In The Levant 33

In The Levant 33

Of other and private gardens and enclosures we had glimpses, on our

walk, through open gates, and occasionally over the walls; we could

imagine what a fragrance and color would greet the senses when the

apricots are in bloom, and the oranges and lemons in flower, and how

beautiful the view might be if the ugly walls did not conceal it. We

returned by the saddlers' bazaar, and by a famous plane-tree, which may

be as old as the Moslem religion; its gnarled limbs are like the stems

of ordinary trees, and its trunk is forty feet around.

 

The remark that Damascus is without monuments of its past needs

qualification; it was made with reference to its existence before the

Christian era, and in comparison with other capitals of antiquity.

Remains may, indeed, be met in its exterior walls, and in a broken

column here and there built into a modern house, of Roman workmanship,

and its Great Mosque is an historical monument of great interest, if not

of the highest antiquity. In its structure it represents three

religions and three periods of art; like the mosque of St. Sophia at

Constantinople, it was for centuries a Christian cathedral; like the

Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem, it is built upon a spot consecrated by

the most ancient religious rites. Situated in the midst of the most

densely peopled part of the city, and pressed on all sides by its most

crowded bazaars, occupying a quadrangle nearly five hundred feet one

way by over three hundred the other, the wanderer among the shops is

constantly coming to one side or another of it, and getting glimpses

through the spacious portals of the colonnaded court within. Hemmed in

as it is, it is only by diving into many alleys and pushing one's way

into the rear of dirty shops and climbing upon the roofs of houses, that

one can get any idea of the exterior of the mosque. It is, indeed, only

from an eminence that you can see its three beautiful minarets.

 

It does not appear that Chosroes, the Persian who encamped his army in

the delicious gardens of Damascus, in the year 614, when he was on his

way to the destruction of Jerusalem and the massacre of its Christian

inhabitants, disturbed the church of John the Baptist in this city. But

twenty years later it fell into the hands of the Saracens, who for a

few years were content to share it with the Christian worshippers. It

is said that when Khâled, the most redoubtable of the Friends of the

Prophet, whose deeds entitled him to the sobriquet of The Sword of God,

entered this old church, he asked to be conducted into the sacred vault

(which is now beneath the _kubbeh_ of the mosque), and that he was there

shown the head of John the Baptist in a gold casket, which had in Greek

this inscription: "This casket contains the head of John the Baptist,

son of Zachariah."

 

The building had been then for over three centuries a Christian church.

And already, when Constantine dedicated it to Christian use, it had for

over three hundred years witnessed the worship of pagan deities. The

present edifice is much shorn of its original splendor and proportions,

but sufficient remains to show that it was a worthy rival of the temples

of Ba'albek, Palmyra, and Jerusalem. No part of the building is older

than the Roman occupation, but the antiquarians are agreed to think

that this was the site of the old Syrian temple, in which Ahaz saw the

beautiful altar which he reproduced in the temple at Jerusalem.

 

Pieces of superb carving, recalling the temple of the Sun at Ba'albek,

may still be found in some of the gateways, and the noble Corinthian

columns of the interior are to be referred to Roman or Greek workmen.

Christian art is represented in the building in some part of the walls

and in the round-topped windows; and the Moslems have superimposed upon

all minarets, a dome, and the gay decorations of colored marbles and

flaring inscriptions.

 

The Moslems have either been too ignorant or too careless to efface all

the evidences of Christian occupation. The doors of the eastern gate are

embossed with brass, and among the emblems is the Christian sacramental

cup. Over an arch, which can only be seen from the roof of the

silversmiths' bazaar, is this inscription in Greek: "Thy kingdom, O

Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout

all generations."

 

It required a special permit to admit us to the mosque, but when we were

within the sacred precincts and shod with slippers, lest our infidel

shoes should touch the pavement, we were followed by a crowd of

attendants who for the moment overcame their repugnance to our faith in

expectation of our backsheesh. The interior view is impressive by reason

of the elegant minarets and the fine colonnaded open court. Upon one of

the minarets Jesus will descend when he comes to judge the world. The

spacious mosque, occupying one side of the court, and open on that side

to its roof, is divided in its length by two rows of Corinthian columns,

and has a certain cheerfulness and hospitality. The tesselated marble

pavement of the interior is much worn, and is nearly all covered with

carpets of Persia and of Smyrna. The only tomb in the mosque is that of

St. John the Baptist, which is draped in a richly embroidered cloth.

 

We were anew impressed by the home-like, democratic character of the

great mosques. This, opening by its four gates into the busiest bazaars,

as we said, is much frequented at all hours. At the seasons of prayer

you may see great numbers prostrating themselves in devotion, and at all

other times this cool retreat is a refuge for the poor and the weary.

The fountains of running water in the court attract people,--those who

desire only to sit there and rest, as well as those who wash and pray.

About the fountains and in the mosque were seated groups of women,

eating their noonday bread, or resting in that dumb attitude under which

Eastern women disguise their discontent or their intrigues. This is, at

any rate, a haven of rest for all, and it is a goodly sight to see all

classes, rich and poor, flocking in here, leaving their shoes at the

door or carrying them in their hands.

 

The view from the minaret which we ascended is peculiar. On the horizon

we saw the tops of hills and mountains, snowy Hermon among them. Far

over the plain we could not look, for the city is beset by a thicket of

slender trees, which were just then in fresh leafage. Withdrawing our

gaze from the environs, we looked down upon the wide-spread oval-shaped

city. Most conspicuous were the minarets, then a few domes, and then

thousands of dome-shaped roofs. You see the top of a covered city,

but not the city. In fact, it scarcely looks like a city; you see no

streets, and few roofs proper, for we have to look twice to convince

ourselves that the flat spaces covered with earth and often green

with vegetation (gardens in the air) are actually roofs of houses. The

streets are either roofed over or are so narrow that we cannot see them

from this height. Damascus is a sort of rabbit-burrow.

 

Not far from the Great Mosque is the tomb of Saladin. We looked from the

street through a grated window, to the bars of which the faithful have

tied innumerable rags and strings (pious offerings, which it is supposed

will bring them good luck) into a painted enclosure, and saw a large

catafalque, or sarcophagus; covered with a green mantle. The tomb is

near a mosque, and beside a busy cotton-bazaar; it is in the midst of

traffic and travel, among activities and the full rush of life,--just

where a man would like to be buried in order to be kept in remembrance.

 

In going about the streets we notice the prevalence of color in portals,

in the interior courts of houses, and in the baths; there is a fondness

for decorating with broad gay stripes of red, yellow, and white. Even

the white pet sheep which are led about by children have their wool

stained with dabs of brilliant color,--perhaps in honor of the Greek

Easter.

 

The baths of Damascus are many and very good, not so severe and violent

as those of New York, nor so thorough as those of Cairo, but, the best

of them, clean and agreeable. We push aside a gay curtain from the

street and descend by steps into a square apartment. It has a dome like

a mosque. Under the dome is a large marble basin into which water is

running; the floor is tesselated with colored marbles. Each side is a

recess with a halfdome, and in the recesses are elevated divans piled

with cushions for reclining. The walls are painted in stripes of blue,

yellow, and red, and the room is bright with various Oriental stuffs.

There are turbaned and silken-attired attendants, whose gentle faces

might make them mistaken for ministers of religion as well as of

cleanliness, and upon the divans recline those who have come from the

bath, enjoying _kief_, with pipes and coffee. There is an atmosphere of

perfect contentment in the place, and I can imagine how an effeminate

ruler might see, almost without a sigh, the empire of the world slip

from his grasp while he surrendered himself to this delicious influence.

 

We undressed, were towelled, shod with wooden clogs, and led through

marble paved passages and several rooms into an inner, long chamber,

which has a domed roof pierced by bulls'-eyes of party-colored glass.

The floor, of colored marbles, was slippery with water running from the

overflowing fountains, or dashed about by the attendants. Out of this

room open several smaller chambers, into which an unsocial person might

retire. We sat down on the floor by a marble basin into which both hot

and cold water poured. After a little time spent in contemplating the

humidity of the world, and reflecting on the equality of all men before

the law without clothes, an attendant approached, and began to deluge us

with buckets of hot water, dashing them over us with a jocular enjoyment

and as much indifference to our personality as if we had been statues. I

should like to know how life looks to a man who passes his days in

this dimly illumined chamber of steam, and is permitted to treat his

fellow-men with every mark of disrespect. When we were sufficiently

drenched, the agile Arab who had selected me as his mine of backsheesh,

knelt down and began to scrub me with hair mittens, with a great show of

energy, uttering jocose exclamations in his own language, and practising

the half-dozen English words he had mastered, one of them being "dam,"

which he addressed to me both affirmatively and interrogatively, as if

under the impression that it conveyed the same meaning as _tyeb_ in his

vocabulary. I suppose he had often heard wicked Englishmen, who were

under his hands, use it, and he took it for an __EXPRESSION__ of profound

satisfaction. He continued this operation for some time, putting me in a

sitting position, turning me over, telling me to "sleep" when he desired

me to lie down, encouraging me by various barbarous cries, and slapping

his hand from time to time to make up by noise for his economical

expenditure of muscular force.

 

After my hilarious bather had finished this process, he lathered me

thoroughly, drenched me from head to heels in suds, and then let me put

the crowning touch to my happiness by entering one of the little rooms,

and sliding into a tank of water hot enough to take the skin off. It is

easy enough to make all this process read like a martyrdom, but it is,

on the contrary, so delightful that you do not wonder that the ancients

spent so much time in the bath, and that next to the amphitheatre the

emperors and tyrants lavished most money upon these establishments, of

which the people were so extravagantly fond.