METROPOLIS did I call Damascus? Indeed it is rightly so called, for is it not the mother of all cities, the oldest living city in the world? (not even excepting Hebron), for here Abraham’s steward Eliezer lived; these streets the patriarch himself must often have traversed as a trader in flocks and herds, and through these lanes, once at all events, he drove the Hivite Kings of Hermon before his avenging spear, for near here he rescued Lot and the King of Sodom from their Syrian captors. It was conquered by David after a protracted struggle, but recovered its independence in the reign of Solomon. It was subsequently subdued by the Assyrians. Rome may call itself, Damascus is the Eternal City, founded probably soon after the flood by a Semitic grandson of Noah. Damascus has never ceased to exist as a great city, and from its unique position, probably never will. The prey of every ambitious conqueror, it has seen the rise and survived the fall of every great empire. Assyrian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Crusader and Saracen, each in turn have dominated the garden city—and died—but Damascus still lives and has out-lived all its rivals of every age. Sidon, Tyre, Antioch and Tarsus survive only as uninteresting towns, Babylon, Palmyra and Nineveh are no more, but Damascus is still the “Head of Syria” as it was in the days of Abraham—Damascus a green island in the midst of a golden sea of sand, bounded by the desert, surrounded by its rivers, has always been and must for ever remain the mother city of the world.
To brace ourselves up for our rambles, we now take a bath in the waters of the Abana, which are, as its Syrian name Barada indicates, remarkably cool and pleasant. Having tried Jordan too, we must endorse Naaman’s opinion, that the bathing in the former is decidedly the best. In the midst of the city, we are shown a sycamore tree, 42 feet in girth; certainly a curiosity in any city, but especially so in a Mahommedan one, where the process of destruction is carried on by man and that of re-construction or re-placement left to “Allah.” We also see another tree in the horse market close by, used as a gallows, but public executions are very rare in Turkey. A good Moslem is peculiarly sensitive—he does not object to strangle a wife or two quietly at home if they are annoying, but he objects to a fellow male Moslem being publicly executed even for a murder. We look into the great mosque; in its courtyard are the remains of a small ancient temple to the sun—it was once a Roman temple, then a Greek basilica, and was in more ancient times probably the site of the very temple in which Naaman bowed the knee to Rimmon, when his master worshipped there. We found it easier to enter St. Sophia at Stamboul, the mosque of Omar at Jerusalem, and the grand mosque at Cairo, than this, the people being so fanatical. St. Sophia, in fact, we got into by only paying a few francs to the door-keeper, but here it costs a lot to get in. We are next shown the tomb of the great Saladin, who died 1193, but as it is very sacred, cannot view the interior. We now come to the street called “Straight,” above a mile long, running through the city east to west, and on our way we call at the traditional house of Ananias, now a small Latin Church; then just outside the east gate we pass the reputed house of Naaman, now appropriately a leper hospital, and come upon that part of the wall from which it is said St. Paul was let down in a basket at the time when Aretas, the Petræan ruler of Arabia, was King. Aretas was the name of the dynasty, like, Ptolemy and Pharaoh of Egypt, Candace of Ethiopia, &c. The conversion of St. Paul is said to have taken place just outside the city—the spot is shown: bright indeed must have been the light before which an eastern sun at mid-day paled. A walled up gate is also shewn as that by which St. Paul entered the city.