The mosque has three minarets--that of the Bride to the north, a square, blue tower, from the upper gallery of which four stout Muedhens were chanting, in beautiful time and shrill falsetto notes, the call to prayer, a cry which can be heard like a bell over the entire city. The second minaret is that of "Our Lord Jesusâ--a slender grey needle, upon the summit of which the Moslems believe that Christ will descend in the last day. We ascended the third minaret, in the south-west corner, by a winding stair of one hundred and ninety steps, leading to a wooden gallery, whilst forty more lead up to a narrow ledge beneath the little dome.
From this point a really characteristic view presented itself. On every side was a flat expanse of mud roofs, only broken here and there by a little whitewashed dome, and set in a dense rich belt of deep green, extending for a mile from the houses on every side. Beyond the gardens were ranges of hills, barren and desolate, brown and white in colour, and terminated by the steep Hermon ridge.
The charm of the view, however, was due to the interiors. Each house was built round an open court, with a cool central fountain, and with green trees, some of great size, overtopping the roof. The courts were paved with marble, and galleries of carved woodwork ran around them; the walls were banded in courses of black and white marble, or coloured blue and red. Above the roofs rose the countless minarets, in endless variety; some blue or green, square and squat; others of beautiful grey stone, with richly ornamented stone pendants, wood lattices, and Arab or Cufic inscriptions; some whitewashed and crowned with a sort of snuffer-shaped roof, others domed. Bristling against the green bed in which the mud city lies, they gave a rich variety of effect, which is lost in the narrow lanes or roofed bazaars.
Damascus is a centre of the faith, second only to Mecca. The Greek cathedral is hustled into a corner, and guarded by a great white minaret. A second great mosque is built on the west, outside the town, its architect having lost his head for so placing it, to be given back to him--so says the grim Arabic inscription--when the sanctuary stands in the middle of Damascus. On the west of the town is a brown fortress, outwardly formidable, inwardly a ruin--fit emblem of Turkish rule.