p. 139 | The City of Damascus

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 27, 1874

The City of Damascus.

Henry Day, a New York lawyer, recently visited the Holy Land, and in a letter to the N. Y. Observer, gives the following description of a city whose name dates from the days of Abraham (Gen. 15: 2):—

Every house in Damascus of any pretension, has a court around it, in which are blooming orange and lemon trees and exquisite flowers, while a fountain is throwing up its cooling spray in the center. Larger houses have a fine garden filled with trees, with a little stream of pure water purling through it. The whole city is filled with gardens and fountains. The inhabitants who have no such home comforts close their shops at three o’clock, and repair to the public gardens, where they take their coffee and spend the rest of the day in these shady retreats, where there is constant music of birds and of streams. The women go with their families to these gardens and spend the afternoon and evening, taking their food with them. This outdoor life seems a blessed resource in these hot climates. Here they have their amusements, and during the evening bands of music are playing under the trees, which are lighted up with lanterns of different colors. Everything is eastern, fairy and delightful, externally.

The most noticeable feature internally, in Damascus, are its gardens, fountains, and bazaars.

The bazaars contain the light fabrics of all nations, from Lowell prints to the richest cashmeres of Thibet, and all the intervening wares of all intervening nations. Here ladies like to purchase jewelry, embroidered tablecovers, and fabrics worked with gold and silver thread. Externally, Damascus is an oasis in a desert. The River Arbana runs through it, and Pharpar about three miles to the south. Their banks, as they stretch out into the desert, are lines of living green amid the sandy wastes, on the north-east of the city. Extending up from anti-Lebanon, far out into the desert, is a range of most desolate, forbidding-looking rocks, looking from their aridness like mountains of salt, with broken rocks piled in everlasting confusion around their bases. To the south-west rises Hermon, and to the east lies the desert waste. Only one building in Damascus possesses any great attraction for its magnificence, and that is the Grand Mosque.

This was once an immense heathen temple. Afterward, as was customary where Christianity prevailed, the heathen temple was transformed into a Christian church, and this in its turn into a mosque by the Mohammedans. Traces of each of these eras, the heathen and the Christian, are still visible in this immense structure. Hundreds of feet in front of the present building, towering over the book-binders’ bazaar, who have their little stalls all around it, stands the propylon, or gateway to the court of the ancient heathen temple. The most striking thing which shows its Christian character still exists on the southern facade of the Mosque, notwithstanding the fanatical zeal of the Moslem to destroy every mark of its Christian character. By crawling up to and along the silversmith’s bazaars, which are built along the south wall, you come to a beautiful and lofty arch of an ancient doorway at the Christian church, which is now walled up. Cut in the stone over this doorway, and plainly visible, in Greek characters, are the words, “Thy kingdom, O Christ! is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth unto all generations.”

Notwithstanding their hatred, here stands the most sacred Mosque of the Moslem, giving testimony age after age, to the eternal dominion of the hated Nazarene. Here in this Mosque is the tomb of the great Saladin, and over his tomb is preserved the immense turban which he wore, being nothing but a roll of green cloth, about four inches thick around the head and about two feet high.

They will show you in Damascus the house of Ananias, the house of Judas where Paul was, and the house from which he was let down in a basket. Inasmuch as Damascus has been frequently sacked and burned by contending armies, we may be excused for incredulity as to these places. The street called Straight still exists, although somewhat crooked. It is now the chief bazaar of Damascus. The Damascenes are the most bigoted and fanatical of all the Moslem people. They glory in Damascus as the home of the great prophet, as the center of the triumphs of his religion, and as the capital of the great caliphs who once ruled from the Atlantic to the Euphrates. They like the Christian’s money, but they stand ready to lap his blood at any moment. In 1860 they killed in cold blood 6,000 Christians in one day. We saw one little Greek church where one hundred women and children in their terror had fled for refuge, and where they were all butchered like swine by the ruthless Moslem. Much of the zeal of these people arises from their pecuniary interest in their faith. They make a large amount of money from the annual pilgrimages to Mecca, which start in December of each year from one gate of Damascus, and return in the following April through another. Thousands of people of all conditions, from this city and surrounding countries, go on this pilgrimage in one mighty caravan across the desert. Bedouin chiefs of the surrounding tribes furnish the camels. Some go from holy zeal, some go for the notoriety and honor of the thing, and some for trade and profit.

The great caravan is called the Hadji and every pilgrim who returns from the holy shrine is thereafter called a Hadji and wears the green turban. The Sultan appoints some persons of high rank to conduct the Hadji. They bear annually a new robe, a covering for the prophet’s tomb, and bring away in great pomp the cloth which has covered the tomb the year preceding. The camel which bears this cloth back, spread over him like a beautiful canopy, is called the holy camel, and is fed on almonds during the journey.

The day of the return of the Hadji is a great festival at Damascus. We were so fortunate as to witness it. The great host were a whole day marching into the city. First came long lines of military guards. Next came the leader of the Hadji, a splendid looking man, gorgeously dressed in green, riding a beautiful horse. Long lines of Bedouins of the desert, mounted on lofty camels holding tall spears, and dressed in coarse, flowing robes, followed. Next came the pilgrims, thousands of every description—some rich, some poor—men, women, and children, all perched on camels, following each other in solemn, stately array. Persons of rank and wealth rode in elegant pavilions, each of which contained a family, borne on the back of a camel. Each pavilion was about eight feet square, and held two mattresses, one on each side of the camel, which were seats by day and beds by night. Some of these pavilions were most elegantly fitted up with curtains of colored silk and Persian rugs. The more common people rode on the ordinary saddle of the camel, with something like large bags slung each side, containing children, provisions, and utensils—a whole household on one camel. The garments of many of the Hadji were worn to shreds by the long and terrible journey. As the holy camel passed, bearing the sacred covering of the tomb, the whole populace crowded up to touch him and kiss the robe. The sight is most imposing. The whole city throng the streets to welcome their friends or greet the pilgrims; while the solemn-looking camels, bearing their ponderous burdens led by the wild-looking Bedouins, filed by for hours.

Damascus is not so beautiful and striking a city as Cairo. There are no indications of Western influence and enterprise—no signs of improvement. The great idea which seems to actuate the people, and which is seen in everything, is: “Let us eat, drink, and take our ease.” Self-indulgence seems to be the law of life in Damascus. They need a railroad to start them on the march of progress, and its shrill whistle to awaken them from the slumber of ages.—Sel.