THE WORLD'S OLDEST CITY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 247, 8 March 1913, Page 10

THE WORLD'S OLDEST CITY

CHARMS AND WONDERS OK DAMASCUS.

"(Jo back," wrote Mark Twain, "as far as you will, into the vague past, there is always a Damascus. ... To her, years are only moments —decades only flitting trifles of time: she measures time not ty days, months and years, but by the empires she has seen rise and' prosper and crumble into ruin. She is a type of inmiortality."

YVlien Abi«iham crossed the desert ■from Harah, four thousand years ago, Damascus was already standing on the banks of the Abana, in Syria, and no one can tell how long it had stood there before that time, for its origin is lost in the mists of antiquity. ''Babylon is a heap in the desert, and Tyre a ruin on the shore," but Damascus still remains. Rome has been called the Eternal City, but Damascus is twice as old as Rome. Its -history runs back to the beginning of the world and bids fair to go on to its end.

It has lived through all these long centuries and no historian has yet had the opportunity of writing of its decline and fall. This is remarkable when it is remembered that not less than twelve times it has been pillaged and burnt, yet .it has always risen with new beauty from its ashes. It has been ruled by Syrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans and Turks, and it has lived and flourished under them all. It is, indeed, the oldest city in the world that has had a continuous history. Damascus is now and always has been a rich and prosperous city. It .was so in Bible times. Isaiah writes of the "riches of Damascus," and the traveller to-day may see long trains of camels iaden .with all kinds of merchandise leaving Damascus, going down to Egypt oi' out to Beyrout, where they are shipped to other shores. Damascus is rich, and a centre of trade for all the East. Its bazaars are the most famous in the world. These bazaars are a series of shops for the sale of articles, and in some eases for the manufacture of them. Each baeaar is devoted to a particular class of goods. They are ' famous for their treasures of silk, carpets, saddles, silver and gold ornaments, slippers, sword blades, rare woods, and almost everything reqiired in the general life of the East. People of many races, men. and women in all picturesque costumes, strings of camels, donkeys with cradle saddles, Arabian horses and dogs, throng the streets.

Then Damascus is destined to play an important part in tbe history of the East. It is the centre of a network of railways, it already boasts of three railway stations, and when the Bagdad line has reached the Euphrates, Damascus will be in railway communication with Constantinople and Europe, as well as with Palestine and Arabia. Then Damascus was the first city in Bible lands to have electric light and trams. It is certainly one of the most beautiful cities in its situation. Imagine a magnificent plain, well watered and fertile, in the midst of a desert, covering an area of more than thirty miles in circumference, surrounded on nearly all sides by high hills—imagine this vast plain in a high state of cultivation, one vast garden of fruit trees of almost every species, fields of grain, nearly all varieties of flowers, and the ever-pre-sent murmur of running streams. Situated about the middle of this plain, and buried in its forest of grass and grain and trees and sparkling streams, a city of 150.000 people, with its hundreds of white minarets, gilded domes and crowded bazaars—that is Damascus, beautiful indeed for situation.

It undoubtedly owes its beauty, vitality and wealth to the River Ahana, which rises in Lebanon, some twenty miles away. Before it reaches Damascus, it is divided into six artificial channels (the main one about fifty feet wide) running through the heart of the city. Pipes are led from it to every part, so that every mosque and house and court has its fountain, and everywhere you go amid groves or gardens or public resorts, or retired nooks, you may see and bear the murmur of swift-h-Howing and sparkling streams, and this abundance of clear cold water is one of the charms of the city. This is the river of which Xaaman spoke with such pride, when he said, "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all tbe rivers of Israel?" And he was right so far as beauty and usefulness are concerned.

Damascus is mentioned many times in the Bible, both in the Old and New. Testament. In the latter it comes before us in connection with the conversion of St. Paul. Tradition has localised every event connected with the Apostle. Outside, on the Damascus road, five miles from the city, is pointed out the place where St. Paul had the vision which so changed the course of his life. There is the gate, still standing, where he entered by the Roman road into the city. There is the street called ''Straight," the very street mentioned in connection with St. Paul's conversion, changed, of course, probably re-built, but still the street spoken of in Acts as the "street which is called Straight." It is, to-day, a mile long, be r ginning at one end of the leading gates of the city and running from east to west.

Then Damascus is a city of mosques, baths and fountains. Climb on to the roof of any dwelling and you are in a sea of minarets, while all around you are rows upon rows of what look all 'the world like turned-down saucers; these are the Arabs', baths. There are two hundred and fifty mosques in the city, the most important being the Great Mosque, great in size and great in reputation. The ground upon which it stands had a great history. On this spot stood the House of Rimroon, where Xaaman worshipped. When Damascus was under Roman rule, Constantine erected on this site a beautiful Christian Church dedicated to John the Baptist. Then, when Damascus fell into the hands of the Turks, they converted the Christian church into a mosque, obliterating everything about it that had a trace of Christianity. They closed the door by which the Christians entered, and put up other buildings in front of it.

Some few years ago this great mosque, to the regret of the whole civilised world, was burned down in a single day. Strange to say, however, the old door escaped the conllagration, and no one was more surprised than the Mohammedans themselves to read over its portals these words from the Psalms: "Thy kingdom, 0 Christ, is a kingdom of all the ages, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations." The mosque was rebuilt, but the Moslems being superstitious feared to tamper with the old door and its sacred inscription, and so left it, and it can be seen to this day, a reminder that Mohammedan rule has not always been -supreme in the mother city of the world.