a small river flowing certainly through the district of Damascus, but at least four hours' ride from the city itself, is the Pharpar. The Barada certainly justifies its ancient name, 'Abana,' or ' Our Father ;' it is indeed and in truth the parent of the fruitful plain extending over many miles, in the midst of which stands Damascus, and which is simply an oasis in the desert. Directly the Barada reaches the plain, trees and shrubs spring up as by magic, and the road from El-Hameh to the entrance of the city, a distance of two hours by the side of the river, is one scene of varied beauty through valley and ravine, gorge and chasm, of which the following description may give some idea : ' We follow the road across the desert plain, at the eastern end of which it suddenly dives down into a glen filled with foliage, and spark ling with fountains and streams of water. Through the midst of it, fringed by tall poplars and shaded * 2 Kings v. 12. THE COUNTRY ROUND DAMASCUS. 103 with walnuts, winds the Abana. Its magic power we already see, for it has converted a wild ravine in a wilderness into a paradise. Conical hills, white almost as the snow of Hermon, rise from the very brink of the waters, and add by their contrast to the beauty of the scene. Little villages are there peeping out of their bowers on the right and left.' Passing the village of Dimmar, the ravine narrows between pre cipitous walls of rugged mountains into a winding gorge, just broad enough for the road, the river, and two canals at different levels on either side. The road at length emerges all on a sudden from this romantic ravine and the green orchards, and in a httle while the white minarets of Damascus burst upon the view. These canals, strange to say, were constructed many centuries ago, and show wonderful skill and power in the men who, in remote times, constructed them; they carry the water into every part of the city, I might almost add into every house, and the main stream, after flowing in a curious way through the city, sometimes through an open channel, and sometimes underground, passes Bab es Salaam (the Gate of Peace), and Bab Tooma (the Gate of Thomas), and flows along in an easterly direction, leaving the great city, the child of its own creation, behind it. Had we no Abana, we could have no Damascus. After leaving the city, it flows on quietly through pleasant, well-cultivated country. As we wander along, its banks, we see many a livery scene. The women love to go out of the city in crowds, and sit wrapt in their white izzars on its banks, smoking nargilehs and gossiping, with their feet almost touch- 104 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. ing the water, in spite of the doctor's warning that thus they imbibe ague and rheumatism. The men sit in the cafes at the bridge, playing cards and sipping coffee, or, I am sorry to say, arrack. Many donkeys, laden with corn or flour, are hurrying back wards and forwards to the mills ; while in one quiet part, men and horses are bathing promiscuously. The townspeople seldom venture far from the city, but we can walk or ride for hours through the fields and orchards which surround the city for miles on every side, one and all the product of the river, which after all, in size and length, is but a small one. We pass splendid fields of hemp, one of the most valuable products of this district and fields of corn ripening, strange to say, in many places beneath the shade of fruit-trees. We can wander among fields of beans, and forests of olive, apricot, and walnut-trees; but few people follow the river, to which Damascus owes so much, through all its course. After leaving the neighbour hood of the city, it pursues its winding way for Some distance till it reaches the district called the Wady — a lovely, lonely place of ill-repute, said to be haunted by bad characters from Damascus, who have com mitted some crime, and become marked men, and therefore are in hiding. It is looked upon as a Cave of Adullam,* and few respectable people care to pass through it unnecessarily. After leaving the Wady, the river flows on through the fertile and extensive Sahl-ul-Adhra, the Virgin's Plain, till it loses itself in the marshy lakes. * 1 Sam. xxii. 2. THE COUNTRY ROUND DAMASCUS. 105 Such is the whole course of the river; but if we wish to make only one day's journey, we must choose whether we will visit the source at the Fijeh, or, start ing from Bab Tooma, follow the main stream till it is swallowed up in the lakes. The latter excursion we could only make in the spring, for it would be rash to encounter the moist heat of the plains at an earlier season of the year. The shores of the Lakes of Damascus are so level that at no time is the water visible till the traveller is quite close to them ; and, during the hot season, they are probably dried up altogether. Such a hot moist district is the favourite abode of mosquitoes, sand-flies, and fever. Unhealthy though it is, the wild-boar seems to enjoy his home among the marshes and reeds of this district, and great numbers are found there. Another excursion we might make, and which would not be a very long one, is to start from Bab Tooma, and ride through the ohveyards and orchards to Kaboon, and then across the plain, and up the moun tain to Burzeh. We may as well rest a little at Kaboon ; it stands at the very edge of the orchards, just on the open plain, and the air there is always pleasant. If we go in the apricot season, we can sit down and talk to the poor Moslem women, who will be busy with their ' mishmish ' (apricots). Hudla, and Fatmie, and Zenab will be very glad to tell us all about the many different kinds of apricots they have, and will teach us the names of each, and no doubt will bring us some to taste. Fatmie will explain how hard they all have to work just now, both men and women. They gather 106 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. quantities of apricots every morning to send into the city, to sell at threepence or fourpence a rattle (5£ lb.); and much larger quantities they preserve in different ways. Hudla is busy spreading out a heap to dry in the sun, like figs or raisins ; while Zenab will show us how stained and sore her hands are, because she has been busy all day making Kamr-ud-Deen. She shows us a large sieve placed over an open vat, and tells us that she has been hard at work all day crush ing apricots, and squeezing all but the skins and stones through the sieve. Her daughter Besma then draws, off the juicy pulp from the vat, and pours it on long planks of wood which have been spread out in the sun. Some of the children break a certain quantity of stones, and arrange the white kernels in a pattern on the pulp. When it is sufficiently dry, Besma and her sisters strip the boards and pour fresh juice upon them, and repeat the process till the whole quantity of Kamr-ud-Deen is made. We have often seen this curious stuff hanging up in the shops in Damascus for sale, and it looks like long narrow shiny sheets of brown paper, and can be torn in the same way. It is eaten as it is, and the taste is not bad ; or it is melted and eaten with bread. Immense quantities of this Kamr-ud-Deen is made every year in the different villages around Damascus, and exported to Egypt and Constanti nople. At this season, the orchards are full of people ; and the trees are golden with fruit ; and often the ground is strewn with fallen apricots. Dr. Tristram is inclined to think that this fruit is ' the apple of gold set in THE COUNTRY ROUND DAMASCUS. 107 pictures of silver;'* and says that he, and many other travellers, have often pitched their tents under the shadow-f- of the apricot-tree, and feasted on its delicious fruit. In fact the apricot-orchards are always the favourite camping-ground of visitors to Damascus. Many of the poor fellaheen sleep in the orchards at this season for about six weeks, in the httle cottages built on purpose; and though they have to work early and late, they greatly enjoy the time they spend there. Many are the invitations we get to go out and see them in the gardens. I am afraid many of our poor Moslem friends have no higher idea of Paradise than an apricot-orchard with a stream of fresh water running through it. We must not tarry too long at Kaboon. The poor people there are very ignorant, and some, I am afraid, are very wicked specimens of the lowest kind of Moham medans ; and, as yet, the true light has scarcely found any entrance there. From Kaboon we ride across the pleasant open plain, and climb the foot of the moun tain to Burzeh. As we stand under a tree and look back over the way we have come, the view is very charming. We see Damascus, like an island, in the midst of an ocean of green orchards ; and beyond, Jebal-ul-Aswad, or the Black Mountain, where the black stone, so much used in the city, is quarried, and Jebal Kesweh, across which hes the route of the Mecca pilgrims. In the far distance we can trace the Mountains of Hauran, or Bashan; and, to the left, strange-looking isolated hihs, called Tellul-us-Sufaa, which are really on the borders of the desert. * Prov. xxv. 11. t Cant. ii. 3. 108 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE, The village of Burzeh stands at the mouth of a ravine, and is very much like other Moslem villages ; but it is especially interesting to us, because it is con nected by tradition with the name of II Khaleel, or ' the Friend,'* as Abraham is still called in all this district ; and very possibly, when pursuing the kings, he may have passed this way, or even tarried there for a while. The people will be quite willing to show us the sacred Wely, called Makam Ibrahim, or Habita tion of Abraham ; but they will differ in their tales of what happened there. One day a poor Moslem woman showed me a little cleft of the. rock at the back of the Wely, in which she declared Abraham was born ; but others will tell you that he prayed there when he turned back from pursuing the kings. A number of Moslem pilgrims visit this tomb every year; and the feast of ' the Friend ' is religiously observed, both by Moslems and Christians, in Damascus itself. We might make many an excursion among the numerous villages within an easy reach of Damascus, each one pretty in its surroundings; but the more we become acquainted with the poor people, the more we should grieve over them. As we journey through Syria, we sometimes notice people hard at work clear ing away the stones on the rough mountain-paths, or strewing gravel over slippery places; and when we ask why all the villages have sent out men in such a hurry to mend the roads, which have been so long neglected, we are told that the Pasha or some other great man is coming, and we must ' prepare-f- the way * 2 Chron. xx. 7 ; Isa. xii. 8 ; James ii. 23. t Matt. iii. 3. THE COUNTRY ROUND DAMASCUS. 109 before him.' As we wander through the almost count less villages of Damascus, with their poor, ignorant, degraded people, we are tempted to ask. When will anyone be found to prepare the way of the King of Kings, that He may enter in, and dwell among them? CHAPTER IX. SUMMER QUARTERS. One of our arood kind native friends in Damascus a*- had given us the loan of a house for the summer in the village of Nebk, in the Kalamun Mountains, about two days' ride north of Damascus ; so, having made all our preparations, we were ready to start on our journey early one Friday morning. Our simple furniture, our personal luggage, and our household stores, were packed on three mules, and were already on their way ; and now, armed with lined sun-umbrellas, and our hats and heads carefully muffled up in muslin, as a defence against the sun, we mounted our horses, and began our long day's journey. It was about the beginning of August, and we were prepared for con siderable heat; but for some time our road lay through the shady orchards of Damascus. We en joyed the early cool of morning among the apricot and olive trees. In these roads the tame little hoopoes,* sometimes five or six together, may often be seen in spring. They are elegant little creatures, with beautiful crests, and striped wings ; and we frequently notice them hopping across our path, pecking about the road * Lev. xi. 19 ; Deut. xiv. 18. Lapwing — Hoopoo in Arabic version. SUMMER QUARTERS. Ill with their long bealcs. They will allow our horses to come quite near them before they will spread their pretty wings and fly away. Our native friends call them ' Doctor Birds,' and bid us be careful what we say when they are near ; for surely the little bird, not much bigger than a thrush, will tell all our secrets. Certainly they are not afraid to be seen very near the city ; but in the winter they seek a warmer climate than Damascus. In the woods we hear few of the songsters of Eng land, but many prettily plumaged birds fly about among the trees ; and in the quiet parts of the woods we may often hear the soft,* mournful cooing of the turtle-dove.-[- Even when the heat has silenced all other birds, this timid, gentle creature pours forth her complaint from morning to evening till autumn, when she, too, will spread her wings for the south. Had we made our journey a few weeks earlier we might have been startled by hearing a great flapping overhead, as a huge stork suddenly changes its position in a tree ;| or we might have seen six or seven walking about among the corn, towering above it when almost ripe. They generally come in great flocks§ about the end of March, and in six weeks or two months, beginning to find the weather disagreeably hot, they proceed on their journey northward. But the peasants in Syria are always dehghted to see them : ' The more the merrier,' they say ; ' for abundance of storks is a good omen, and we shall have abundance of corn.' They call the stork ' Abou Saad,' the Father of Good-luck. * Psa. lxxiv. 19. + Lev. v. 7, xii. 8 ; Luke ii. 22—24. J Psa. civ. 17. § Jer. viii. 7. 112 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. On no account would they hurt a stork ; and the storks seem to be quite aware of the fact, and walk about in the cornfields close to the villages, catching frogs and mice, and hzards and snakes, and all kinds of vermin with their long red bills, and devouring them greedily. They are very grave, solemn birds, and are not easily disturbed ; but should anything startle them we must be careful they do not startle us and our horses, as they suddenly spread their enormous wings,* measuring nearly seven feet across, and soar away. The Druses are said to eat them sometimes ; but I never heard of any other of the people of the land indulging in such a feast, for their flesh is said to be very coarse.-f Before noon we reached the last village in the plain, Dumah, and rested and lunched beneath the shade of the trees. Then came the tug of war. We had still several hours' ride in the heat, up steep rocky roads with no trees to shelter us, no pretty birds to amuse us, only every now and then a hideous gecko, like a miniature crocodile, would toss up its ugly head and cluck as we pass a mud-wall or dry rock, teaching us to admire, by contrast, the many other kinds of lizards} which are glorying in the burning sun and darting merrily about the rocks: every now and then you see a couple that have become too boisterous in their play, and end in a downright fight. We had on this occasion httle inclination to be amused at anything ; the heat was intense and water very scarce. But a httle while before sunset we reached a level plain, and saw two or three villages in the * Zech. v. 9. f Lev. xi. 19. J Lev. xi. 30. SUMMER QUARTERS. 113 distance. The welcome sight enlivened us ; and we were riding along more cheerily, when suddenly across our path dashed a flock of lovely gazelles, and dis appeared like lightning in the distance. They are called roes in the Bible.* Afterwards at Nebk we often had the opportunity of watching these fleet little animals on the hillsides at some distance from the village. The people told us that they only came down into the plain-}- to drink at the river very early indeed in the morning before anyone was astir, and that they returned quickly to the mountains. For years we had a pet one of our own in Damascus, which grew at last quite at home with us, and would feed from our hands ; we often said that she was the best-tempered member of our household. The dog might tease her, and the fowls snatch the very food from her mouth, but nothing seemed to irritate her. Only once or twice, when a suspicious-looking lad found his way into her enclosure, did she show any sign of wrath, or try to use her horns. At last, in good time, we reached our resting-place, Kuteifeh, for the night, and were kindly received at a Moslem house. We opened some of our stores — for our muleteers were resting in the same village — and prepared a simple supper. Fearing that we might find too much company in the rooms to sleep in peace, we preferred lying down in the court, to the' risk of encountering a battle with thousands of fleas under the shelter of the roof; and we had not much time to spare for sleep. We were to join some muleteers next morning, who were to act as our guides, and they * Cant. ii. 8, 9. t Cant. ii. 16, 17. 8 114 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. would start at two or three a.m., according to the rising of certain stars. These muleteers are great star-gazers,* and generally regulate their movements by the stars. It is the com monest answer possible, to the question, 'When do you mean to start ?' ' Oh, when the Pleiades rise.' I am sure the following must be a muleteer's wife's song to her baby : ' Sleep, my moon — my baby, sleep ! The Pleiades bright their watches keep ; The Libra shines so fair and clear ; The stars are shining — hush, my dear !' Certain it was that on this occasion we had to start by bright starlight ; and yet, in spite of all our haste in packing up, our guides got ahead of us, and we could hear the bells of their mules far in front, and yet could not see them, or tell which road they had 'taken. At last, by dint of much shouting, we dis covered where they had gone, and followed them. The day before we had travelled under a scorching sun ; now we felt the night air so cold -f- that we were glad to put on all our wraps, and yet till the sun was fairly risen we could not get warm. We travelled on patiently for many hours, and about two p.m. reached the village. We found that the house had been well swept and the walls whitewashed for us ; but, tired as we were, we had much to do before we could rest, and the next day was Sunday. We had to spread our mats, put up our bedsteads, arrange our camp-stools and : folding-tables, and unpack our crockery and cooking utepsils. To our dismay we found that the * Job ix. 9 ; xxxviii. 31, 32. f Gen. xxxi. 40. SUMMER QUARTERS. 115 mule had thrown our crockery-box, and that most of our little stock of china was broken. Fortunately we had tin plates and basins with us, and we could manage till Monday. We soon became much interested in the active, energetic people of this and the neighbouring villages ; and the difficulties we had in housekeeping served but as a little amusement. We found that our broken plates could not be replaced in the village ; that during our stay there we must be content with goat's meat and an occasional chicken — true, the former was only about tenpence a rottle (5£ lb.), but then it was tough; that the village did not boast a proper oven, and that therefore we must be content with unleavened bread ; and that fruit and vegetables were very scarce, and hornets most abundant,* covering our table at every meal. But from our upper windows we looked over a fine plain, stretching away in the direction of Kiryatein and Tadmor, with the mountains of Baalbec on the west and Gebal Kalamun on the east, and the air was generally cool and dry and bracing. In this part of the Kalamun Mountains we might have searched in vain for villages or any human habitations except a convent. High up in these mountains the people tell you the Beden, or ibex,-}- the wild goat of Scripture, is found. It is a pretty creature, with enormous horns about three feet long, curved back till they almost touch its tail. These horns are used for making knife-handles and other articles. The men living in the poor little dirty villages nearest to these lonely, * Ex. xxiii. 28 ; Deut. vii. 20 ; Joshua xxiv. 12. f Psa. civ. 18 ; Job xxxix. 1 ; 1 Sam xxiv. 2. 8—2 116 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. rocky mountains, are almost as wild-looking as the ibex itself, and the good people of Nebk appear quite grand and civihzed by their side. These people some times hunt the wild goat ; and, if you question them, they will tell you, in their uncouth Arabic, that when hardly pressed, the ibex will roll itself down the steepest declivities to save itself from its pursuers, and that these enormous horns protect it from injury, like the rim of a wheel. These hills, too, are the very playground of gazelles, and fine large partridges such as are never seen in England. There were several villages we could visit in the plain, and on the spurs of the Baalbec Mountains, and in Nebk itself we soon made many friends. We were living in the midst of the people, and could watch their daily doings, and they soon learned to look upon us as under their care and protection ; so that if we returned in the evening later than usual from an excursion, we often found them on the look-out for us, and uneasy lest harm should have happened to us, afraid that perhaps the Bedouin might have attacked us. Many of the men were muleteers, or rather traders and merchants in a small way; that is, they make long journeys to Horus, and Hamath, and Kiryatein, and Tadmor (Palmyra), and Ovrfa (Ur of the Chaldees), and Aleppo, and still more distant places, for the pur poses of trade, sometimes returning with a load of honey, or oil, or semman (native butter), all of which they carry to Damascus and dispose of there. Then they return, and after resting for a day or two with their famihes at Nebk, they start away again. Many COUNTRY MEN WITH IBEX HORN. SUMMER QUARTERS. 119 of these journeys occupy twenty, thirty, or forty days, and are not unfrequently attended with danger ; they must always go armed and prepared for attacks from Bedouin. Directly they see a robbing-party in the far distance, they prepare for defence in true military fashion, forming a square : they make their camels kneel down, and fire from behind them, and thus a dozen men can keep a large party of Bedouin at bay. While the men are away on these excursions, the women are very busy at home. They do a good share of work in the threshing-floors, and in the vine yards and fields ; they prepare the burghol or crushed wheat for winter use : sometimes you see them plaster ing or whitewashing the houses, or mending and rolling the roofs if the rain threatens to come before their husbands' return. They often care for the cows and goats ; and, of course, they have to fetch all the water from the river, tripping down the steep hill to the stream, with the heavy jars balanced on their heads — sometimes walking so erectly and so steadily, that they have no need to touch the jar even with one hand. They cook, and wash, and make bread, and wind wool ; and, in fact, seem never idle. They are up early and late,* appearing never to rest. The fact that all the able-bodied are so frequently away from home, makes the women active and independent. We became fairly well acquainted with many of the women, and found some of them thoughtful and intelligent, though not possessed of much book- learning, if any. Questions were asked us on more than one occasion, showing a depth of feeling and * Prov. xxxi. 10—31. 120 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. reflection which is not commonly met with in Syria. Many, on the contrary, were very ignorant, and wholly occupied with their daily care and toil. In this village we saw what is a most unusual sight for Syria : and that was a Moslem school for boys, taught by an energetic Moslem woman, called Sheikha Sofia. She was reported to be a very strict disciplin arian, and ruled by the rod. Her boys, and she had a considerable number, were all seated on the ground with the Koran, their only book of study, on a httle desk before each one ; they were ah studying it aloud, rocking themselves backwards and forwards as they read. At a word from her they were silent when we entered ; and at a word from her they resumed their chorus. I am afraid but few of the Nebk women can do anything but the roughest kind of sewing ; and, like so many of their country-people, most of the villagers would be more agreeable visitors if they only would pay a httle more attention to cleanliness. The houses in the three great villages of this neighbourhood — Nebk, Yabrud, and Deir Atiyeh — are really well-built and commodious ; forming a great contrast to the dirty, filthy huts of some of the mountain villages near, where the people are living in a state of degrada tion little better than the heathen of Africa. I beheve there exists a little spirit of rivalry between these three villages standing in the same plain, Yabrud being about one hour and a half from Nebk in one direction, and Deir Atiyeh about the same distance in the other ; the natives of each place wish to be con sidered the smartest and cleverest. They all possess SUMMER QUARTERS. 121 large flocks of goats. Now the Deir Atiyeh goats start off to the hills with their shepherd very early indeed in the morning, and the Nebk goats are not much behind them ; but the Yabrud goats are last of all, and I think we may say the goats tell a true tale. The inhabitants of Deir Atiyeh and Nebk are all alive and vigorous, adventurous and hardy. The people of Yabrud are clever and sharp people, too ; but they possess many more of the luxuries of life, and show less of an adventurous spirit than the other two ; they have also the largest vineyards and prettiest scenery of all. Most of our marketing had to be done in Yabrud ; and every now and then we had to make an expedi tion there, taking our good donkey with us to carry our purchases. She was led from shop to shop, and her capacious saddle-bags were soon filled with soap, sugar, coffee, leavened bread, and fruit and vegetables, all luxuries which it was impossible, or almost, to pro cure in Nebk ; but Yabrud boasted a little market place, and a number of small shops. The only incon venience was that the inhabitants of the village, being httle used to seeing a European lady among them, mobbed the door of every shop I entered ; and as the only light was from the door, it was rather difficult to make any purchases. The walks and rides around Yabrud are finer than those at Nebk, where we can boast few trees or plantations of any kind. The vineyards are small, and the grapes do not ripen till nearly the middle of September; and the fields of castor-oil plants and madder were not very interesting to us, though no 122 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. doubt useful. Many of the people use castor-oil for their lamps ; and, in case of illness, drink it, coarse and unrefined though it be. It was certainly rather curious to walk through the madder-fields when the peasants were busy digging it up. It is the root which is used for dying the famous Turkey-red ; and as it strikes deeply into the earth, they have to trench the field over about three feet deep, that they may be able to get it all up. The plant is allowed to grow for four or five years before it is dug up ; and there fore the people plant a certain quantity every year, that every year they may have some ready to dig. It is one of the most valuable crops that the land pro duces. In the fine open plain we always found .good pure air, both morning and evening ; and as we rode along, we noticed here and there a strange plant growing in every direction. When we inquired what.it was, we were told it was ' ishnan,' and that the village goats knew better than to eat it. A few weeks, later, we saw a number of little bonfires lighted all oyer the plain, and found that the people had been busy collecting all the. ishnan that they could find, and were now burning it ; because from its ashes they procured a hard metallic substance which they called El Kali, and said was much used in making soap.* We re membered at once pur English word ' alkali ;' and when we opened our Arabic Bibles on returning home, we were pleased to find Job speaking of 'cleaning his hands with " ishnan," ' not simply of ' making his hands never so clean,'-}- as it is in our Enghsh version. * Jer. ii. 22 ; Mai. iii. 2. f Job ix. 30. SUMMER QUARTERS. 123 Our servant told us that in Nebk, and other places, if the women had no soap they used a little of this instead. It grows in many parts of the country bordering on the desert, and is always used in Syria in making soap. People were surprised that we should choose such an out-of-the-way place as Nebk for our summer holi day; but we had almost daily opportunities of speaking and reading with the people, and we also found much to interest us in watching all the daily proceedings of these busy villagers, and they were never tired of watching us. I am afraid more than one woman broke her water-jar in her eagerness to catch sight of us as we rode through the narrow dirty streets of the ¦ village. To one of their customs we never could get recon ciled. They had no slaughter-house, and each butcher kiUed his goat in front of his shop early in the morn ing, and unfortunately one of these shops was close to our house. Every morning, while we were dress ing, we heard a heavy thud, thud, and knew that the poor goat that was to supply our dinner had just breathed his last, and the butcher was now prepar ing to remove the skin by inflating and then beating it — a proceeding which loosened the skin, and made its removal more easy. We made many excursions to neighbouring villages, starting early in the morning, and spending the heat of the day at our destination, and returning in the evening. Thus we became acquainted with many people, and on the whole were well received. Sometimes we rode to the summit of a little hill 124 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. near the village of Nebk, and inspected an old watch- tower.* From this point we could see almost to Yabrud in one direction, and to Kara, near Deir Atiya, in another, where there was a second watch- tower; and we were told that they had formerly been garrisoned by soldiers, who kept watch over the road to protect travellers. These and many other watch-towers were erected within sight of each other, by one of the former Sultans, along the whole of the road between Damascus, Aleppo, and Constantinople, for the protection of caravans. Large khans or caravansaries were also built near these towers as barracks for soldiers, and also for the accommodation of travellers. These soldiers or watchmen stationed in the tower were, of course, obliged to give an alarm-}- if they saw any danger approaching. The country at the present time is thought to be a considerable degree more safe, and the watch-towers have fallen into disuse ; but still the people in this district, at certain times, live in fear of the Bedouin, lest they should make a descent on their flocks and herds and drive them off, as they not unfrequently do. Although the old watch-tower is in ruins, and the khan greatly out of repair, yet the latter is still used for travellers ; and, when we went down in the even ing to water our horses at the river, we sometimes found that a caravan, on its way to or from Aleppo, had just arrived, and that the travellers, rich and poor together, were trying to make themselves as * 2 Kings ix. 17 ; Ezek. xxxiii. 2. f Ezek. iii. 17 ; 2 Chron. xx. 24 ; Jer. vi. 17. SUMMER QUARTERS. 125 comfortable as they could among their baggage for the night ; but the best of these khans are miserable places. The most you can hope for is a bare empty room, in which you may arrange any little comforts you have brought with you in the way of rugs or bedding. The large khans built near a watch-tower have several rooms opening on a central court, but the simple mountain khans have only one or at most two rooms, into which all the guests must be packed ; but whether large or small, I can hardly imagine a greater punishment to a European than to be con demned to pass a night in one of them. We can only hope that the khans in the time of Augustus Csesar,* when the land was enjoying a greater degree of civilization than at present, were as much better than the present ones as the Roman roads were better than the rough paths of Syria in our day. * Luke ii. 7. CHAPTER X. A RIDE THROUGH THE DESERT. A journey to Tadmor* the ancient Palmyra, is not a very common thing — even in these days of travel and adventure — and if a party of travellers determine to encounter the fatigue and peril of an expedition to this city in the wilderness, they usually provide them selves with tents, a dragoman, and retinue of servants, and many other encumbrances; last, not least, an escort of about twenty Turkish soldiers, and a permit from the Consul, which he will only grant when the district is in a fairly settled and peaceful condition. All these precautions of course are quite necessary if ladies are in the. party. About two years and a half ago my husband and a young Cambridge friend determined to visit these famous ruins; but they neither wished, nor could they afford, to take tents and a number of muleteers. Their intention was to make the journey as rapidly and easily as possible ; hoping, by the way, to find openings for missionary work among the Bedouin often found encamping in that district. Their preparations were of the simplest kind. They provided themselves with two strong * 2 Chron. viii. 4. A RIDE THROUGH THE DESERT. 127 useful horses, equal to great fatigue ; a couple of pair of large saddle-bags, for carrying a small supply of clothing, food, Bibles, and tracts. Over the saddle my husband strapped his ' abai,' or native cloak, and a coarse white sheet. Behind the saddles were fixed the nose-bags, and iron pegs for the horses. Their hats were covered with thick layers of white muslin, as a protection from the sun ; and I must not forget to add that they each carried in their saddle-bags a strange garment, such as could not be purchased ready-made in any part of Europe. It was made of coarse calico, and in shape was a shirt, trowsers, socks, and gloves, all in one, and all made of the same material. It had a hood to be tied tightly round the face, and a girdle or sash round the waist. Every opening was closed up, except the way in. Before they started, these garments were carefully examined to see that no stitch was wanting, for they were to serve an important office. Every night when sleeping under a roof, the two gentlemen carefully removed their day clothes, and then drew these calico cases quickly over their night apparel, tying up the entrance- hole as quickly as possible ; and, if necessary, covering their faces with a piece of white gauze. Thus guarded and protected, they could sleep in the dirtiest abodes undisturbed and untouched by the myriads of fleas, etc., which held their lively court around, above, and beneath them. Their only companion was a worthy Scripture- reader, who, of course, carried all he needed on his own horse. They left Damascus on May 13, 1880, and slept 128 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. that night at Kiteifeh, where they had some pleasant talk with the kind, simple people, with whom they left a Bible. From this place they took a guide, and travelled for some hours, resting during the great heat of the day ; and then they rode on again from five till ten p.m. Their guide discovered that he had unfor tunately lost his cloak, and had to return to seek it. From ten p.m. to twelve p.m., the party rested on the ground in the middle of the open country, fed their horses, and partook of their midnight lunch ; but they dared not waste more than two hours in rest and sleep. The heat the day before had been terrific, and they were determined to press on as fast as possible during the cool of the night. Water, too, was very scarce, and they could not tarry on that account. Happily a second man had joined them on their road, who was travelling towards Kiryatein, and was glad to find companions. He was able to act as their guide. They were now in the midst of the little Dowh, an immense sandy plain, ten miles wide, bounded on right and left by mountains, and extend ing from Utney to Kiryatein. It is quite flat, except in a few places where it is broken by winter water courses, called ' sayls.' There was no road of any kind; but their way was easy, though extremely monotonous. They saw neither man nor beast, tree nor shrub : only here and there a few desert plants. In some places the horses found it difficult to tread, as their feet were constantly sinking into the ground ; and at first the gentlemen were puzzled as to the cause of this, but they soon discovered that they had invaded the territory of a pretty httle enemy of man- A RIDE THROUGH THE DESERT. 129 kind, the jerboa — a kind of white rat or large mouse, which makes its holes in the ground ; and in places had completely honeycombed the earth for great distances. They did not reach Kiryatein, their half way house, without great fatigue and exertion. Some times they were so weary and exhausted, that they fell asleep on the backs of their horses, and were obliged to dismount, and try to rouse themselves by walking ; but when sleep overpowered them, even when walking, they were compelled two or three times to tether their horses to the iron pegs they carried with them, and throw themselves flat on the ground for a few moments' sleep. These little naps refreshed them, and they could again mount and press for ward. After passing Utney, the ruins of En-Nasariya were pointed out on their right, curiously situated close to the Jerud salt-plain (or lake in winter) ; and, strange to say, the Moslems call it Medinat Loot, or the City of Lot, connecting it, of course erroneously, with the land of Sodom and Gomorrah. They also crossed traces of the wonderful underground canal which probably supplied that ancient city with water. This system of water- works resembles that of drainage in Europe, except that the canal is much deeper and larger than an English main-drain ; and at short intervals is open to the surface by means of shafts, by which men descend to the drain or canal every year for the purpose of keeping it clean. This mode of collecting water in extensive plains in Syria is to be seen in various places in this district, such as that between Kiteifeh and Utney, where we passed several ; 9 130 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. as well as at Nebk and Deir- Atiya; also at Ashrafiya, and Sahnaya, south of Damascus. It seems to have had its origin in very ancient times, as no other means of collecting water would appear to have existed in those parts where it was used, the mountains being far away. But the ruins of En-Nusariya and the remains of water-canals were passed at the beginning of this long and dreary ride ; and after they were left behind, nothing of interest occurred to break the monotony of the long dark ride. But the longest night must have an end, and about nine a.m. on Saturday morning they reached Kuryatein, where they were kindly received and entertained by the Mohammedan sheikh. Here they rested during the remainder of Saturday and the whole of Sunday, endeavouring at the same time to seize every opportunity of speaking and reading to the poor ignorant Moslems and Christians of this remote village.* While they were resting here, the Kiteifehguide,who had returned to look for his lost cloak, arrived with a long tale to tell of his toilsome, fruitless search in the lonely wilderness. He had suffered much from hunger and thirst, for the supply of food and water were with the three travellers, and he had none. At one point he had been greatly alarmed by seeing a party of 150 mounted Bedouin cross his path at a point which the gentlemen had passed not very long before, but they were preserved and hidden by the darkness and by the good hand of God upon them. They would gladly have found the Bedouin quietly encamped along * By some, Kiryatein is thought to be the Hazar-enan of Scripture (Num. xxxiv. 9, 10 ; Ezek. xlvii. 17). A RIDE THROUGH THE DESERT. 131 their route, for then they would have been able to have entered their tents and claimed their hospitality, and held pleasant intercourse with them; but an encounter with 150 Arabs out on a robbing excursion was a very different matter, and they heard with thankful ness of their escape. Still they had a long journey before them, and they knew that no water could be obtained along the whole route. After some consideration, therefore, it was decided that they should water their horses, and fill the httle water-jars they carried with them, about noon on the Monday ; and that they should then start immediately, and endeavour to reach Tadmor the next day. This they accordingly did, and at seven p.m. they reached the ancient ruins of Kasr-ul-Kheir, which in former times consisted of a small but very strong fort, intended no doubt for the protection of travellers. It stands in the midst of a dry, arid plain, but close to it are the remains of a reservoir and aqueduct, which brought in a supply of water from the Ain-ul-Wu'ul, or Fountain of Wild Goats, several miles distant. They had now entered the Great Dowh, a plain seventy miles long, and from eight to seventeen wide. It stretches from Kiryatein to Tadmor, with no inequalities except a few small water-courses ; so that in front and behind, the horizon bounds the traveller's view, while on the right and left are mountain-ranges. This great plain has an aspect of solitariness and lone liness too profound to describe ; and as they rode along quietly, they saw neither man nor beast from the moment they left the outskirts of Kiryatein until they arrived at the confines of Tadmor. Occasionally 9—2 132 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. they noticed a few starlings and larks, and at Kasr-ul- Kheir four or five ravens* were lodging in its ruins as its only inhabitants ; and_ their presence, as they fluttered about over their heads in the ruins, only made the feeling of loneliness more impressive ; while, of course, the knowledge that at any moment they might be surprised by welcome or unwelcome visitors added to the romance of their situation in the midst of this dreary solitude. There is no road through the Great Dowh, and the travellers had to steer their course by the moun tains, keeping as nearly as possible in the middle of the plain ; and, as darkness drew on, by the stars of heaven. At midnight they halted, and slept on the ground till about four a.m., a httle before the moon set, the horses being picketed around them. At five they saw the sun rise over Tadmor itself, and then they knew that they were drawing near their destination, though several hours' riding still lay before them ; but there were many flowers and strange desert plants scattered over parts of the plain : indeed in some places the soil seemed fertile, and only needing cultivation ; in others, it was dry and sandy, and the troublesome little jerboa caused great annoyance to the horses. Twenty days before, both the Little and the Great Dowh had been full of Bedouin tents ; but having, like the locusts, eaten up every green thing, the Arabs had taken flight to other regions. The travellers were therefore disappointed in one pur pose of their journey: that is, they found no Bedouin to visit. * Isa. xxxiv. 11. A RIDE THROUGH THE DESERT. 133 Across this plain they pursued their way without finding a single tree or a tiny stream of water ; but they purposely travelled by night, that neither they nor their horses might suffer more than was necessary from thirst. As they approached Tadmor, they noticed on the left a part of the plain covered with the terebinth-tree ; and a httle farther on, the ruins of an old aqueduct which had once conveyed pure water to the famous capital of Zenobia. Some time before they reached the city, they per ceived some of its mausoleums ; and when they came up to the rising ground on which they stand, the once magnificent but now ruined city burst on their view. But, I am sorry to say, it awoke no raptures in our travellers ; they were so worn out and exhausted by twenty-four hours in the saddle, the last part of which had been spent beneath a burning sun, that I am afraid the first idea was that at last they had reached a haven of rest — a spot where they might hope to quench their burning thirst. It was two p.m., and the ruins lay before them, drowned, if I may so speak, in the dazzling light of a Syrian sun, without a vestige of green, except some tiny gardens, or shade of any kind to relieve the aching eye ; and their first feeling was one of sadness and extreme amazement that such a situation could have been chosen for a city of im perial grandeur. They went with all haste to the spring from which they were told all the people drank, but, to their dis appointment, found the water warm and sulphurous, and unsatisfying ; but were told that it became cold and more drinkable when kept for a little time in the 134 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. house, and were assured that it was very good for their health. After watering their horses, they entered the city by an ancient gateway, and proceeded to the house of Sheikh Muhammad AbduUah, who received them kindly,. and did his best to make them comfort able. He and all the rest of the inhabitants are housed within the ruins of the once splendid Temple of the Sun. There are probably only about forty or fifty families hving in Tadmor at present, the city which was once teeming with life and gaiety. The present inhabitants are chiefly Mohammedan peasants, with a few Christians. Our travellers partook of a very simple meal in the sheikh's house, but were too weary to begin a regular exploration of the ruins till the next morning ; so they spent some httle time in talking and reading to the people. The next morning they wandered about the Temple of the Sun, visiting some of the houses on their way. This temple is 470 feet long, and the magnificent pillars, 70 feet high, resemble those of Baalbec ; and my hus band was particularly struck with the beautiful carving over the entrances, and in the ceihngs of two small chambers. Outside the walls of the temple are the remains of the once splendid colonnades for which Tadmor is peculiarly famous; probably no city in Europe could ever boast such a display of columns with tastefully engraved entablatures, while each pillar has a bracket on which once stood the statues of the day. Many of these pillars still remain, but not one of the statues stands on its place, though many of the inscriptions can still be read. They walked 4 I A RIDE THROUGH THE DESERT. 137 from end to end of the first colonnade, which would have been the chief thoroughfare of the city in old times. It was about 4,000 feet long, lined on either side with a double row of pillars, ending at the south in a most tastefully ornamented triumphal arch. At one of the crossways were four splendid red granite pillars standing on pedestals of some height. Many pillars are now prostrate, but enough remain standing to give the visitor such an impression as can never be forgotten of the beauty of this wonderful city of antiquity, built on so strange a site. On the one side were the baked, barren mountains, and on the other the waste, howling wilderness. Of the beautiful palm- trees from which it derived its name, only two or three small specimens remain ; and what was said of Jeru salem may well be said of it, ' How is the gold become dim, and the most fine gold changed !'* Several Roman Emperors visited Tadmor and helped to adorn it, especially Hadrian ; but now the proud, the gifted, and the polished who once paraded those thoroughfares are in the dust, and their work in ruins. Another striking feature of the Tadmor ruins are its mausoleums, built outside the walls on the heights to the west, in the form of great towers ; and in fact the lonely, sad scene is made up of ruined colonnades, temples and tombs, each telling its own tale of the past. The weather was very hot, but the travellers followed the sulphurous stream to a little distance outside the city, almost to its source, and there, under the shade of an old mill, they indulged in a delightful * Lam. iv. 1. 138 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. bath, which they found especially refreshing after their long rides : the warm sulphurous water did not need the addition of soap, but formed a perfect lather, and speedily removed aU impurities from the skin. They remained in Tadmor from Tuesday afternoon tih Thursday at noon, and then started on the return journey. As they reached the ridge on' which the mausoleums stand, they looked over the salt-plain, about an hour's ride to the west of the ruins, shining white in the midst of the grey, arid desolation, and beyond to the boundless desert, level as the sea, with out a mountain as far as Bagdad and Nejd. The Bedouin call it Ish-shoal and Hamad, and reckon it their own peculiar possession, where they can roam with unfettered freedom, except when the tribes are contending with each other, which I am sorry to say the descendants of ' the wild man ' delight in doing. One of the nights that the travellers spent at Tadmor, a ' Ghuzu,' or robbing expedition, visited the salt-fields ; and although they were guarded by the Government, the Arabs succeeded in carrying off several camel- loads of salt. Not long after the travellers left Tadmor, an alarm was raised that the Arabs were coming ; but happily, as the supposed robbing-party drew gradually nearer, they resolved themselves into a peaceful band of merchantmen on their way to Tadmor. Though it proved a false alarm on their part, yet soon after they reached Kiryatein they heard that a party of natives had been attacked, and robbed of their laden animals, not far from that village. About eleven a.m. on Friday they reached Kiryatein in safety, but very tired and exhausted ; for unfortu- A RIDE THROUGH THE DESERT. 139 nately their stock of provisions had failed them, and they suffered both from hunger and thirst. At Kiryatein they heard of a place called UI Hama, about three hours' ride to the north, where there is a curious and very powerful natural vapour-bath. It was evidently known and used in ancient times, for there is still the ruins of an old building which was erected over it with a small opening in the flooring to allow the hot steam to blow up into the bath-room; and this it does with such noise and force that anyone inside is soon bathed with vapour. They wished very much to visit the place and see for themselves ; but the poor horses were greatly fatigued, and it was not advisable to lengthen the journey. About three hours west of Kiryatein they came to Haw-wareen, where there are the ruins of what people think were old churches. One was certainly very ancient, and the other also old, but in a very good state of preservation. The first was evidently a church, very massively built of large stones, some of them pedestals of pillars of a still more ancient building ; possibly from the time of Solomon, as this place and Imheen, half an hour to the west, where there is also a similar ruin, are supposed by some to be the Upper and Nether Beth-horon, built by Solomon at the time he built Tadmor.* They intended to spend Saturday night and Sunday with the Bedouin at Ul-Humeira, but were again doomed to disappointment; on arriving there late after sunset, they had the vexation to find the place * 2 Chron. viii. 4, 5. 140 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. deserted, and the Arabs gone beyond their ken. All they could do was to dismount, open their saddle-bags, and spread the little supper they had with them on the ground, and eat it in the dark. After riding on again for some distance, they found that there was no alternative but to spend the night in the open air. They picketed the horses close to them, and lay down on the ground to sleep. They rose at three a.m., and reached Deir- Atiya at 5.30 on Sunday morning, just as the people were awaking and sending out their large flocks of goats to pasture. They had breakfast with the Protestant teacher, and gladly joined with him and a few others in worship ; and in the afternoon sought opportunities of speaking to the people in the streets and houses on the truths of the Bible. They were interrupted in a strange way by being called to act the part of lawyer, and settle a serious dispute which had arisen between some of the peasants about the water. In this district, and in fact in many of the flat parts of Central and Northern Syria, the cultivated land round the villages and cities is watered, like Egypt, by means of artificial irrigation.* - Little channels are formed from the principal stream, and the water turned off at certain hours, and for a certain time, into each man's vineyard or field. Perhaps the appointed hour may only occur in some cases once a week, or once in ten days. In the district of Deir- Atiya and Nebk, most of the men are provided with sand hour-glasses, and they keep a most jealous watch over the water, not only to obtain their supply at the appointed hour, but to see that exactly the right * Deut. xi. 10. A RIDE THROUGH THE DESERT. 141 quantity was allowed to flow into their land. The water, therefore, is a fruitful source of quarrels and even fights among the villagers. In this instance the dispute was about a very nice point ; in fact, it needed almost mathematical accuracy to settle it, from the way in which the water had to be divided and sub divided, and therefore these men were anxious to refer the matter to a European, hoping to get strict justice from him. The travellers were most thankful for the quiet rest of the Sunday and the kind hospitality of their host ; and early on Monday morning they resumed their journey to Damascus, visiting on their way some of our old friends at Nebk and Yabrud. They spent that night in the convent of the Greek Catholic Church at Maalula. This is a strange, romantic spot. The village is situated in a deep precipitous gorge, and many of the houses are built in recesses or clefts of the rocks, so that in some cases the rocks overhang them. The convent stands at the upper end of the village, overlooking all the houses, as if it were intended to protect and overawe them. It is very strongly built, and occupies the most healthy position of all the dwellings. The monk in charge gave them a very hospitable reception, and did all he could to make them and their horses comfortable for the night. He was there as the agent of the patriarch to collect the fruits of the rich convent property, and he showed them some of the farm operations which occupied much of his time, such as making cheese and wine. Maalula is one of the few villages where Syriac is 142 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. still spoken as well as Arabic. In spite of its splendid and romantic situation, I am sorry to say it is a very dirty village, and woe to the traveller who tries to spend a night in one of its houses ; innumerable bugs will seize upon him as their lawful prey. In the convent, the travellers spent a fairly comfortable night, and early next morning were again on their way. They passed through Saidnaya, and visited some of the people there ; and a little after sunset, tired and weary, they reached Damascus, where their coming had been anxiously expected. CHAPTER XI. AGRICULTURAL LIFE — SOWING. Our last expedition was far away into the desert to the north-east of Damascus, to the borders of the land where wheat and barley, grapes and figs, olive and mulberry trees cannot grow. After such an outing, it is never pleasant, even in thought, to return to city-life. We may therefore be pardoned if we leave the study of the habits and customs of the proud Damascenes, with their fine houses, and grand dresses, and ceremonious visiting, and plunge fairly into farm and village hfe, even though we may have to leave the district of country still called Bar-esh- Sham, or the country of Damascus. If we make the best use of our opportunities, we may be able to en lighten some of our Damascus friends on certain subjects of which I fear they are almost as ignorant as most Londoners were before the introduction of railways. From time to time many of the Christians have been driven from the city by war or persecution, or an outbreak of cholera, to take refuge in the villages or country towns ; but the Moslems seldom travel, and many a young Mohammedan of twenty or thirty is just as bigoted and narrow-minded as his fore- 144 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. fathers were, because he has never seen the world, not even the material world from which he gets his daily bread. They just traverse the streets to and from their shops, and look down with contempt on the poor fellaheen, to whom they owe so much. I have been asked to describe an Eastern farm ; but I must say I am a little puzzled how to do so. I have sometimes tried to find an Arabic word expressing exactly what we English mean by a farm ; but I have never yet discovered it, because the thing itself hardly exists. The nearest is 'hosh'- — a kind of farmyard ; or ' mazraa ' — a piece of land which has been sown, and with two or three mud cottages standing in its midst. In the great towns most of the people are given up to trade, though some own lands outside the cities. In the villages almost all the people are farmers : that is, each family, however poor, has a piece of ground, a vineyard, an oliveyard, or a cornfield, one or two goats, a donkey, or a cow. The richer have many fields and vineyards, and many animals, but they all live close together in the village street ; and, though all are farmers, you rarely find exactly what in Eng- . land is called a farm, that is, a house in the middle of the country, standing in a pretty little garden, with barns and outhouses, poultry-yards and cowsheds, and surrounded with well-cultivated fields. If we want to learn about the agricultural life of the people in Syria, we must go and spend a few months in one of these villages. One strange thing I may as well mention : In Ire land the people are trying to get rid of the landlords, AGRICULTURAL LIFE — SOWING. 145 and each man wants a bit of land for himself. In Syria for ages the land has been almost entirely the people's on payment of certain tithes and taxes to the Government ; and numbers are now sunk in debt, because they have had to borrow money to till their ground at a high rate of interest. Some of these poor people, tired of the long struggle with money- difficulties, are beginning to sell their land to rich men with capital, preferring to work for them for settled wages, than to remain owners with no money to work it. Some of these rich landlords are beginning to in troduce European improvements, and to erect farm- buildings. In England, farms are divided chiefly into two classes — those devoted to raising corn and those for pasture-land for sheep and cattle ; but Syria even now, when it is so imperfectly cultivated, yields a greater variety of produce. In the latter, we have wheat and barley, and Indian corn, but no oats or rye ; we have olive-yards and vineyards, apricot and mulberry- plantations, fields of hemp, and madder, and darnel, beans and lentiles, gardens of tobacco, forests of pine- trees, rows of prickly pears, and orchards of figs and pomegranates, and bananas, oranges, and lemons. In spite of misgovernment and poverty, it is still ' a pleasant land ;'* and once more it may yet become ' a goodly land ' — ' the glory of all lands.'f The climate of Syria, it has often been said, varies from the tropical heat of Jericho, to the cold of per- * Dan. viii. 9. t Ezek. xx. 6, 15 ; Dan. xi. 16 ; Neh. ix. 25. 10 146 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. petual snow on the summit of Hermon ; so it is easy to see that we shall search in vain for a typical village: that is, for one that possesses aU these riches. I am afraid we must be prepared to pay a number of visits in different parts of the country if we want to get acquainted with the various kinds of agriculture. David, we read,* had different men appointed over the storehouses and tillers of the ground, over the vineyards and wine-cellars, over the olive-yards and cellars of oil, over the herds of cattle, over the asses and flocks of sheep ; and, perhaps, we cannot do better than follow his division of labour, only begin ning with the tillers of the ground before we mention the storehouses. The principal object of the tillers of the ground is, of course, to produce corn. Wheat and barley will grow in almost any part of the land, in the hot valleys of the Jordan, and to a height of about 5,000 feet on Lebanon; but Dhura, or Indian corn, only in plains where it can be watered. The beautiful plam of Sharon,-}- stretching inland and along the sea- coast north of Jaffa, the ancient Joppa,j and that of Esdraelon, extending from Shunem to Carmel,§ would still produce abundance of corn as in days of old ; but they are only very partially cultivated now, on account of the oppression of the Government, and the inroads of the Bedouin. At present the Hauran, the ancient Land of Bashan,|| and the Bukaa, or Ccele Syria, are the chief granaries of the land ; and not * 1 Chron. xxvii. 25 — 31 ; Uzziah also ; 2 Chron. xxvi. 10. f Isa. xxxv. 2. ± Jonah i. 3 ; Acts ix. 36. § 2 Kings iv. 8—25. | Num. xxi. 33 ; Jer. 1. 19. AGRICULTURAL LIFE — SOWING. 147 only supply all the inhabitants need, but, in fruitful seasons, large quantities are exported to distant countries. In the Bukaa, we shall be able to watch the pro ceedings of the tiller of the ground, and of the herds man, while some of the mountains enclosing it are chiefly clothed with vineyards. Our first visit, there fore, shah be to Zahleh and Maalaka, two large villages adjoining one another, and together forming a town of some 12,000 or 14,000 inhabitants. This town is a favourite resort of the Damascus Christians when they need a little country air. In Zahleh we shall easily find comfortable rooms, plenty of fresh, cold water, and, even in the great heat of summer, we shall have cool nights. It stands on the slope of the Lebanon, and commands a splendid view of the fine plain, 90 miles long and 9 or 10 wide, which stretches along at its feet, bounded on the other side by the anti-Lebanon. It is dotted over with tiny mud villages, inhabited by the peasants or fellaheen, and is watered by the Litany, the ancient Leontes, and other streams. It is very pleasant to go out at early morning, or towards sunset, and stand on a point of the moun tain and watch the varied tints in the plain below, and the ever-varying lights and shadows on the lofty range opposite. I cannot attempt to describe it. The words in which David* depicts a similar scene, per haps that of the valleys and hills around Bethlehem, convey the best idea of the landscape. We shall find plenty to interest us if we spend * Psa. Ixv. 8—13. 10—2 148 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. several months in this httle town. It has plenty of shops, such as they are, and plenty of churches, Greek, Catholic, and one Protestant. Suppose we take up our abode there in the autumn, about November, we shall find the roads, and moun tains, and fields dried up with the long summer heat and perfectly white with dust ; but the time of rain is drawing near, and the people are watching intently for the first signs of a break-up of the weather. It may come at once, or they may have got several weeks to wait, and watch, and pray that God will be merciful and send ' the rain of their land in his due season.'* Each day as it passes increases their anxiety ; wheat and barley rise in price, and, unless it come soon, there will be a bad look-out for next year. Prayer is made in all the churches, and the sky is anxiously scanned at night to see if any light ning is to be seen playing about the summits of the westernf mountains — the sure precursor of coming rain. It may be Christmas Day, or even later, before the welcome sound of the first downpour is heard. Great are the rejoicings j of young and old when 'the heavens become black with clouds and wind, and there is a great rain.'§ As a rule, however, the rain comes earlier than this. On the higher parts of Lebanon, a few heavy showers invariably fall about the ' Eid es Saleeb ' (the Feast of the Cross, September 15th), and after that a httle ploughing is done; but it is not till after the rains of November or December have fairly set in that * Deut. xi. 14, 15. t Luke xii. 54. X Joel ii. 23. § 1 Kings xviii. 45. AGRICULTURAL LIFE — SOWING. 149 the great operations of ploughing and sowing begin in downright earnest. The summer heat has made the soil almost as hard as a rock ; but as soon as the first showers have fallen and soaked into the ground, all the fellaheen will prepare their rude ploughs and begin their labour. The land is not generally divided into fields, separated by hedges or walls, but simply by the course of a stream, by the road, by a row of rocks, or the edge of a hill, or something of that kind. Very often the land simply belongs to the village, and in that case, when ploughing-time comes, a meeting is held, and the land divided out by lot to the owners of ploughs, the divisions being frequently marked by placing large stones as landmarks; and no greater crime can be committed than to remove one of these.* As soon as the rain ceases a httle, we will ride down into the plain and watch the peasants at their work. It will be very pleasant to see the country fresh, and green, and bright ' in the clear shining after rain;'-}- and as we go, we shall see everyone ah alive and busy, dehghted that the rain has come at last. On many of the housetops we shall notice people rolling their flat mud roofs with heavy stone roUers, that, when more rain falls, it may not soak through and drip, drip, drip upon all their best furniture, like the irritating words of Solomon's con tentious woman.| We shall find plenty of mud and little running streams to ride through, for when it does rain in Syria, it rains in good earnest. * Deut. xix. 14. t 2 Sam. xxiii. 4. + Prov. xix. 13. 150 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. As soon as we reach the plain, and come in sight of the ploughmen, we must give them the customary salute, ' II awafeh !' (' Your health !'), to which they will reply, ' Allah Yuafeek !' (' May God give you health!'). When we notice the rude, rough imple ments they are using, we are not surprised that Ehsha* did not scruple to burn them when he wanted a fire ; they could easily be replaced, and at little cost. The plough is simply a sharp piece of pointed iron with a wooden handle. It is attached by a long pole to a clumsy yoke, which rests on the neck of a pair of oxen. The yoke is made entirely of wood, and consists of a straight rough pole, into which are fixed four short pieces of wood ; two are so arranged as to fit the neck of one ox, and two to fit the other. Between the two is fixed the pole of the plough. Each man, while he guides the plough with one hand, carries in the other a goad, sometimes ten feet long, with a sharp iron spike at one end, with which he every now and then pricks the poor ox-f- to urge it on, if it is inchned to be lazy, tor ' unaccustomed to the yoke.'j Sometimes the ox gets angry and re bellious, and ' kicks against the pricks,' § and wounds himself more deeply than his master intends. At the other end of the goad is a piece of iron formed some thing hke a scoop or chisel, which is used to remove the earth from the plough when it gets choked up with it, or to break the harder clods which hinder the plough. Of course these goads must be kept sharp, and a file is used for that purpose.|| * 1 Kings xix. 21. fEccles. xii. 11. J Jer. xxxi. 18. § Acts ix. 5. II 1 Sam. xiii. 21. AGRICULTURAL LIFE — SOWING. 151 In the Bukaa the ploughmen have little to fear from robbers, and we shall find them ploughing quietly one in one part, and another in another ; but in many districts they go out in companies, and remain close together for self-defence. Their httle ploughs make no regular furrow, but just scratch up. the surface of the ground to a depth of about six inches. Some times we may see ten or twelve, or more, ploughs all at work together.* The Bedouins very seldom take the trouble to sow seed, preferring to rob their neighbour's corn-fields instead: still some do, and there is a tribe, east of the Lejah, who occasionally try to raise a little corn on their own account, and with a plough more simple still : for they just scratch up the earth by dragging a number of branches over it. We must not hinder our Bukaa ploughmen at their work, they will be glad to get as much done as possible while the weather is fair ; but we will ride on to the nearest of the poor mud villages, where they live, and talk to some of the old people left behind. Some of the houses are so small, and dark, and dirty, that we can hardly venture into them ; but we will see if we can find the old Sheikh at home, and he will tell us some of the troubles of .the ploughman : how if the rains are late in beginning, he must labour hard to prepare the land quickly for the seed ; he must not loiter or delay,-}- but, come rain, or storm, or snow, he must persevere ; for ' if he will not plough by reason of the cold, he shall beg in harvest.'! Poor old Abou Ibrahim will be very glad to get a * 1 Kings xix. 19. + Luke ix. 62. X Prov. xx. 4. 152 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. chat with us as he sits smoking his long pipe, and will be ready to teach us all we want to learn about plough ing and sowing. He will tell us that a pair of oxen are usually employed for ploughing ; but if no oxen can be got, the people are obliged to do the best they can, and yoke an ox and an ass together.* Sometimes camels are used, but not often ; and if a man is very poor, and can neither beg nor borrow an ox, why, he must just fasten a rope to his plough, and sling it over the shoulders of his wife or daughter ! He sees such an idea shocks us a little, but hardly under stands why. We must remember that a peasant's wife in Syria has plenty of hard work to do, and hard words to bear ; and her husband is ready enough to drive her on, though he has not much thought of helping her as a true yoke-fellow, or of sharing the burdenf which is heavy for one, but light for two. We question him about sowing, and he shows us a bag of barley, and a second of wheat, which his sons have been carefuUy treasuring up for the purpose, adding, ' Thank God, we have enough this year ; we shall not have to starve as we did last year !' Then he tells us if the harvest is bad one year how hard it is to save enough for sowing the next — how sometimes the men have indeed ' to goj forth, weeping, bearing precious seed,' because they have to take almost the last bit of seed from their houses, and leave their children literally without bread for some weeks before the harvest comes. During the interval, they will have to live on milk, or on what they call grass : that is, on the different kinds of herbs fit to eat, which the * Deut. xxii. 10. f Matt. xi. 28—30. + Psa. cxxvi. 5. AGRICULTURAL LIFE — SOWING. 153 women are very clever at discovering among the grass in the plain, or on the mountain-side. Sometimes my husband, when travelling in early spring, has reached a village, tired and hungry, and been told that there is not even a bit of barley-bread in the place. Happily this does not happen very often. We say to Abou Ibrahim that if the rich land about us were better tilled, such things would never occur ; and tell him about the fine ploughs and harrows we have in England, but he hardly cares to hear. His father, and his grandfather, and his great grandfather, up to the time of Moses, have used the same ; and what need has he of anything better than they had ? As soon* as the ploughing is done, perhaps before it is all finished, they will begin to sow first beans and lentils, then barley and wheat. Corn is generally sown broadcast ; and we need not go far to find examples of seed falling on the wayside, and among stones and tb.orns.-j- But it is time to return home ; and, promising to pay our old friend a second visit later in the season, we rise to go. He also rises to his feet, and accom panies us a httle on our way ; and then, with a ' ma salameh,' ' go in peace,' he returns to his poor httle hut. It is well, perhaps, that we paid our visit to the plain when we did, for the winter sets in with unusual severity. Lightning and thunder,! unknown during the hot season, flash and roar, and torrents of rain descend. One wild storm succeeds another, and the * Isa. xxviii. 24, 25. \ Matt. xiii. 2—7. + Job xxxvii. 1—6. 154 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. people shut themselves up in their houses, and cower over their httle pans of charcoal. The rich men and women wrap themselves in robes and jackets hned with fur, and the poor in sheepskins,* or in any warm clothes they can get. At last one morning we wake to find our door barricaded with snow. The whole hillside is white, and already people are astir clearing it off their flat roofs ; for, should it melt, it will stream through them as through a sieve. As we sit an(i shiver over our breakfast, we almost envy poor Abou Brahim in his mud cabin ; for he must, at least, be some degrees warmer down in the plain, than we are on the hill side. But we must not murmur. Such weather is needed to fill the wells, and springs, and rivers, and to water the deep roots of the fruit trees. Abundance of winter rain means generally an abundant harvest. -}• After all, Zahleh is not the coldest place in Syria ; news will come by-and-by of higher mountain villages being buried in snow. Damascus and Jerusalem, as well as Zahleh and Maalaka, are robed in white. The carriage road between Damascus and Beyrout, which crosses the Lebanon at a height of 5,000 feet or more, will be stopped for traffic, perhaps for a month ; but at frequent intervals we shall have brilliant days of sunshine, when the snow will sparkle like diamonds, and Mount Hermon, dressed from head to foot in white, will look its grandest. And all the while the people in the deep valleys of the Jordan, and on the sea-coast at Tyre and Sidon, and Jaffa, and Gaza, who have never travelled far, will be wishing they could only see a single flake of * Heb. xi. 37. t Isa. Iv. 10. AGRICULTURAL LIFE — SOWING. 155 snow as it falls, and understand exactly what it is that clothes the distant hills in white. At this season we should not forget the poor plough men, who must continue their work till all the seed is sown, whatever the weather may be ; nor those whose business compels them to travel at all seasons, namely, the muleteers, whose laden animals transport all articles of merchandise from place to place, and indeed repre sent the luggage-trains of England. Nearly every winter we hear of men who have lost their lives in the snow, or have reached home with difficulty. 'Who can stand before his cold?'* During such weather the wild beasts are sometimes driven down from the higher mountains into the neighbourhood of towns. Wolves are often heard not far from Zahleh, while in the district north of Damascus, where gazelles abound, we were told that these naturally timid creatures, waxing bold through cold and hunger, sometimes seek shelter in the villages. * Psa. cxlvii. 16—18. CHAPTER XII. SPRING. Some weeks must elapse before the rains cease entirely, and we feel inclined to pay another visit to the plain, but when we do we shall find that a change has passed over the face of the earth. As we ride through the village, we shall notice * grass and tiny flowers grow ing on many a house-top, and as soon as we enter the vineyards, we shall see that spring has really come. For many weeks they have been looking bare and deserted; the vines have been trailing their naked black branches along the ground, looking withered and almost dead, and having ' no form or comehness.'t At the end of winter the vine-dressers have been busy among them, J pruning the fruitful branches, and cutting away many barren shoots, which have been carried away to supply § fuel for the village oven or bath-house. Now we shah see the first faint tint of green appearing on the vines, and people busy among them turning up the earth around the roots, and painting rings of tar on each stem in different places to preserve them from the ravages of a large kind of * Psa. cxxix. 6. t Isa. liii. 2. * John xv. 2. § John xv. 6. SPRING. 157 hairy worm which dehghts in crawling up the branches and devouring the leaves. Before long, the sweet- smelling tiny blossom will appear, and when the fruit forms, each vine will be propped up that the grapes may have space to hang. As we ride along we shall notice the spring flowers beginning to appear, but we shall look in vain for snowdrops and primroses and cowslips, but instead we shall see banks covered both in autumn and spring with crocuses, and occasionally tulips. The wild cyclamen, as large and perfect as the English green house specimens, will be seen growing as plentifuUy as daisies, and before long the mountains and fields will be scarlet with lovely pheasant's-eye and the anemone, by some supposed to be ' the lily of the field.'* When we reach the plain we shall find it looking very beautiful. The tops of the mountains are still covered with snow, and the air in the vale below is still fresh and exhilarating. The corn will now be well up, and just beginning to come into ear, and the poor peasants are hoping to have a good harvest after the plentiful rains of winter. In some places, though the barley and wheat seem to be growing thickly, yet the fellaheen are not quite content, and are watching the further development of the grain with some anxiety. They know ' that ah is not gold that glitters,' and they fear that tares are growing up with the wheat only too plentifuUy, but the blade of wheat and the blade of the tare resemble each other so com pletely that tiU the grain is weU formed they wiU not be able to distinguish the two, and even should their *Matt. vi. 28. 158 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. suspicions prove correct, they can do nothing; they cannot separate them tiU the harvest comes.* Not very far from the foot of the hiU below Zahleh and Maalaka, we shall come to a large piece of pasture land where the grass has been allowed to grow to a height of from six to eighteen inches, and here we shall find a great number of horses tethered in rows under the charge of two men. They belong to people in different parts of the country, but have been sent here by their owners for a month or six weeks to eat the fresh grass. It is very pleasant to go in and out among them, and notice the intense earnestness with which they address themselves to their task of eating as much as possible, while the young foals gambol about together like so many children at play. Of course all horses cannot be sent out to grass in the spring, but in many of the towns and villages bundles of grass are, sold every morning at this season for those which have to remain at home. In some cases a quantity is stored away green for future consumption, but grass is never made into hay. Other parts of the plain wiU be covered with grazing cattle, and among the cows, and feeding side by side with them, we shaU notice a number of buffaloes, kept also for their milk and for their labour. It is not always very easy at this season to ride far along the plain. We shah have to cross innumerable little streams, and shaU not always be able to make sure of a good bottom. We must try and cross where we see traces of others having crossed before us, and if this is not always possible, it would be well to send the lightest of our * Matt. xiii. 27—30. SPRING. 159 party over first, with instructions to be careful, for there is danger of sinking deeply in the mud.* In fact, nearly every year a cow or a buffalo may perish by sinking in some treacherous bog. If we can succeed in reaching a quiet place in the opposite mountains, we may have a chance of hearing a sound always dear to Enghsh ears in a foreign land, the note of the cuckoo. But at such a season we must not tarry too long in Zahleh and the Bukaa. The people have a saying that if you would see paradise on earth, you should go to Damascus in the spring. We can hardly do better than take advantage of the still moderate weather, and on our way back to the ancient city, pay a visit to the grand old ruins of Baalbec. Before we start, we must take leave of the Enghsh lady who superintends the two British Syrian schools for girls, and of her good native teachers and Biblewomen, not forgetting the two earnest American missionaries and their wives, aU of whom, while we have been watching the sower sow his seed, have been dihgently trying to sow that seed which can never perish. Not many years ago this was indeed a rough, uncultivated field, overrun with thorns and briers, and the first seed of the Gospel was sown with difficulty. An American missionary was hteraUy driven out of the town ; a native Protestant was beaten and insulted, but as he rose up and left the place, he prayed that on that very spot a Protes tant church might yet be buUt. In spite of aU these storms of persecution, efforts were stUl made from time to time to introduce the good seed, and at length it * Psa. lxix. 2, 14. 160 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. began to take root and spring up, a scanty blade here and there. After a time it was resolved to bufld a Protestant church, and after much consultation and comparing of sites, the very one was selected where our good native friend had been beaten. Now a goodly little company has been gathered in, by the blessing of God on the united efforts of Enghsh and American labourers. We make our start early next morning, riding down the northern side of the town as the people begin to stir and open their shops. Below us is the httle river which flows down from the mountains, and sup plies the whole town with fresh, cold water. It is almost hidden at this point by the taU poplar trees, which form quite a forest along its banks. Early as it is, the bells of the Greek Catholic churches are ringing for the feast of some saint unknown to most English people ; but the bells in Zahleh, as in Malta, hardly cease aU the year round. In a short time we reach Maalaka, a busy httle place, where an early market is held, and though it adjoins Zahleh, it differs from it. The former is under the government of the Pasha of the Lebanon, who is appointed by the European powers, and it has the best government in the land, and the latter is under the Governor of Syria. In Zahleh there is hardly a Mohammedan family, but in Maalaka a considerable proportion of the population is Mo hammedan. Passing through Maalaka, we soon find ourselves in the open country, and must be prepared for a long straight ride along the plain, with httle to break the monotony of the road. On our left we notice the tiny viUage which boasts that it possesses SPRING. 161 the real tomb of Noah, and the people teU you that though it is more than forty yards long, it did not prove long enough for the good man, and that the people who buried him were obliged to dig a pit at the end, into which they folded down his legs from the knees. From this point we ride on to Tullya, our half-way house, where we may rest a little whUe, and lunch on whatever our saddle-bags may produce, and then we must resume our journey. In a short time we see in the far, far distance six of the beautiful pillars of Baal bec, sixty feet high, standing out clearly against the sky ; but we shaU have need of patience and persever ance. We ride on and on, and yet seem to make httle way; but at last we are delighted to find our selves reaUy nearing the dirty little town, and at length pull up at the door of the hotel. Baalbec, strange to say, thanks to its splendid ruins, which attract so many traveUers, can boast two hotels, and we must hasten to dine and rest awhile, for the night is a splendid one, and as soon as the moon rises we must visit the ruins ; like ' fair Melrose,' if we would see them aright, we must ' visit them by pale moonlight.' We shaU find quite enough to astonish and interest us for at least two or three hours as we wander about the Entrance HaU, the Great Temple, and the Temple of the Sun. Such ruins are not to be seen in our own httle isle, and can indeed be equaUed in few other lands. Like the great mosque at Damascus, Baalbec — or Heliopolis — seems to have passed through many changes. Some people think it is Baalgad,* others * Joshua xi. 17. 11 162 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. that it was the House of the Forest of Lebanon:* Cer tainly it was devoted to the worship of the sun, and in the fourth century part of it was used as a Christian church. Before we return to the hotel, we must notice some of the enormous stones in the outer waU, not at the base, but about nineteen feet from the ground; three of these measure over sixty feet in length, and about thirteen feet in height, and are about the same thickness, so that three good-sized rooms might be hewn out of each. How they were carried from the quarry and raised to such a height is a great mystery. A still larger stone hes in a quarry outside the town almost ready for removal, the weight of which has been estimated at from 1,000 to 1,500 tons. Next morning, after a second visit to the ruins, and a little peep at the girls' school, we must resume our journey to Damascus, still two days distant. Our resting-place for the night wiU be at Zebdany, a large viUage so rich in orchards and gardens that, in the season, it supplies a large district of the country with abundance of all kinds of fruits. From Zebdany we go on to Damascus, to find the orchards one mass of snowy blossom ; the peasants in the fields around as busy and hopeful as those we have left in the Bukaa ; the people, Jews, Greeks, and Greek Catholics, by turns celebrating their Easters, which sometimes spread over a space of five weeks, and sometimes occur within a few days of each other; the work-people are all alive, and the town astir, and last, not least, Cook's party, numbering fifty persons, has just arrived, to be followed shortly by Gaze's. * 1 Kings vii. 2—12. SPRING. 163 One thing only made us uneasy as we rode into the town. Along some of the lanes just outside the walls, we noticed a quantity of black insects, ap parently just hatched, crawling along the paths and the banks of the stream, and our muleteer told us very calmly that they are young locusts which have not yet got their wings. We asked him why do not the people sweep them into the stream, or burn them, or destroy them in some way now while they are so easUy managed ? He quietly answered, ' If it is God's wUl they should come, what can we do ?' 11—2 CHAPTER XIII. HARVEST. The time of harvest in Syria and Palestine varies ac cording to the elevation above sea-level, beginning on the sea coast, and in the Valley of the Jordan, in April, and around the highest villages in the Lebanon not till July. In all the great plains, even in the Plain of Damascus, 3,000 feet above the sea, the harvest is completed before the end of June, in fact before the heat of summer has risen to its highest point : first the harvest,* then the summer ; not first the summer, then the harvest, as in England. StiU, in spite of early harvests, corn of all kinds often rises greatly in price just before the new corn is brought into the market, and, unless we have been careful to put in a good supply some months before, we shaU be in straits now. Barley-}- for our horses will pro bably have risen to three times the ordinary price ; and, perhaps, wheat for our own bread will be difficult to procure. In the East we have first the barley! harvest, and in the cities it is always glad news when we hear that new barley has been seen in the market ; and * Jer. viii 20. + 1 Kings iv. 28. i Ruth i. 22 ; Ex. ix. 31, 32. HARVEST. 165 about three weeks or a month later the wheat harvest. During aU this time, the fields are alive with men, women, and children ; but there is none of the rush and hard work which usually accompanies an Enghsh harvest, from the anxiety of the farmers to get the corn safely housed during a few short hours of sunshine. The Syrian farmer has no need to regard the weather ; he is sure that the brightest sun and clearest sky wiU favour his operations, and it does not much matter whether his field is reaped in a day or a week. Such a thing as a thunderstorm in harvest-time is aU but unknown, and should rain fall, the people would 'greatly fear.'* Only once during a sojourn of ten years in the land do I remember to have seen a storm during the harvest. Then, for a short time, heavy rain fell, and it was amusing to watch the anxious, terrified faces of some of the people. Possibly it was caused by some unusual and unhealthy state of the atmosphere, for shortly after cholera broke out, and carried off thousands of people in a few weeks. As soon as harvest begins, numbers of people, men and women, flock to the fields, sometimes travelling a long distance to the grain districts, for example, from Damascus to Bashan, to get work. The men reap the corn with a large sickle ; the women gather it into bundles, and then coUect them into a heap ; and the gleaners follow the women, but are not aUowed to glean between the sheaves nor to drink of the water which has been provided for the reapers. This is often brought in jars from a long distance, and is placed * I Sam. xii. 17 ; Prov. xxvi. 1. 166 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. in the coolest part of' the field and carefuUy hus banded. The gleaners must find their own supply; but Boaz allowed Ruth 'to glean even among the sheaves,'* and ' to drink from the vessels.' From the fields, the corn is carried direct to the threshing-floors, which are simply hard, flat, circular pieces of ground outside the towns and vUlages. They soon become a scene of lively industry, and not unfrequently whole famUies encamp on the threshing- floor,t and remain tiU the work is finished, sometimes because their homes are at a. great distance, and some times simply to protect! their corn from thieves. Each owner of a strip of land brings his corn, and piles it up in the centre of a threshing-floor. In some parts of the land it is then simply trodden out by oxen, but in Syria a threshing instrument is almost always used. It is formed of strong planks of wood joined together, and is about the size of a large house door, and is bent upwards a little at the end. On the lower side are fixed a number of hard, sharp stones, which break the husk like so many teeth. § To this rude threshing instrument a couple of oxen is yoked ; or if a poor peasant has no oxen, a horse, a mule, or a donkey; and though the poor beasts are treading on such tempting food, you seldom see them muzzled.|| They go round and round the great heap hour after hour, and day after day, most patiently,! tiU it is graduaUy worked down, and then it is swept up again into a heap and threshed again, and sometimes even a third time. * Ruth ii. 9, 15. t Ruth i"- 2. +1 Sam. xxiii. 1. § Isa. xii. 15. || Deut. xxv. 4. f Hosea x. 11. HARVEST. 167 It is a very slow process, but the natives prefer it to any new-fashioned European inventions. Indeed, they seem to enjoy threshing-time, and the chUdren especiaUy seem to consider it very good fun; they like to ride on the threshing instrument, and, if no chudren are at hand, the peasant himself generaUy does so, as an additional weight makes it work more effectually, and the oxen must be kept up to their work, and not aUowed to stand still. We have often wandered about these threshing- floors ; sometimes you will find a single one on some level piece on the mountain-side; sometimes, if the country is flat, and the viUage large, you may find thirty or forty close together; and it is pleasant to walk from one to another and talk to the people, giving one of the many salutations, ' May you be blessed !' and receiving the answer, ' The Lord bless you !'* The sheikh, or rich man of the place — such as Ornan,t the Jebusite — wUl have many men and oxen at work ; but they themselves wiU keep a careful over sight, and very likely take their share of the work : their riches probably consist in great part of the pro duce of their land. After the threshing is over, there often comes an anxious waiting time. The winnowing, hke aU the other operations, is done in the open air in a very simple way. The corn is tossed into the air with a large kind of wooden fork, the fan! °f Scripture, and the straw and chaff faU on one side, and the grain on the other. It is necessary therefore to choose a day when the wind blows from the right direction, and when it is neither * Ruth ii. 4. 1 1 Chron. xxi. 22, 23. J Matt. iii. 12 ; Isa. xii. 16. 168 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. too gentle nor too strong. If we watch the peasants as they toss the corn into the air, we shall see that the grain being heavy, falls straight on the ground, the crushed straw, being lighter, is blown aslant, and soon forms a large heap a httle distance off, while what we should caU chaff and dust, being lighter still, faUs at a stiU greater distance, or is blown* com pletely away. The crushed straw is gathered together, and, after being again trodden out by the oxen till it is very small,-}- is carried away and sold at a cheap rate, to be mixed with the barley, which constitutes the ordinary food of horses, mules, and donkeys ; but the chaff is of no use at aU, except to be burned.! Then the grain is roughly sifted, and piled up into one great heap, and stamped with a large wooden seal, tiU the Government has taken the tithe, and then it is carried away. Large quantities are taken at once to the markets, for many people buy their year's supply of corn directly after the harvest ; and, in abundant seasons, considerable quantities are ex ported^ The rest is stored away in barns, or not un frequently in underground pits|| prepared on purpose, and generaUy about eight feet deep. They are care fully cemented to exclude damp, and the opening is so small that it can be easily concealed. Sometimes they are dug in fields, sometimes in the cities and viUages. We remember noticing the mouths of many such pits in a wUd part of the country close to the ruins of old Heshbon. * Psa. xxxv. 5 ; Job xxi. 18. f 1 Kings iv. 28. J Matt. iii. 12. § Ezek. xxvii. 17 ; 1 Kings v. 11. || 1 Chron. xxvii. 25 ; Jer. xii. 8. HARVEST. 169 After the wheat and barley have all been gathered in, the work of the peasant is not yet at an end. There are still the maize and the hemp to gather ; stiU the crops of ' seifiya,' or fruits of summer sowings, vegetable-marrows, cucumbers, and other vegetables which are grown in great quantities around Damascus ; but sometimes when we hope the perils of harvesting are aU over, we begin to feel the effects of a fiercely hot sun, while the air is very stUl. We are all fanning ourselves, and finding the easiest task a burden, when there is suddenly a cry of ' The locusts !'* and, looking up into the sky, we see that the dreaded enemy has really come. Thousands, and millions, and billions of these insects are filling the air, their gauzy wing glittering in the sunlight. On and on they fly, and yet there are ever more and more to come ; and for three or four hours the sky over our court is full of them. When we go out into the fields next day, we find, in spots where they have alighted, that the trees and bushes look as if aU their leaves had been burned, and some have even lost their bark ; and sad will be the tales which wiU soon come in from the country of the havoc they have wrought. * Joel 1. 1—11. CHAPTER XIV. THE SHEPHERD AND THE FLOCK. As we ride along the Meedan, the south-western suburb of Damascus, we notice a great change in the people and neighbourhood. We seem to have left the city behind, and migrated into a great vUlage; the sights and sounds are much more rural than we are used to in the neart of the city. The road which runs through the centre is much broader than the narrow crowded streets through which we generaUy have to wind our way ; for it was once a great place for equestrian sports ; indeed, the word Meedan means a race-course. It is very badly paved, or rather not paved at aU, but simply formed of broken stones thrown down carelessly ; and in winter is almost impassable, from the quantity of mud which accumulates there. But during spring and summer it is always a lively place ; for it is one of the principal highways leading into the city proper. At one point may be seen a long line of camels, laden with heavy bags of corn, which they are bringing in from the Hauran to the corn- dealers, who have their great open stores in this quarter. These stores resemble very much a railway- THE SHEPHERD AND THE FLOCK. 171 arch, which has been converted into a shop or ware house, only they are left open in front, and the wheat, barley, and Indian corn piled up in heaps on the floor, to the great delight of the sparrows and little doves, who take their tithe unhesitatingly, with compara tively little hindrance from the corn-merchants. At another point of the road, we may meet a few Bedouin coming in to sell their native butter or other produce, or to make a few purchases for their tribe, but looking sad and crest-fallen as they tread the streets, and are jostled in the crowd of people who despise them. A httle farther on, we may meet a shepherd walk ing at the head of his httle flock, which, sad to say, he is bringing in for sale; for people who hve in towns wiU have meat. We wiU not foUow him to the market, but rather, after he has disposed of his poor animals, return with him to the great flocks of sheep and goats which he and his followers are feeding in the plains around Damascus, or up among the moun tains ; but, first of aU, we must describe the shepherd himself, whose whole appearance is different from an Enghsh shepherd. We must picture to ourselves a dark sun-burnt weather-beaten man, whose face is hah' hidden by the folds of the coloured kafiya which is fastened on his head by a fillet of camel's hair. His clothing consists of a coarse shirt and leathern girdle, a sheep-skin jacket and a cloak, or abai, which completely envelops him, and protects him from heat or rain by day, and serves him at night for bed and blanket. He is shod with strong boots of red leather, which reach almost to the knees. On his 172 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. shoulder he bears a long gun, and frequently in his girdle he carries pistols, a dagger, a battle-axe, or an iron-headed club, and a shepherd's crook* The sheep, too, differ from those we are accus tomed to see in our own land. We have sometimes shown a picture of Enghsh sheep feeding in a meadow to our native visitors, and they have frequently asked us what animal it was, because they miss the enormous taU which is the peculiarity of Syrian sheep. AU the fat of the body seems to concentrate itself in the taU, which is often seen hanging up in the butchers' shops just as beef-suet would be sold in England. When skinned and prepared for sale, it weighs from ten to fifteen pounds. The life of an Eastern shepherd we shall find, when we reach the pasture-lands, is not exactly that of an Enghsh shepherd. Before sunrise every morning he starts out with his flock to seek pasture ;f and, walk ing before them, he! leads them along the plain, or down into the vaUey, or up the mountain-side, moving along slowly and quietly, sometimes, if the pasture is scanty, having to wander over many a mile in the course of the day. At noon he always seeks out some cool spring or fountain, where he and they may drink. Having satisfied their thirst, they all lie down and rest for two or three hours under the shade of spreading trees, or overhanging rocks, during the hush of the great heat of the day, when birds, and insects, and men seem compelled to be snent. Thus * Possibly this is the origin of the royal sceptre, as the crook is of the bishop's crozier. + 1 Chron. iv. 39, 40. X Psa. lxxvii. 20 ; Psa. lxxviii. 52 ; lxxx. 1. :^;>^e^'' *§£¦?''; AN EASTEBN SHEPHEKD. THE SHEPHERD AND THE FLOCK. 175 the shepherd leads the poor hot, thirsty animals to the ' waters of rest.'* Not unfrequently several flocks meet at the same spring, and he down together for the midday repose. But when the heat of the day begins to lessen, we shaU see one of the shepherds rise ; and, giving his own peculiar caU, walk away from the assembled flocks towards the green pastures. Immediately his own sheep one by one separate themselves from the ' rest, and foUow him ; for they ' know his voice.'-}- Then another shepherd and another will lead forth his flock tUl the fountain is again, deserted. No dog is needed to separate the flocks, and no sheep will be found fallowing the wrong shepherd. We are apt to look upon sheep as poor, helpless, sUly creatures; but as we watch them under the guidance of a Bedouin shepherd, we shall wonder at their docUity and comprehension. On one occasion we went to water our animals at a spring near a large encampment of Arabs. Our poor thirsty horses had hardly begun to drink, when a wild Bedouin shepherd appeared, and tried to drive us away with violence, saying, ' The sheep — the sheep are coming!' At first we feared the supply was scanty ; but when we found that a beautiful, limpid stream was flowing out of the very heart of the mountain not far from the troughs, we saw that it was simply the Arab nature cropping up — ' his hand against every man.' The wild shepherd lad proceeded to ful the troughs from the fountain, carrying the water in a skin, such as Hagar used,! and in a few * Ps. xxiii. 2. t John x. 4. J Gen. xxi. 14. 176 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. minutes a large flock appeared, and rushed in a crowd to quench their thirst ; but, when the shepherd gave the word, they moved off, and arranged themselves behind him. Having again filled the troughs, he gave a signal ; and the obedient sheep filed past in single file, drinking in turn, and then returning to their station behind the shepherd. This process he re peated twice or thrice, till all were satisfied, and passed the troughs without drinking. He needed neither dog nor stick, for the sheep knew his voice, and obeyed him. But if the sheep are docile and obedient, it is because the shepherd cares for them, watches over them, and knows his favourites by name.* Walking at the head of the flock, he may sometimes be seen carrying the youngest lamb. One day, as we rode along a mountain road on the Lebanon, we noticed a shepherd sitting among his sheep, with two little ones in his arms ; we asked, ' What is the matter ? are they hurt?' 'Oh no,' was the answer, 'but they are the little ones.'f Thus the shepherd learns to know each sheep almost as a mother knows her chUdren ; better perhaps than a teacher each child in her class. A few years ago the Arabs carried off a number of goats belonging to the viUage of Deiratiya, north of Damas cus. The mother of our servant boy, a poor widow, was among the losers. At the time she could get no redress, but a year and a half or two years after, the Turkish soldiers seized a number of goats in possession of the same Arabs, and brought them into Damascus, and proclamation was made that any people who had * John x. 3. f Isa. xl. 11. THE SHEPHERD AND THE FLOCK. 177 lost goats should come and see if they were among them. Our servant was all eagerness to go, but we asked him, ' How can you possibly know your goats among such a number, and after so long a time ?' ' Not know my own goats !' was his indignant reply ; ' not know my own goats that I have brought up and fed ! Of course I shaU !' We must not think that the life of an Eastern shepherd is simply a life of quiet, constant watch fulness. His sheep need teaching and training; teaching to distinguish his voice and foUow his caU, and not start away frightened and terrified when he speaks, as they do at a stranger's voice ; and training to follow him promptly and obediently, not to wander wherever their own wiU may lead them. The shepherd's daily work is to seek * out food for his flock, sometimes in one direction, sometimes in another, just where he can best find it. He has no weU-kept, weU-fenced fields in which he can leave them ; and he must be always on the alert. Many of his sheep or goats foUow him closely, and seem to love to be near him ; but others are wUful and careless, and are constantly wandering and lagging behind, so that occasionaUy he has great trouble in seeking out a lost one.-}- He is obliged to take pains in teaching his flock, and sometimes has to mingle severity with his usual gentleness, using his staff for correction as weU as guidance. He has no wise coUey-dog to do his work for him. At best he has one or two half- starved curs! resembling those which swarm in the * Ezek. xxxiv. 23 : John xxi. 15—17. t Luke xv. 4. - J Job xxx. 1. 12 178 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. streets of Eastern cities. They just saunter lazily along behind the flock, and give warning by their furious barking if any danger approaches. Only the shepherd who brings his flock from very distant places, such as Persia, or Kurdistan, or Northern Syria, may have a handsome Kurdish dog to help him. If the ordinary shepherd has little help from his dog, he often has walking by his side a stately sheep or goat, called by a name almost equivalent to the word ' preacher.' This preacher-goat wears a beU, and leads the whole flock in the steps of the shepherd : his eye is on his master, and where he goes, there he foUows closely.* Even when night draws near, the shepherd cannot leave the sheep to sleep alone in the quiet fields, but he must lead them back to the village or town ; and it is often a pretty sight in the evening for anyone spending a few days in one of the vUlages north of Damascus to watch the long black lines of goats coming down the sides of the mountains in different directions, and aU converging towards the stream, where they rest a little while, and get their evening draught of fresh cold water. Then the shepherd must make his arrangements for the night. If, as is frequently the case, his flock is the property of a number of the villagers, the older sheep or goats are sometimes allowed to find their owners' houses, which they easUy do, wandering along the narrow streets like children returning from school, some hurryino- home most demurely, others dawdling and playino- on the way; but at last they all find their homes, and it * 1 Cor. xi. l. THE SHEPHERD AND THE FLOCK. 179 is a curious sight to see the goats waiting in twos and threes at the different doors till they are admitted into the court and housed for the night, whUe the younger ones are coUected, or in many instances the whole flock, and put into a low, flat-roofed buUding outside the viUage. On winter nights they are shut up inside the buUding, but in summer they are left in the courtyard, which is surrounded with high walls, and defended as well as may be against the robber * and the wild beast. The shepherd remains with them, or at least is near at hand. In some districts, during the summer months, the flocks must be led out to find pasture in the higher parts of the mountains, very far away from any town or viUage. In that case the shepherd leads his flock home, but can sometimes find a ' marah,' or resting- place, buUt for the purpose in the midst of the wild solitude ; or he must make a strong pahsade of thorn- bushes, and allow them to sleep there, guarded by his dogs from wild beasts. Often for weeks together he must remain alone in these quiet mountains with his charge, hardly ever seeing a human face, but occasion- aUy visited by some of his relatives at rare intervals to bring him fresh supplies of food, or fresh clothing ; but I fear few of the shepherds care very much for cleanliness. All this care and watchfulness over the sheep, we must remember, is very necessary. The sheep must have good pasture ; but the shepherd has enemies to fear — the wild beasts, the robber, and the Bedouin — and both by day and night he must be prepared to do * John x. 1 . 12—2 180 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. battle. A missionary writes : ' When nearly across the Bukaa, just opposite Migdol, on Thursday morning, I heard violent cries as of one in distress, and thought there had been a fight, and that a man was being severely beaten ; but on inquiry a few steps on, I found that it was the piteous cry of a shepherd lad a little off the road to the left, to frighten away a wolf which he saw approaching his flock of goats. It reminded me of " the hireling fleeth because he is an hirehng ;" " the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep."* This poor lad did his utmost to drive away the wolf, and arouse others to help him.' A few years ago we met a shepherd on the heights of the Lebanon leading home his flock, and he told us that had we come half an hour sooner we should have seen a leopard watching his sheep, and seeking an opportunity to attack them; adding that only two years before he had been laid up for a month from the wounds he had received in his encounter with one of these savage beasts. .The leopard never attacks the sheep openly, but hides behind a bush or rock, and then springs upon them like a cat; and does he by any chance gain admittance to the sheep fold, he springs at the throats of the poor creatures and sucks their life-blood. A few years ago a shep herd in one of the Lebanon viUages thought he might safely leave his sheep one night in the fold, so he locked the door and went home; next morning he found thirty-nine lying dead and covered with blood, the cruel work of a leopard which had gained an entrance, * John x. n. THE, SHEPHERD AND THE FLOCK. 181 Occasionally, too, the poor shepherds have desperate encounters with robbers, and cases have been known in which they have really resisted to the death the attempts of wicked men to rob them of some of their animals. Many of the viUages to the north of Damascus are rich in flocks, possessing in some instances from three thousand to seven thousand goats. Both sheep and goats are kept for the sake of their mUk and for their hair and wool, and the flesh of both is sold in the markets. During a great part of the year the goats are brought into Damascus from villages in the close neighbourhood, and milked at the doors of the houses; and we are always glad to hear after a long winter that the goats are coming into the town — a sign that the winter is considered to be over and gone. One curious custom prevails both among Druzes and Christians of some mountain villages on Lebanon, which must be mentioned. Early in the summer the head of each famUy buys or sets apart one, two, or three sheep, according to their rank in life, and also accord ing to their wealth. Then the women and children devote themselves with the greatest zeal to the task of fattening the poor beasts. The children fiU large baskets with mulberry leaves, and bring them to their mother, who several times in the day, and also in the night, takes a little wooden stool and sits down beside the sheep. With one hand she keeps its mouth open, and with the other crams it with leaves, forcing them down its throat. Once or twice a day it is led quietly down to the viUage fountain to drink, and its coat is frequently washed, for, strange to say, the people seem 182 DAMASCUS AND ITS PEOPLE. to understand that an animal to be kept in health must be kept clean. I am sorry to say that in this re spect they pay more attention to their sheep than to their httle children, who may constantly be seen run ning about the viUage, the dirtiest of the dirty, while on no account must any defilement be aUowed to re main on the skin of the poor patient sheep which is being fattened. About the end of September, the work of the women and chUdren comes to an end ; the sheep have grown so fat tiat they can hardly stand up or walk at aU, and then, sad to say, after all this feed ing and petting, they are kiUed, and their flesh boiled down with spices, and put into pots for winter use. CHAPTER XV. VINEYARDS. The month of August has come, the month of the first ripe grapes;* and we must be away to the vineyards, for the Syrians have a saying, ' Aw-wal-ul-anab wa akhir- ut-teen ;' ' The first of the grapes and the last of the figs ' is the sweetest and best. The people of Damascus think no grapes equal to their famous ' Tears of Mo hammed,' long, narrow white grapes ; but in August the city is very hot, and none of the viUages around can boast fresh cool air at this season; not even Helbon,-}- though it is three or four hours' ride up the . mountains. It is a dirty, miserable vUlage nowadays, and the people rich in nothing but grapes. The country to the east of the Jordan is now desolate, though stiU beautiful in its desolation. Near Safad and Es Salt, or Ramoth Gilead,! there are still abund ance of grapes, which the people at the latter place make into raisins ; but the fine old vineyards of Heshbon§ and Elealeh, Sibmah|| and Jazer, are gone, because the land is without inhabitants. At Ain Jidy, the Fountain of the Goat, the ancient Engedi^ on the * Micah vii. 1 ; Num. xiii. 20. t Ezek. xxvii. 18. J Deut. iv. 43 ; 1 Kings xxii. 3. § Isa. xvi. 8 — 11. || Jer. xlviii. 32, 33.