In The Levant 31

In The Levant 31

XII.--ON THE ROAD TO DAMASCUS.

 

|THE station at Stoura is a big stable and a dirty little inn, which has

the kitchen in one shanty, the dining-room in another, and the beds in a

third; a swift mountain stream runs behind it, and a grove of poplars

on the banks moans and rustles in the wind that draws down the Lebanon

gorge. It was after dark when we arrived, but whether our coming put the

establishment into a fluster, I doubt; it seems to be in a chronic state

of excitement. The inn was kept by Italians, who have a genius for this

sort of hotel; the landlord was Andrea, but I suspect the real authority

resided in his plump, bright, vivacious wife. They had an heir, however,

a boy of eight, who proved to be the tyrant of the house when he

appeared upon the scene. The servants were a tall slender Syrian girl,

an active and irresponsible boy, and a dark-eyed little maid, in the

limp and dirty single garment which orphans always wear on the stage,

and who in fact was an orphan, and appeared to take the full benefit of

her neglected and jolly life. The whole establishment was on a lark, and

in a perpetual giggle, and communicated its overflowing good-humor even

to tired travellers. The well-favored little wife, who exhibited the

extremes of fortune in a diamond ring and a torn and draggled calico

gown, sputtered alternately French and Italian like a magpie,

laughed with a contagious merriment, and actually made the cheerless

accommodations she offered us appear desirable. The whole family waited

on us, or rather kept us waiting on them, at table, bringing us a dish

now and then as if its production were a joke, talking all the while

among themselves in Arabic, and apparently about us, and laughing at

their own observations, until we, even, came to conceive ourselves as a

party in a most comical light; and so amusing did we grow that the slim

girl and the sorry orphan were forced to rush into a corner every few

minutes and laugh it out.

 

I spent a pleasant hour in the kitchen,--an isolated, smoke-dried room

with an earth floor,--endeavoring to warm my feet at the little fires

of charcoal kindled in holes on top of a bank of earth and stone, and

watching the pranks of this merry and industrious family. The little

heir amused himself by pounding the orphan, kicking the shins of the

boy, and dashing water in the face of the slim girl,--treatment which

the servants dared not resent, since the father laughed over it as an

exhibition of bravery and vivacity. Fragrant steam came from a pot, in

which quail were stewing for the passengers by the night mail, and each

person who appeared in the kitchen, in turn, gave this pot a stir; the

lively boy pounded coffee in a big mortar, put charcoal on the fire, had

a tussle with the heir, threw a handspring, doing nothing a minute at

a time; the orphan slid in with a bucket of water, slopping it in all

directions; the heir set up a howl and kicked his father because he was

not allowed to kick the orphan any more; the little wife came in like

a breeze, whisking everybody one side, and sympathized with dear little

Hobby, whose cruel and ugly papa was holding the love from barking his

father's shins. You do not often see a family that enjoys itself so much

as this.

 

It was late next morning when we tore ourselves from this enchanting

household, and went at a good pace over the fertile plain, straight

towards Anti-Lebanon, having a glimpse of the snow of Mount Hermon,--a

long ridge peering over the hills to the? southeast, and crossing in

turn the Litany and the deep Anjar, which bursts forth from a single

fountain about a mile to the north. On our left we saw some remains of

what was once a capital city, Chalcis, of unknown origin, but an old

city before it was possessed by the Ptolemies, or by Mark Antony, and

once the luxurious residence of the Herod family. At Medjel, a village

scattered at the foot of small _tells_ rising in the plain, we turned

into the hills, leaving unvisited a conspicuous Roman temple on a peak

above the town. The road winds gradually up a wady. As we left the

plain, and looked back across it to Lebanon, the colors of Bukâ'a and

the mountain gave us a new surprise; they were brilliant and yet soft,

as gay and splendid as the rocks of the Yellowstone, and yet exquisitely

blended as in a Persian rug.

 

The hill-country was almost uninhabited; except the stations and an

occasional Bedaween camp there was small sign of occupation; the ground

was uncultivated; peasants in rags were grubbing up the roots of cedars

for fuel. We met Druses with trains of mules, Moslems with camels and

mules, and long processions of white-topped wagons,--like the Western

"prairie schooner"--drawn each by three mules tandem. Thirty and forty

of these freight vehicles travel in company, and we were continually

meeting or passing them; their number is an indication of the large

trade that Damascus has with Beyrout and the Mediterranean. There is

plenty of color in the people and in their costume. We were told that we

could distinguish the Druses by their furtive and bad countenances; but

for this information I should not have seen that they differed much from

the Maronites; but I endeavored to see the treacherous villain in them.

I have noticed in Syria that the Catholic travellers have a good opinion

of the Maronites and hate the Druses, that the American residents think

little of the Maronites, and that the English have a lenient side for

the Druses. The Moslems consistently despise all of them. The Druse has

been a puzzle. There are the same horrible stories current about him

that were believed of the early Christians; the Moslem believes that

infants are slain and eaten in his midnight assemblies, and that once a

year the Druse community meets in a cavern at midnight, the lights

are extinguished, and the sexes mingling by chance in the license of

darkness choose companions for the year. But the Druse creed, long a

secret, is now known; they are the disciples of Hâkim, a Khalif of

the Fatimite dynasty; they believe in the unity of God and his latest

manifestation in Hakim; they are as much a political as a religious

society; they are accomplished hypocrites, cunning in plotting and bold

in action; they profess to possess "the truth," and having this, they

are indifferent to externals, and are willing to be Moslems with the

Moslems and Christians with the Christians, while inwardly feeling a

contempt for both. They are the most supercilious of all the Eastern

sects. What they are about to do is always the subject of anxiety in the

Lebanon regions.

 

At the stations of the road we found usually a wretched family or two

dwelling in a shanty, half stable and half _café_, always a woman with

a baby in her arms, and the superabundant fountains for nourishing it

displayed to all the world; generally some slatternly girls, and groups

of rough muleteers and drivers smoking. At one, I remember a Jew who

sold antique gems, rings, and coins, with a shocking face, which not

only suggested the first fall of his race, but all the advantages he has

since taken of his innocent fellows, by reason of his preoccupation of

his position of knowledge and depravity.

 

We made always, except in the steep ascents, about ten miles an hour.

The management of the route is the perfection of French system and

bureaucracy. We travel with a way-bill of numbered details, as if we

were a royal mail. At every station we change one horse, so that we

always have a fresh animal. The way-bill is at every station signed by

the agent, and the minute of arrival and departure exactly noted; each

horse has its number, and the number of the one taken and the one left

is entered. All is life and promptness at the stations; changes are

quickly made. The way-bill would show the company the exact time between

stations; but I noticed that our driver continually set his watch

backwards and forwards, and I found that he and the dragoman had a

private understanding to conceal our delays for lunch, for traffic with

Jews, or for the enjoyment of scenery.

 

After we had crossed the summit of the first ridge we dashed down the

gate of a magnificent canyon, the rocks heaved up in perpendicular

strata, overhanging, craggy, crumbled, wild. We crossed then a dreary

and nearly arid basin; climbed, by curves and zigzags, another ridge,

and then went rapidly down until we struck the wild and narrow gorge of

the sacred Abana. Immediately luxuriant vegetable life began. The air

was sweet with the blossoms of the mish-mish (apricot), and splendid

walnuts and poplars overshadowed us. The river, swollen and rushing amid

the trees on its hanks, was frightfully rapid. The valley winds sharply,

and gives room only for the river and the road, and sometimes only for

one of them. Sometimes the river is taken out of its bed and carried

along one bank or the other; sometimes the road crosses it, and again

pursues its way between its divided streams. We were excited by its

rush and volume, and by the rich vegetation along its sides. We came to

fantastic Saracenic country-seats, to arcaded and latticed houses set

high up over the river, to evidences of wealth and of proximity to a

great city.

 

Suddenly, for we seemed to have become a part of the rushing torrent

and to share its rapidity, we burst out of the gorge, and saw the river,

overpassing its narrow banks, flowing straight on before us, and beyond,

on a level, the minarets and domes of Damascus! All along the river, on

both banks of it, and along the high wall by the roadside, were crowds

of men in Turkish costume, of women in pure white, of Arabs sitting

quietly by the stream smoking the narghileh, squatting in rows along

the wall and along the water, all pulling at the water-pipe. There were

tents and booths erected by the river. In a further reach of it men

and boys were bathing. Hanks and groups of veiled women and children

crouched on the damp soil close to the flood, or sat immovable on some

sandy point. It is a delicious holiday for two or three women to sit

the livelong day by water, running or stagnant, to sit there with

their veils drawn over their heads, as rooted as water-plants, and as

inanimate as bags of flour. It was a striking Oriental picture, played

on by the sun, enlivened by the swift current, which dashes full into

the city.

 

As we spun on, the crowd thickened,--soldiers, grave Turks on

caparisoned horses or white donkeys, Jews, blacks, Persians. We crossed

a trembling bridge, and rattled into town over stony pavements, forced

our way with difficulty into streets narrow and broken by sharp turns,

the carriage-wheels scarcely missing men and children stretched on the

ground, who refused, on the theory of their occupation of the soil prior

to the invention of wheels, to draw in even a leg; and, in a confused

whirl of novel sights and discordant yells, barks, and objurgations, we

came to Dimitri's hotel. The carriage stopped in the narrow street; a

small door in the wall, a couple of feet above the pavement, opened,

and we stepped through into a little court occupied by a fountain and

an orange-tree loaded with golden fruit. Thence we passed into a large

court, the centre of the hotel, where the Abana pours a generous supply

into a vast marble basin, and trees and shrubs offer shelter to

singing birds. About us was a wilderness of balconies, staircases,

and corridors, the sun flooding it all; and Dimitri himself, sleek,

hospitable, stood bowing, in a red fez, silk gown, and long gold chain.

 

 

 

 

XIII.--THE OLDEST OF CITIES.

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