IN THE WAKE OF THE RISING SUN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 12, 21 March 1901, Page 3

IN THE WAKE OF THE RISING SUN.

(By ' Viator.')

Damascus, Deoember 12, 1900. EarTjV in the afternoon we are steaming away from Muallaka, down a broad, fertile valley, between Lebanon and Anti-Libanus, past the rock tombs of Cain and Abel — so they say ! — across slopes thickly planted with apricot, walnut, and apple trees, through plains well watered by brimming streams cnurning their volume in their haste to the level, down the sides of many hills till after a four hours run, the minarets ot Damascus rise clear and masterly from the clustering houses at their base. In heavy rain — a boon to the country— we drive from the station to the Beearoni Hotel — a hostelry not easily excelled in the East for all these conveniences that minimise the dif-comforts and fatigues of travel. And now what am 1 to say of Damascus, the oldest city still extant in the world, the centre seat of Oriental life and manners, unchanged save in little from the duwn of history, still presenting to the traveller from the West all those traits and colors and customs and institutions dotp-bedded in impregnable tradition, absolutely indifferent to, and verily contemptuous of, the conventions that make for civilization and culture, as they are understood and accepted ?

DAMAbCUS. To attempt a description of this city of Damascus, to give even an outline of the countless points of interest, to muse ever so faintly on the memories wrapped in its history, to attempt an analysis ever so hasty and superficial of the mental pictures that crossed as in kinematograph, were foolhardy for the writer, for the reader unnecessarily prolix in a journal of notes undigested, uncorrobarated, at random written. Here at any rate in Damascus— the ' Pearl of the East,' the ' Terrestrial Paradise ' of Moslem and Arabic writers, you get the true flavor of the East, undiluted, unmixed, unaltered — ' for ever, and for ever, and for ever.' Here the Frankish costume is not known — they look at you as you pass as a curiosity — digito monatrant. The Oriental, in flowing robeß and rich colors, reigns alone and supreme. While cities East and West have risen and fallen with the • rise and fall ' of Empires, Damascus instill what it was, and Semper tadrm. Founded before Baalbek and Palmyra it outlives them both. While Babylon is a heap in the desert, Tyre a ruin on the lonely shore, ancient Rome a study in stone, Damascus still proudly rears its head, same as it was in the days of Isaiah and David and Darius and the Ptolemies and St. Paul, the centre and head of Syria. Like all Eastern cities it ia walled in, and at various points there are gates formidable of approach, with soldiers on duty thereat, unkempt and untrimmed, but booted and spurred, after the manner of the unspeakable Turk. We went along the famous ' street cailed Straight,' mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles in connection wilh St. Paul, traversing a large section of the city and partly covered in arcade-like, affording room for vendors and buyers, and water-carriers, and fruit-sellers, and long, lithe Bedouins, and Mo.-lem women with white yashmak or black veil or kerchief in hideous colors giving them an eerie, ghoulish look, and children aud dogs, masterless do^p, and single donkeys and donkeys in droves, and strings of solemn camels, all in gloriom I'oufmion in the 'street called Straight.' From time immemorial the Ar.ibs call Damascus the

1 CAHUEX <>!' PARADISE.' If Paradise be a garden growing the most delicious fruits, where eternal ?un prevails, through whose grounds run 'streams of living water,' the ideal is nearly reached. It was pretty, at a distance — in. December, but in early spring-time when blossoms fleck the air in many hue?, and the green vine climbs from tree to tree, and budding branches ii--ie over a soil of velvet green, it is, I can well believe, a scene of unrivalled beauty. Two rners flow throngh the city, the Pharphar and the Barada and m my streams trickle from the hills to the volume of water below. The population, it is said, is difficult t r ) es'imatc, bat may be set down at 250,000 of whom 100,000 are Moslem". Schismatic Greeks number about 70,000 and Catholics up to 4.">,01>0.

(iooi work i^ being done here by the Jesnits, the Lazariets, the Franciscans, and the secular clergy in church and school, but the adamantine convictions of the Moslems, their solidarity, their power of ca«te and clan, their ineradicable traditions, habits, customs, erect barriers of the insuperable order — humanly speaking. The place is pointed out • nigh to Damascus ' where ' a light from heaven shmed round about' St. Paul, then a persecutor ; and like-wis-e the house or Judas 'in the street that is called Straight ' where ' one named Saul of Tarsus ' was taken when he was stricken blind ; also the house of the disciple Ananias now converted into a church who ' putting hands on Saul that he might receive his Bight ' changed him into ' a vessel of election to carry My name before the gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.' ' And immediately there fell from his eyes, as it were, scales, and he received his sight ; and rising up he was baptised ' Round the city walls is shown the place venerated by tradition where St. Paul was let down in a basket. 'The Jews consulted together to kill him, and they watched the gates day and night that they might kill him. . . . But the disciples taking him in the night, conveyed him away by the wall, letting him down in a basket ' (Acts of the Apostles, chap. IX.). Near the tombs, at the N.E. corner of the city wall — a tumbledown building now occupied by lepers, is shown as the house of Naaman, the Syrian, healed by the prophet Elißeus, after bathing ' seven times in the Jordan.' Further on a tomb enclosed in a mausoleum and overhung with lamps and offerings marks the last Testing place, so 'tis said, and is so held in high honor of ' true believerß,' of a daughter of Mahomet.

During our stay iv Damascus I had the privilege of saying Mass each morning at the Jesuits' Church, built over the house occupied by St. John Damascene. Born in the seventh century of

the opulent family of Mansour St. John rose to scienoe and sanctity and scattered anew over this Eastern land, long before lit by the learning and virtues and eloquence of Chrysostom and Basil and Gregory Xa/ianzen, the bright rays of Christian life, deep learning, apostolic eloquence, and heroic sanctity. Poet, philosopher, Christian protagonist, deep theologian, fearless preacher of the Word, all but manyr, St. John Damasci ne endi d his saintly life in a monantery in Judea, wnere the lonely Cedron flows beneath steep ravines from Jeru«alt m to the Dead Sea. Tin B.i/aars of I 'uira'-cus, filled with busy cro\vds. and glittering in every kind of Eastern ware, are an attraction of thp uncommon order — t-ilks, tapestry, filigree work, carpet I *, furniture inlaid with mother ot pear), gorgeous scimitars, aud comestibles of all kind-, cooked under your eye. attruct t,he wavtarer, and fabulous prices, at hrM blush sprung np^n you, melt into shadowy nothings under the influence ot coffee sips and chaffering so dear to the heart of the Eastern — yet 'mid ihe deafening din, a pious believer will rise, and facing towards Mecca chant his passages from the Koran and beg of Allah to bless his little euterpribes. Public writers — at the c ill of the illiterate — sit at the corners of the bazaars and vicariously transact the correspondence of their patrons. Here too on low stools, muffl d and bespectacled, are the money-changers, just as away in the centuries past.

A HOUSE IN THE CHBISTIAN QUARTER. A visit to a private house in the Christian quarter was a revelalation of the magnificence and luxurious style affected by the wealthy. Outside nothing is visible but lofty wallß, and a narrow, tiny window or two. Just knock. The cußtodian conducts you through a narrow passage, then across a strip of garden to a larger gate. This opened, you file along a corridor abutting on an open quadrangle, fresh, and clear, and lightsome. In the centre a fountain is playing, and lilies and narcissus and bright, fresh flowers bloom all round. Orange trees deck the court, glistening in mosaic or tesselated pavement of various colors. A broad verandah or colonnade runs round the four sides of the court, and off this court lie the living rooms, rich in marbles, frescoes, mouldings, mosaics, chandeliers, and iniaid furniture. One room there was bordered with sumptuous couches, or divans, and open to the colonnade running round. This is the common sitting room. The master of the household and his son — a youth of 17 — came to welcome ue to their home and lay it open for inspection, and spoke to us, through our dragoman, in Syrian or Arabic. The young fellow, however, spoke a little French, and English scarcely at all. Their manner was easy, courtly, soft, smiling, and gentle.

SOME OF THE SIGHTS. ' The Mosque Omazzade is worth more than a passing look, for here in belter days stood a church to St. John the Baptist, and signs are not wanting- to prove in marbles, ceiling, car\ing that it was a rich sanctuary. Even now the dome, pillars, capital's laaips, pavement show the magnificence of the building. Indeed, on the upper beam of the gate in a well -preserved Greek inscription which, being interpreted, runs: 'Thy Kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting Kingdom, and Thy Doniinicin endureth throughout all generations.' Proof, incontestable, that the ancu-nt churoh was appropnated by the Moslems. A characteristic of Damascus, in common with mo«t Oriental cities, is the hou-<ele=>. m i-ti i le-s< dog, briiwu. whi^p, black, and decidedly iiium^'cl. --iill jnoe-pd by universal suffrage as the public seavei j_;cr ot the uilu' ely. malodorous street*. Each pack would stem to lord it over its own particular beat ; nor is intru-iun of n< lghborly picks or mdnidnals tolerated. Eight or ten were located near our hotel, and with famished jaws devoured the crusts of bread we gave thtm. Quiet and harmless they are, but teeing w e provided occasional tit-bits, a neighbor dog crossed the dividing line to chare the good things. In a twinkle our dogs' bristles ro-e, the ugly snail of attack was heard as a war whoop, the fangs were bared, and they rushed i n masse on the hapless intruder, and ill would he have fared had he not entrenched himself, ' quick aa a glancing >tar,' within the fastnesses of his own lines. Then peace reigned in dogdoin. There were fireworks one night — for was it not the Sultan's birthday ? — and rockets and wheels and many colored lights blazed fast and furious round the grand square called ' Serai.' But towards eight o'clock ' the show was over,' aud troops of swart saces, turbanei and veikd. vanished into the darkness and silence of night. It is not sweet nor healthy for a would-be long liver to stroll about on Eastern City after night-tall, unless with military guard, for the wayri of the Orient a are silent ar.d quick and dark. \V>, too, vanished with the crowds and entrenched ourselves, too, within the spacious n treat of trie ' grind Besaruni Hotel, 1 under whose windows rushes the clear-tlowiug Barada Not an idle hour had we in Damascus. After four days exploiting we chived the hi LI Jebt'l-lvtsgun — whither Abraham pursued his eiK'iiiH to\wsnJ«, -lUii^-et, and from its heights looked down on the spreading uty bencith, tncircled even in winter time by its broad gnui lu.lt of rich vegetation. Closed in on the north by the Anti-Lib.uiu-1. il nked towards the west by snowy ranges of Mount Hernou, girt on toui by a russet sej,of sand, thisoaisof Damascus, b,itht din the limpid \vau i r- of its rushing rivers, baskiug now in the fleeting jays ot tue sun, hugging to its bosom the richest and choioe-t \< ,et-*tion. would seem to establish its claim as ' Paradise ot the E.i -a. The unkhug of bells, as we return, tells us of a line of cttiin Is \\ in, ling in from the hills ' with measured beat and slow,' bringing into the busy baza <rs, as in time past, with never a change, the products of the country. And fierce Bedouins, with heads swathed in many cloths, plol their way all indifferent to the change.s wrought in other climes by the rolling of years. We take leave of the fair oasis of Damascus with the prayer that the saintly souls that erstwhile lived and toiled and preached and suffered will yet ensure that * the bcales may fall from the eyes' of the unbelievers, and that the word of Divine truth may no longer be " the voice of one crying in the wilderness.'