FOR a part of two days I wound under the base of the snow-crowned Djibel el Sheik, and then entered upon a vast and desolate plain, rarely pierced at intervals by some sort of withered stem. The earth in its length and its breadth and all the deep universe of sky was steeped in light and heat.
On I rode through the fire, but long before evening came there were straining eyes that saw, and joyful voices that announced, the sight of Shaum Shereef - the "holy," the "blessed" Damascus.
But that which at last I reached with my longing eyes was not a speck in the horizon, gradually expanding to a group of roofs and walls, but a long, low line of blackest green, that ran right across in the distance from east to west. And this, as I approached, grew deeper, grew wavy in its outline.
Soon forest trees shot up before my eyes, and robed their broad shoulders so freshly, that all the throngs of olives as they rose into view looked sad in their proper dimness.
There were even now no houses to see, but only the minarets peered out from the midst of shade into the glowing sky, and bravely touched the sun. There seemed to be here no mere city, but rather a province wide and rich, that bounded the torrid waste.
Until about a year, or two years, before the time of my going there Damascus had kept up so much of the old bigot zeal against Christians, or rather, against Europeans, that no one dressed as a Frank could have dared to show himself in the streets; but the firmness and temper of Mr. Farren, who hoisted his flag in the city as consul-general for the district, had soon put an end to all intolerance of Englishmen. Damascus was safer than Oxford. When Ientered the city in my usual dress there was but one poor fellow that wagged his tongue, and him, in the open streets, Dthemetri horsewhipped. During my stay I went wherever Ichose, and attended the public baths without molestation.
Indeed, my relations with the pleasanter portion of the Mahometan population were upon a much better footing here than at most other places.
An enterprising American traveller, Mr. Everett, lately conceived the bold project of penetrating to the University of Oxford, and this notwithstanding that he had been in his infancy (they begin very young those Americans) an Unitarian preacher. Having a notion, it seems, that the ambassadorial character would protect him from insult, he adopted the stratagem of procuring credentials from his Government as Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of her Britannic Majesty; he also wore the exact costume of a Trinitarian.
But all his contrivances were vain; Oxford disdained, and rejected, and insulted him (not because he represented a swindling community, but) because that his infantine sermons were strictly remembered against him; the enterprise failed.
In the principal streets of Damascus there is a path for foot-passengers, which is raised, I think, a foot or two above the bridle-road. Until the arrival of the British consul-general none but a Mussulman had been permitted to walk upon the upper way. Mr. Farren would not, of course, suffer that the humiliation of any such exclusion should be submitted to by an Englishman, and I always walked upon the raised path as free and unmolested as if I had been in Pall Mall. The old usage was, however, maintained with as much strictness as ever against the Christian Rayahs and Jews: not one of them could have set his foot upon the privileged path without endangering his life.
I was lounging one day, I remember, along "the paths of the faithful," when a Christian Rayah from the bridle-road below saluted me with such earnestness, and craved so anxiously to speak and be spoken to, that he soon brought me to a halt.
He had nothing to tell, except only the glory and exultation with which he saw a fellow-Christian stand level with the imperious Mussulmans. Perhaps he had been absent from the place for some time, for otherwise I hardly know how it could have happened that my exaltation was the first instance he had seen. His joy was great. So strong and strenuous was England (Lord Palmerston reigned in those days), that it was a pride and delight for a Syrian Christian to look up and say that the Englishman's faith was his too. If I was vexed at all that I could not give the man a lift and shake hands with him on level ground, there was no alloy to his pleasure. He followed me on, not looking to his own path, but keeping his eyes on me. He saw, as he thought, and said (for he came with me on to my quarters), the period of the Mahometan's absolute ascendency, the beginning of the Christian's. He had so closely associated the insulting privilege of the path with actual dominion, that seeing it now in one instance abandoned, he looked for the quick coming of European troops.
His lips only whispered, and that tremulously, but his fiery eyes spoke out their triumph in long and loud hurrahs: "I, too, am a Christian. My foes are the foes of the English.
We are all one people, and Christ is our King."If I poorly deserved, yet I liked this claim of brotherhood.
Not all the warnings which I heard against their rascality could hinder me from feeling kindly towards my fellow-Christians in the East. English travellers, from a habit perhaps of depreciating sectarians in their own country, are apt to look down upon the Oriental Christians as being "dissenters" from the established religion of a Mahometan empire. I never did thus. By a natural perversity of disposition, which my nursemaids called contrariness, I felt the more strongly for my creed when I saw it despised among men. I quite tolerated the Christianity of Mahometan countries, notwithstanding its humble aspect and the damaged character of its followers. I went further and extended some sympathy towards those who, with all the claims of superior intellect, learning, and industry, were kept down under the heel of the Mussulmans by reason of their having OUR faith.