Читать книгу The Quiver 12/ 1899 - Anonymous - Страница 3

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I t was only just over a fortnight since we left England—according to the calendar, that is to say; but that way of reckoning time seems to me as misleading as the common method of £ s. d. in computing alms. Two days' weary railway travel to Marseilles after crossing the Channel, two days of smooth sailing to the Straits of Messina, then two of tossing "in Adria," till we ran under the lee of Crete; one spent in plunging along its southern shores, followed by a bright, warm day which brought us to the coast of Egypt (only to learn that if we entered the longed-for haven of Alexandria we should be subject to five days' quarantine at our next port); a tiresome day's run across this most choppy corner of the Mediterranean to Jaffa, and a landing there through the surf on a glorious morning, which made up for everything, and plunged us straight into the midst of Eastern life, with all its warmth of colouring to eye and ear; three hours' run by rail to Jerusalem, and five days there and thereabouts, almost bewildering us with a constant succession of scenes half-novel and half-familiar; another railway journey back to Jaffa, a pleasant run along the coast of Palestine to Beirut, and a day spent there. All this lay between England and Beirut as we finished an early breakfast on a February morning, and drove to the railway station through the busy streets of Beirut, full of picturesque life, and yet much more European than those of other Syrian towns. Our driver stopped on the way, somewhat to our amusement, to light his cigarette from a friend's!

WALL FROM WHICH ST. PAUL ESCAPED, DAMASCUS.

(Photo: Bonfils.)

This railway line is a new one, due to French enterprise, and was opened in August, 1895. The Lebanon district owes much to the French. We were a party of seventy, and had chartered a special train. The distance is only about ninety miles; it seemed almost impossible that the journey should take nine hours, as we were told; but there are more than a score of stations, and at each one the train (even a special) stops for several minutes—by order of the Government, we heard. And, more than that, the line passes right over Libanus and Anti-Libanus, reaching a point some 5,000 feet up, where the coast of Cyprus comes in sight over the blue waters of the Mediterranean; while, as one journeys east, the snowy top of Hermon stands out against the sky away to the south. A system of cogs and several reversings of the engine carried us high into the mountains in a very short time. Beirut was left far below, and we were among the snows, glad of the rugs and thick overcoats which wisdom (not our own) had advised us to bring; glad, too, by mid-day of the lunch we had brought with us. Even in the midst of the grandest scenery we were vulgarly hungry, and rather sleepy when we felt the rare atmosphere. After a time, the scene changed: we were in Cœle-Syria, among mulberries and vineyards, from which comes Lebanon wine. Here and there were mud villages, with picturesque groups of natives and cattle. We were the first large English party to pass over the line; and at one station a red-robed Syrian, who had served in a London milliner's years ago, asked eagerly for an English newspaper, to know what was going on in Constantinople! He got one from us about a fortnight old; we had none later. Elsewhere the natives were wondrously pleased to see some of our party playing at leapfrog during the stops.

DETAIL OF THE CARVED WORK IN A JEWISH HOUSE.

(Photo: Bonfils.)

Over the hills the diligence road runs for the most part near the railway, and here and there we saw strings of mules winding along above us. We passed Anti-Libanus at an altitude of 4,000 feet above the sea, and at Zebdany entered the valley of the Barada (the ancient Abana), which we followed the remaining twenty-four miles to Damascus. Here and there are short tunnels or cuttings, and almost everywhere splendid cliffs, sometimes cavernous, and rich valleys with orchards and olive-trees.

About nightfall we ran into Damascus, and were driven to the Hotel Besraoui: we were getting used by this time to the apparently reckless manners of the Oriental driver. There are large barracks close to the station: the Government put them up when the railway was made, as a measure of political prudence. At Zahleh, the half-way station, whence runs the road to Baalbek, we had seen trucks full of Turkish soldiers returning from the Haurân, where the Druses had been giving trouble; in fact, the first train chartered for our party at Beirut was taken for military purposes by the Government officials, so we understood, leaving us to wait till the next morning! And now we found troops bivouacked along the road by which we left the station for our hotel. They are good soldiers, these Turks, and not bad fellows, from what I have heard; but unpaid, unclad, unfed, many of them, we were told, had died under their hardships.

Arrived at the hotel, we passed through the entrance hall into an open central court, where a fountain was playing in the midst of leafy trees. By the stairs and balconies surrounding it we mounted to our bedrooms. The hotel was a new and a large one, but the almost unexpected incursion of a party of seventy taxed the resources of the kitchen somewhat heavily. It was not till breakfast-time, however, that this appeared: the Damascenes had evidently thought it a good opportunity to get rid of stores of eggs which had passed the first bloom of freshness. But there was no other ground of complaint. A large staff of native waiters had been drafted in to attend us in the large chilly dining saloon—for we were out of "the season." Before leaving the dinner-table we were warned that if anyone ventured into the streets he must, by law, carry a lantern; but that, as the city was full of soldiers, and a good deal of excitement prevailed—a number of Druse prisoners being expected—we had better stay indoors. There was not much temptation to do otherwise after a weary day's travel beyond stepping into the street to look up at the brilliant stars sparkling in the cold night, as they must have done to the eyes of patriarchs and perhaps of Magi, of Naaman and of Omar. And in the drawing-room there had actually been lighted a real fire—a rare luxury in Syria and Palestine. Of course, one must send some postcards to friends at home—it is not every day you can date a letter from Damascus—and there is always a diary waiting to be "written up"; but it was not long before we drifted bedwards, to sleep for the first time in perhaps the most ancient city in the world.

THE STREET CALLED "STRAIGHT."

(Photo: Bonfils.)

Bright and early next morning we were at breakfast, and then scattered in groups to walk or drive about the city and its suburbs. It was still cold, and the natives needed the heat of the sun to "expand" them; but it was pleasant to drive along the banks of the Abana, which flows through the city, and feel that one was on the extreme verge of modern civilisation. Entering "the street which is called Straight," which traverses Damascus from west to east, we drove slowly along, noticing the busy, prosperous look of the city. There were not the crowds of beggars and pilgrims to be seen in some quarters of Jerusalem. Above us were latticed windows, like those through which, elsewhere, the mother of Sisera once looked; and we saw bronze-work in progress, and great hanks of unspun silk, representing two of the staple trades of Damascus.

VIEW OF DAMASCUS FROM THE FORTRESS.

(Photo: Bonfils.)

We visited two houses, the first that of Shemaiah, a wealthy banker, who was ruined by lending money to the Turkish Government. We noticed imitations of living birds among the beautiful carved work on the walls of the magnificent room into which we were conducted. The house is a typical Eastern mansion, but it is now unoccupied. Our second visit, through a narrow and not very clean alley in the Christian Quarter, was to the traditional "House of Ananias." Oblivious of the historic record that St. Paul lodged in the house of Judas, in the street called Straight, and was visited there by Ananias, local tradition shows the cave in which the meeting took place in Ananias' house! We have to be satisfied, as in the case of many traditional sacred sites, with the reflection, "It was somewhere near here"; but as we continued our drive through "Straight" Street we read St. Luke's account of that journey to Damascus, and the events which were the means of changing the pupil of Gamaliel into the Apostle of the Gentiles. We were reminded of him again as we passed out of the triple East Gate. Its central arch is now built up, as well as one of the side ones; but by this, quite possibly, Saul was actually led in his blindness into the city. Not far away is pointed out the window by which he was let down. The house is in reality a modern one, but there are many examples round us of the kind of place in the "houses on the wall," which seem quite a feature of the city.

THE MARKET, DAMASCUS.

(Photo: Bonfils.)

But Damascus has other associations, and we have to visit "the house of Naaman," not many yards away. The traditional site is now suitably occupied by a leper hospital; and about its gateway we can see unhappy creatures in various stages of this living death. As we drove away, we read the story of Naaman, and opportunely noticed, if not a mule, at least an ass, with a "burden of earth," illustrating the Syrian's request for material to build an altar to Jehovah.

Pursuing our way through the suburbs, we found the roads more and more thronged with a motley Eastern crowd. It was Friday, the Mahometan Sabbath, which is, to some extent, a festal day; and, further, 600 Druse prisoners were rumoured to be coming in, and house-tops as well as streets were occupied by would-be spectators.

A considerable force of troops, armed cap-à-pie for active service, passed us, probably on the way to the Haurân; and what with them, and the camels, and the crowds, our drivers thought it well to turn back, instead of going any further—as, I think, was proposed to do—in the direction of the traditional site of St. Paul's conversion. So, returning through the city by a different route, we drove, past the Abana once more, to the heights of Salahiyeh away to the north-west. From thence there is a fine view of the "Pearl of the East," which lies, as is sometimes said, "like a spoon in the salad," the handle being the long straggling suburb which has grown up along the line of march by which Mecca pilgrims leave the city year by year. The resemblance was less striking to us than it would have been a month or two later, when the leafy springtime had clothed in green the broad expanse of trees, spreading around the minarets and domes and flat-roofed houses of the city. Snow-capped Hermon stood out quite clear to the west; and towards the east were pointed out the Meadow lakes, in which the "rivers of Damascus" lose themselves; and we knew—if we could not clearly see—that, beyond the limits of the oasis of which the city is the centre, the wide desert stretched away several weary days' ride to Palmyra. The site of St. Paul's conversion was pointed out in the distance; and, nearer at hand, the new barracks, and in the city itself, the ruins of the Great Mosque, once the glory of Damascus, destroyed by fire a few years ago.

From some such point as this Mahomet gazed upon this "earthly paradise," fair indeed to eyes accustomed to the dreary desert; and, declaring that man could not have his heaven both here and hereafter, refused to enter the city. By the time we were in our hotel once more, it was the hour for lunch; and, that over, a party sallied forth on foot to visit the Bazaars. All the Western associations of this word must be banished from the mind, before one can call up a picture of the thing as it is in Cairo or Jerusalem, or, most picturesque of all, in Damascus. The "streets," which Ahab won the Israelites the privilege of making in this city, were, I suppose, nothing else than bazaars. According to time-honoured custom, we have here a classification by trades: silversmiths, leather-merchants, silk-merchants, brass-workers, shoemakers, sellers of "Turkish delight," and other sweets, vendors of inlaid work and so on, all have their well-known places. Lofty arcades cover some of the rows of little open shops, with no door but a net, drawn across the front during its owner's absence. The shopkeepers themselves seem to come out of the "Arabian Nights"; so does the stream of passengers on foot or horseback, or with mules or donkeys, or even in carriages, passing through these busy scenes of traffic. On our way thither, we stopped for a moment to admire the "Plane-tree of Omar," the growth, according to tradition, of the staff which the prophet's brother planted here. It is a grand old tree.

Our dragoman undertook to do our shopping for us, but the sad experience we gained suggested (to say the least of it) that in such cases there is an understanding between him and the dealers not always to the advantage of the buyer.

As to the Eastern method of trade, it is, more or less, the same everywhere, with few exceptions. You ask the price of the article; the shopman names a figure at least twice its value; you turn away, but, relenting, offer him a fraction of what he asks; he shrugs his shoulders, raises his eyebrows, and probably extends his hands, intimating that he would be ruined; you turn away again; he follows you; you express utter indifference, but, at length, repeat your offer, and, when this haggling has gone on long enough, carry off your purchase for the nearest approach you can get to its real value. I have heard of a bargain going on for a week! What between ignorance of the language, ignorance of the coinage, and ignorance of the value of the article, shopping in Damascus is venturesome work for travellers. With such purchases as we had secured, we wended our way homeward.

Some of our party invited friends engaged in missionary work in the city to dine with us, and from them we gathered many interesting scraps of information about the life and work of British missionaries under the Turkish flag. As to political events, even in their immediate neighbourhood, our friends told us they knew less than folks at home, and had to wait for the London papers to know the facts. As regarded personal danger, they went quietly on with their work, and the recent storm seemed to have pretty well blown over.

After dinner the entrance-hall was full of merchants, eager to dispose of their wares—silver and silk, antiques, such as daggers and swords, and so on. I think they drove a pretty brisk trade.

INTERIOR OF THE ENGLISH CONSUL'S HOUSE AT DAMASCUS.

(Photo: Bonfils.)

The open court soon presented another attraction. We were favoured there with two exhibitions of Damascene physical prowess. A pair of wrestlers, after baring themselves to the waist and greasing their bodies plentifully enough to suit Homer himself, displayed their skill to their own satisfaction; and a pair of doughty swordsmen engaged in a desperate combat, in which shouting and stamping seemed to bear an important part. They were certainly very careful not to hurt each other, only delivering in turn careful blows to be parried by the opponent's little shield, and then spinning round with the force of the blow to begin a new series of feints and shoutings and stamping. It was not a thrilling spectacle, though, of course, the surroundings gave it a certain interest. So our day in Damascus drew to its close, and we must be ready for an early start to-morrow.

A glorious morning saw us betimes at the railway station, where some of our friends from home came to see us off. About nine the train steamed away; up the valley, over the mountains, into the clouds and the snow, till the blue waves of the Mediterranean came in sight once more; then down, down, down the steep descent, till we ran just ere nightfall into Beirut.