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Syria: the Desert and the Sown

<h4>CHAPTER VII</h4> When I had come to Damascus five years before, my chief counsellor and friend—a friend whose death will be deplored by many a traveller in Syria—was Lütticke, head of the banking house of that name and honorary German consul. It was a chance remark of his that revealed to me the place that the town had and still has in Arab history. "I am persuaded," said he, "that in and about Damascus you may see the finest Arab population that can be found anywhere. They are the descendants of the original invaders who came up on the first great wave of the conquest, and they have kept their stock almost pure." <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/figure69.jpg" width-obs="200" alt="" /> IN THE PALMYRENE DESERT </div> Above all other cities Damascus is the capital of the desert. The desert stretches up to its walls, the breath of it is blown in by every wind, the spirit of it comes through the eastern gates with every camel driver. In Damascus the sheikhs of the richer tribes have their town houses; you may meet Muḥammad of the Ḥaseneh or Bassān of the Beni Rashīd peacocking down the bazaars on a fine Friday, in embroidered cloaks and purple and silver kerchiefs fastened about their brows with camels' hair ropes bound with gold. They hold their heads high, these Lords of the Wilderness, striding through the holiday crowds, that part to give them passage, as if Damascus were their own town. And so it is, for it was the first capital of the Bedouin khalifs outside the Ḥejāz, and it holds and remembers the greatest Arab traditions. It was almost the first of world-renowned cities to fall before the irresistible chivalry of the desert which Muḥammad had called to arms and to which he had given purpose and a battle-cry, and it was the only one which remained as important under the rule of Islām as it had been [Pg 134] under the empire of Rome. Mu'āwiyah made it his capital, and it continued to be the chief city of Islām until the fall of the house of Ummayah ninety years later. It was the last of Moslem capitals that ruled in accordance with desert traditions. Persian generals placed the Beni Abbās upon their throne in Mesopotamia, Persian and Turkish influences were dominant in Baghdad, and with them crept in the fatal habits of luxury which the desert had never known, nor the early khalifs who milked their own goats and divided the spoils of their victories among the Faithful. The very soil of Mesopotamia exhaled emanations fatal to virility. The ancient ghosts of Babylonian and Assyrian palace intrigue rose from their muddy graves, mighty in evil, to overthrow the soldier khalif, to strip him of his armour and to tie him hand and foot with silk and gold. Damascus had been innocent of them; Damascus, swept by the clean desert winds, had ruled the empire of the Prophet with some of the Spartan vigour of early days. She was not a parvenue like the capitals on the Tigris; she had seen kings and emperors within her walls, and learnt the difference between strength and weakness, and which path leads to dominion and which to slavery. When I arrived I was greeted with the news that my journey in the Ḥaurān had considerably agitated the mind of his Excellency Nāzim Pasha, Vāli of Syria; indeed it was currently reported that this much exercised and delicately placed gentleman had been vexed beyond reason by my sudden appearance at Ṣalkhad and that he had retired to his bed when I had departed beyond the reach of Yūsef Effendi's eye, though some suggested that the real reason for his Excellency's sudden indisposition was a desire to avoid taking part in the memorial service to the Archduke Serge. Be that as it may, he sent me on the day of my arrival a polite message expressing his hope that he might have the pleasure of making my acquaintance. [Pg 135] I confess my principal feeling was one of penitence when I was ushered into the big new house that the Vāli has built for himself at the end of Ṣalaḥiyyeh, the suburb of Damascus that stretches along the foot of the bare hills to the north of the town. I had a great wish to apologise, or at any rate to prove to him that I was not to be regarded as a designing enemy. These sentiments were enhanced by the kindness with which he received me, and the respect with which he inspires those who come to know him. He is a man of a nervous temperament, always on the alert against the difficulties with which his vilayet is not slow to provide him, conscientious, and I should fancy honest, painfully anxious to reconcile interests that are as easy to combine as oil with vinegar, the corner of his eye fixed assiduously on his royal master who will take good care that so distinguished a personality as Nāzim Pasha shall be retained at a considerable distance from the shores of the Bosphorus. The Vāli has been eight years in Damascus, the usual term of office being five, and he has evidently made up his mind that in Damascus he will remain, if no ill luck befall him, for he has built himself a large house and planned a fine garden, the laying out of which distracts his mind, let us hope, from preoccupations that can seldom be pleasant. One of his safeguards is that he has been actively concerned with the construction of the Ḥejāz railway, in which the Sultan takes the deepest interest, and until it is completed or abandoned he is sufficiently useful to be kept at his post.[8] The bazaar, that is public opinion, does not think that it will be abandoned, in spite of the opposition of the Sherlf of Mecca and all his clan, who will never be convinced of the justice of the Sultan's claim to the khalifate of Islām nor willing to bring him into closer touch with the religious capitals. The bazaar backs the Sultan against the Sherīf and all other adversaries, sacred or profane. The wheels of the Turk grind slowly and often stop, but in the end they grind small, especially when the grist [Pg 136] is Arab tribes rendered peculiarly brittle by their private jealousies and suspicions and pretensions. Turkish policy is like that of which Ibn Kulthum sang when he said: <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/figure70.jpg" width-obs="500" alt="" /> THE GREAT MOSQUE AND THE ROOFS OF THE BAZAAR FROM THE FORT </div> [Pg 137] When our mill is set down among a people they are as flour before our coming. Our meal cloth is spread eastwards of Nejd and the grain is the whole tribe of Ḳuda'a. Like guests you alighted at our door and we hastened our hospitality lest you should turn on us. We welcomed you and hastened the welcoming: yea, before the dawn, and our mills grind small. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/figure71.jpg" width-obs="400" alt="" /> A CORN MARKET </div> Nāzim Pasha, though he has been eight years in Syria, talks no Arabic. We in Europe, who speak of Turkey as though it were a homogeneous empire, might as well when we speak of England intend the word to include India, the Shan States, Hongkong and Uganda. In the sense of a land inhabited mainly by Turks there is not such a country as Turkey. The parts of his dominions where the Turk is in a majority are few; generally his position is that of an alien governing, with a handful of soldiers and an empty purse, a mixed collection of subjects hostile to him and to each other. He is not acquainted with their language, it is absurd to expect of him much sympathy for aspirations political and religious which are generally made known to him amid a salvo of [Pg 139] musketry, and if the bullets happen to be directed, as they often are, by one unruly and unreasonable section of the vilayet at another equally unreasonable and unruly, he is hardly likely to feel much regret at the loss of life that may result. He himself, when he is let alone, has a strong sense of the comfort of law and order. Observe the internal arrangements of a Turkish village, and you shall see that the Turkish peasant knows how to lay down rules of conduct and how to obey them. I believe that the best of our own native local officials in Egypt are Turks who have brought to bear under the new regime the good sense and the natural instinct for government for which they had not much scope under the old. It is in the upper grades that the hierarchy of the Ottoman Empire has proved so defective, and the upper grades are filled with Greeks, Armenians, Syrians, and personages of various nationalities generally esteemed in the East (and not without reason) untrustworthy. The fact that such men as these should inevitably rise to the top, points to the reason of the Turk's failure. He cannot govern on wide lines, though he can organise a village community; above all he cannot govern on foreign lines, and unfortunately he is brought more and more into contact with foreign nations. Even his own subjects have caught the infection of progress. The Greeks and Armenians have become merchants and bankers, the Syrians merchants and landowners; they find themselves hampered at every turn by a government which will not realise that a wealthy nation is made up of wealthy subjects. And yet, for all his failure, there is no one who would obviously be fitted to take his place. For my immediate purpose I speak only of Syria, the province with which I am the most familiar. Of what value are the pan-Arabic associations and the inflammatory leaflets that they issue from foreign printing presses? The answer is easy: they are worth nothing at all. There is no nation of Arabs; the Syrian merchant is separated by a wider gulf from the Bedouin than he is from the Osmanli, the Syrian country is inhabited by Arabic speaking races all eager to be at each other's throats, and only prevented from fulfilling their natural desires by the [Pg 140] ragged half fed soldier who draws at rare intervals the Sultan's pay. And this soldier, whether he be Kurd or Circassian or Arab from Damascus, is worth a good deal more than the hire he receives. Other armies may mutiny, but the Turkish army will stand true to the khalif; other armies may give way before suffering and privation and untended sickness, but that of the Sultan will go forward as long as it can stand, and fight as long as it has arms, and conquer as long as it has leaders. There is no more wonderful and pitiful sight than a Turkish regiment on the march: greybeards and half-fledged youths, ill-clad and often barefoot, pinched and worn—and indomitable. Let such as watch them salute them as they pass: in the days when war was an art rather than a science, of that stuff the conquerors of the world were made. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/figure72.jpg" width-obs="200" alt=" " /> THE ḲUBBET EL KHAZNEH </div> But I have left the Governor of Syria waiting far too long. We talked, then, in French, a language with which he was imperfectly acquainted, and from time to time a Syrian gentleman helped him in Turkish over the stiles and pitfalls of the foreign tongue. The Syrian was a rich Maronite landowner of the Lebanon, who happened to be in good odour at Government House though he had but recently spent a year in prison. He had accompanied me upon my visit and was then and there appointed by the Vāli to be my cicerone in Damascus; Selīm Beg was his name. The talk [Pg 141] was principally of archæology, I purposely insisting on my interest in that subject as compared with the politics of the Mountain and the Desert, to which we thus avoided any serious allusion. The Vāli was affability itself. He presented me with certain photographs of the priceless manuscripts of the Ḳubbet el Khazneh in the Great Mosque, now closed for ever to the public eye, and promised me the rest of the series. To that end a bowing personage took my English address and noted it carefully in a pocket book, and I need scarcely say that was the last any one heard of the matter. Presently the Vāli announced that Madame Pasha and the children were waiting to see me, and I followed him upstairs into a sunny room with windows opening on to a balcony from which you could see all Damascus and its gardens and the hills beyond. There is only one Madame Pasha, and she is a pretty, sharp-featured Circassian, but there was another (gossip says the favourite) who died a year ago. The children were engaging. They recited French poems to me, their bright eyes quick to catch and to respond to every expression of approbation or amusement; they played tinkling polkas, sitting very upright on the music stool with their pig-tails hanging down their velvet backs. The Pasha stood in the window and beamed upon them, the Circassian wife smoked cigarettes and bowed whenever she caught my eye, a black slave boy at the door grinned from ear to ear as his masters and mistresses, who were also his school-mates and his play-fellows, accomplished their tasks. I came away with a delightful impression of pretty smiling manners and vivacious intelligence, and expressed my pleasure to the Pasha as we went down stairs. "Ah!" said he politely, "if I could have them taught English! But what will you? we cannot get an Englishwoman to agree with our customs, and I have only the Greek lady whom you saw to teach them French." I had indeed noticed the Greek woman, an underbred little person, whose bearing could not escape attention in the graceful company upstairs, but I was not slow to expatiate on the excellence of the French she spoke—may Heaven forgive me! The Pasha shook his head. "If I could get an Englishwoman!" said he. Unfortunately I had no one to suggest for the post, nor would he have welcomed a suggestion. [Pg 142] <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/figure73.jpg" width-obs="500" alt="" /> THE TEKYAH OF NAKSHIBENDI </div> [Pg 143] Before I left, two distinguished personages arrived to have audience of the Vāli. The first was a man by complexion almost a negro, but with an unmistakable look of race and a sharp quick glance. He was the Amīr 'Abdullah Pasha, son of 'Abd ul Ḳādir, the great Algerian, by a negro slave. The second was Sheikh Ḥassan Nakshbendi, hereditary chief—pope, I had almost said—of an orthodox order of Islām famous in Damascus, where its principal Tekyah is situated. (Now a Tekyah is a religious institution for the housing of mendicant dervishes and other holy persons, something like a monastery, only that there is no vow of chastity imposed upon its members, who may have as many wives as they choose outside the Tekyah; Sheikh Ḥassan himself had the full complement of four.) All the wily ecclesiastic's astuteness shone from the countenance of this worthy. I do not know that his wits were especially remarkable, but his unscrupulousness must have supplemented any deficiencies, or his smile belied him. The meeting with these two accomplished my introduction to Damascus society. Both of them extended to me a warm invitation to visit them in their houses, the Tekyah or anywhere I would, and I accepted all, but I went to the Amīr 'Abdullah first. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/figure74.jpg" width-obs="200" alt="" /> GATE OF THE TEKYAH </div> Or rather, I went first to the house of his elder brother, the Amīr [Pg 145] 'Ali Pasha, because it was there that 'Abd ul Ḳādir had lived, and there that he had sheltered, during the black days of the massacres in 1860, a thousand Christians. About his name there lingers a romantic association of courage and patriotism, crowned by a wise and honoured age full of authority and the power lent by wealth, for the 'Abd ul Ḳādir family own all the quarter in which they reside. The house, like any great Damascus house, made no show from the outside. We entered through a small door in a narrow winding street by a dark passage, turned a couple of comers and found ourselves in a marble court with a fountain in the centre and orange trees planted round. All the big rooms opened into this court, the doors were thrown wide to me, and coffee and sweetmeats were served by the groom of the chambers, while I admired the decoration of the walls and the water that bubbled up into marble basins and flowed away by marble conduits. In this and in most of the Damascene palaces every window sill has a gurgling pool in it, so that the air that blows into the room may bring with it a damp freshness. The Amīr 'Ali was away, but his major domo, who looked like a servant de bonne maison and had the respectful familiarity of manner that the Oriental dependant knows so well how to assume, showed us his master's treasures, the jewelled sabre presented to the old Amīr by Napoleon III, 'Abd ul Ḳādir's rifles, and a pair of heavy, silver-mounted swords sent as a gift last year by 'Abd ul 'Aziz ibn er Rashīd—there is a traditional friendship, I learnt, between the Algerian family and the Lords of Ḥāil. He showed us, too, pictures of 'Abd ul Ḳādir; the Amīr leading his cavalry, the Amīr at Versailles coming down the steps of the palace with Napoleon, bearing himself as one who wins and not as one who loses, the Amīr as an old man in Damascus, always in the white Algerian robes that he never abandoned, and always with the same grave and splendid dignity of countenance. And last I was led over a little bridge, that crossed a running stream behind the main court, into a garden full of violets, through which we passed to stables as airy, as light and as dry as the best European stables could have been. In the stalls stood two lovely Arab mares from the famous studs of the Ruwalla [Pg 146] and a well-bred mule almost as valuable as they. There was a sad-looking man who accompanied us upon our round, though he did not seem to belong to the establishment; his face was so gloomy that it arrested my attention, and I asked Selīm Beg who he was. A Christian, he answered, of a rich family, who had been persecuted to change his religion and had sought sanctuary with the Amīr 'Ai. I heard no more of his story, but he fitted into the picture that 'Abd ul Ḳādir's dwelling-place left upon the mind: the house of gentlefolk, well kept by well-trained servants, provided with the amenities of life and offering protection to the distressed. On the following morning I went to see the Amīr 'Abdullah, who lived next door to his brother. I found there a nephew of 'Abdullah's, the Amīr Ṭāhir, son of yet another brother, and my arrival was greeted with satisfaction because there happened to be staying with them a distinguished guest whom I should doubtless like to see. He was a certain Sheikh Ṭāhir ul Jezāiri, a man much renowned for his learning and for his tempestuous and revolutionary politics. Summoned hastily into the divanned and carpeted upper room in which we were sitting, he entered like a whirlwind, and establishing himself by my side poured into my ear, and into all other ears in the vicinity, for he spoke loud, his distress at not being permitted by the Vāli to associate freely with gifted foreigners such as the American archaeologists or even myself ("God forbid!" I murmured modestly), and a great many other grievances besides. When this topic had run comparatively dry, he sent the Amīr Ṭāhir to seek for some publications of his own with which he presented me. They dealt with Arabic and the allied languages, such as Nabatæan, Safaitic and Phœnician, the alphabetical signs of which he had arranged very carefully and well in comparative tables, though he had not an idea of the signification of any one of the tongues except his own. A curious and typical example of oriental scholarship was Sheikh Ṭāhir, but from the samples I had of his conversation I am not sure that the sympathies of those who respect peace and order would not be with the Vāli. Presently another notable dropped in, Muṣṭafa Pasha el Barāzi, a member of one of the four leading families of Ḥamāh, and [Pg 147] the whole company fell to talking of their own concerns, Syrian politics and other matters, while I listened and looked out of window over the Amīr's garden and the stream at its foot, and wondered what had made me so fortunate as to be taking part in a Damascene morning call. At length the Amīr 'Abdullah and his nephew took me aside and discussed long and earnestly a great project which I had broached to them and which I will not reveal here. And when the visit was over Selīm and Muṣṭafa and I went out and lunched at an excellent native restaurant in the Greek bazaar, sitting, cheek by jowl with a Bedouin from the desert and eating the best of foods and the choicest of Damascus cream tarts for the sum of eighteen pence between the three of us, which included the coffee and a liberal tip. There was another morning no less pleasant when I went with the faithful Selīm to pay my respects on a charming old man, the most famous scribe in all the city, Muṣṭafa el Asbā'i was his name. He lived in a house, decorated with the exquisite taste of two hundred years ago inlaid with coloured marbles and overlaid with gesso duro worked in patterns like the frontispiece of an illuminated Persian manuscript and painted in soft rich colours in which gold and golden brown predominated. We were, taken through the reception rooms into a little chamber on an upper floor where Muṣṭafa was wont to sit and write those texts that are the pictures of the Moslem East. It was hung round with examples from celebrated hands ancient and modern, among which I recognised that of my friend Muḥammad 'Ali, son of Beha Ullaḥ the Persian prophet, to my mind the most skilful penman of our day, though Oriental preference goes out to another Persian of the same religious sect, Mushḳin Kalam, and him also I count among my friends. We sat on cushions and drank coffee, turning over the while exquisite manuscripts of all dates and countries, some written on gold and some on silver, some on brocade and some on supple parchment (several of these last being pages of Kufic texts abstracted from the Ḳubbet el Khazneh before it was closed), and when we rose to go Muṣṭafa presented me with three examples of his own art, and I carried them off rejoicing. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/figure75.jpg" width-obs="200" alt="" /> MUSHḲIN KALAM </div> Later in the afternoon we drove out to the valley of the Barada, Selīm [Pg 148] and I, and called on a third soil of 'Abd ul Ḳādir: "Amīr Omar, princ d'Abd ul Ḳādir" ran his visiting card, printed in the Latin character. He is the country gentleman of the family. 'Ali has been carried into spheres of greater influence by his marriage with a sister of 'Izzet Pasha, the mighty Shadow behind the Throne in Constantinople; 'Abdullah has always a thousand schemes on hand that keep him to the town, but 'Umar is content to hunt and shoot and tend his garden and lead the simple life. So simple was it that we found him in a smoking cap and a dressing gown and carpet slippers walking the garden alleys. He took us into his house, which, like the other houses of his family, was full of flowers, and up to a pavilion on the roof, whither his pointer followed us with a friendly air of companionship. There amid pots of hyacinths and tulips we watched the sun set over the snowy hills and talked of desert game and sport. Nor let me, amid all this high company, forget my humbler friends: the Afghan with black locks hanging about his cheeks, who gave me the salute every time we met (the Amīr of Afghanistan has an agent in Damascus to look after the welfare of his subjects on the pilgrimage); the sweetmeat seller at the door of the Great Mosque, who helped me once or twice through the mazes of the bazaars and called to me each time I passed [Pg 149] him: "Has your Excellency no need of your Dragoman to-day?"; or the dervishes of Sheikh Ḥassan's Tekyah, who invited me to attend the Friday prayers. Not least the red-bearded Persian who keeps a tea shop in the Corn Market and who is a member of the Beha'i sect among which I have many acquaintances. As I sat drinking glasses of delicious Persian tea at his table, I greeted him in his own tongue and whispered: "I have been much honoured by the Holy Family at Acre." He nodded his head and smiled and answered: "Your Excellency is known to us," and when I rose to go and asked his charge he replied: "For you there is never anything to pay." I vow there is nothing that so warms the heart as to find yourself admitted into the secret circle of Oriental beneficence—and few things so rare. Upon a sunny afternoon I escaped from the many people who were always in waiting to take me to one place or another and made my way alone through the bazaars, ever the most fascinating of loitering grounds, till I reached the doors of the Great Mosque. It was the hour of the afternoon prayer. I left my shoes with a bed-ridden negro by the entrance and wandered into the wide cloister that runs along the whole of the west side of the Mosque. A fire some ten years ago, and the reparations that followed it, have robbed the Mosque of much o its beauty, but it still remains the centre of interest to the archæologist, who puzzles over the traces of church and temple and Heaven knows what besides that are to be seen embedded in its walls and gates. The court was half full of afternoon shadow and half of sun, and in the golden light troops of little boys with green willow switches in their hands were running to and fro in noiseless play, while the Faithful made their first prostrations before they entered the Mosque. I followed them in and watched them fall into long lines down nave and aisle from east to west. All sorts and grades of men stood side by side, from the learned doctor in a fur-lined coat and silken robes to the raggedest camel driver from the desert, for Islām is the only republic in the world and recognises no distinctions of wealth or rank. When they had assembled to the number of three or four hundred, the chant of the Imām began. "God!" he cried, [Pg 150] and the congregation fell with a single movement upon their faces and remained a full minute in silent adoration till the high chant began again. "The Creator of this world and the next, of the heavens and of the earth, He who leads the righteous in the true path and the wicked to destruct on God!" And as the almighty name echoed through the colonnades where it had sounded for near two thousand years, the listeners prostrated themselves again, and for a moment all the sanctuary was silence. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/figure76.jpg" width-obs="200" alt="" /> SWEETMEAT SELLERS </div> That night I went to an evening party at the invitation of Shekīb el Arslān, a Druze of a well known family of the Lebanon and a poet foreby—have I not been presented with a copy of his latest ode? The party was held in the Maidān, at the house of some corn merchants, who are agents to the Ḥaurān Druzes in the matter of corn selling and know the politics of the Mountain well. There were twelve or fourteen persons present, Shekīb and I and the corn merchants (dressed as befits well-to-do folk in blue silk robes and embroidered yellow turbans) and a few others, I know not who they were. The room was blessedly empty of all but carpets and a divan and a brazier, and this was noteworthy, for not even the 'Abd ul Ḳādir houses are free from blue and red glass vases and fringed mats that break out like a hideous disease in the marble embrazures and on the shelves of the gesso duro cupboards. Shekīb was a man of education and had experience of the world; he had even travelled once as far as London. He talked in French until one of our hosts stopped him with: [Pg 151] "Oh, Shekīb! you know Arabic, the lady also. Talk therefore that we can understand." His views on Turkish politics were worth hearing. "My friends," said he, "the evils under which we suffer are due to the foreign nations who refuse to allow the Turkish empire to move in any direction. When she fights they take the fruits of her victory from her, as they did after the war: with the Greeks. What good is it that we should conquer the rebellious Albanians? the Bulgarians alone would gain, advantage and the followers of our Prophet (sic, though he was a Druze) could not live under the hand of the Bulgarians as they would not live under the hand of the Greeks in Crete. For look you, the Moslems of Crete are now dwelling at Ṣalaḥiyyeh as you know well, and Crete has suffered by their departure." There was so much truth in this that I who listened wished that the enemies of Turkey could hear and would deeply ponder the point of view of intelligent and well-informed subjects of the Ottoman Empire. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/figure77.jpg" width-obs="400" alt="" /> COURT OF THE GREAT MOSQUE </div> My last day in Damascus was a Friday. Now Damascus on a fine Friday is a sight worth travelling far to see. All the male population dressed in their best parade the streets, the sweetmeat sellers and the auctioneers of second-hand clothes drive a roaring trade, the eating shops steam with dressed meats of the most tempting kind, and splendidly caparisoned mares are galloped along the road by the river Abana. Early in the afternoon I had distinguished visitors. The first to wait on me was Muḥammad Pasha, Sheikh of Jerūd, an oasis half way upon the road to Palmyra. Jerūdi is the second greatest brigand in all the land, the greatest (no one disputes him the title) being Fayyāḍ Agha of Karyatein, another oasis on the Palmyra road. Fayyāḍ, I fancy, is an evil rogue, though he had been polite enough to me when I had passed his way, but Jerūdi's knavery is of a different brand. He is a big, powerful man with a wall eye; he was a mighty rider and raider in his day, for he has Arab blood in his veins, and his grandfather was of the high stock of the 'Anazeh, but he has grown old and heavy and gouty, and [Pg 152] his desire is for peace, a desire difficult to attain, what with his antecedents and the outlying position of Jerūd, which makes it the natural resort of all the turbulent spirits of the desert. He must keep on terms both with his Arab kin and with the government, each trying to use his influence with the other, and he the while seeking to profit from both, with his wall eye turned towards the demands of the aw, and his good eye fixed on his own advantage, if I understand him. Justly irate consuls have several times demanded of the Vāli his immediate execution; but the Vāli, though he not infrequently signifies his disapproval of some markedly outrageous deed by a term of imprisonment, can never be brought to take the further step, saying that the government has before now found Jerūdi a useful man, and no doubt the Vāli is the best judge. To his great sorrow Muḥammad Pasha has no sons to inherit his very considerable wealth, and the grasshopper, in the shape of a tribe of expectant nephews, has come to be a burden on his years. Recently he married a daughter of Fayyāḍ's house, a girl of fifteen, but she has not brought him children. A famous tale about him is current in Damascus, a tale to which men do not, however, allude [Pg 153] in his presence. At the outbreak of the last Druze war Jerūdi happened to be enjoying one of his interludes of adhesion to the powers that be, and because he knew the Mountain well he was sent with thirty or forty men to scout and report, the army following upon his heels. It happened that as he passed through a hamlet near Ormān, his old acquaintance, the sheikh of the village, saw him, and invited him in to eat. And as he sat in the maḳ'ad awaiting his dinner he heard the Druzes discussing outside whether they had not better profit by this opportunity to kill him as an officer of the Turkish army; and he desired earnestly to go away from that place, but he could not, the rules of polite society making it incumbent upon him to stay and eat the dinner that was a-cooking. So when it came he despatched it with some speed, for the discussion outside had reached a stage that inspired him with the gravest anxiety, and having eaten he mounted his horse and rode away before the Druzes had reached a conclusion. And as he went he found himself suddenly between two fires; the Turkish army had come up and the first battle of the war had begun. He and his men, discouraged and [Pg 154] perplexed, took refuge behind some rocks, and, as best they might, they made their way back one by one to the extreme rear of the Turkish troops. The Druzes have composed a song about this incident; it begins: <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/figure78.jpg" width-obs="400" alt="" /> THRESHING-FLOOR OF ḲARYATEIN </div> Jerūdi's golden mares are famed, And fair the riders in their stumbling flight! Muḥammad Pasha, tell thy lord Where are his soldiers, where his arms! This piece is not often sung before him. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/figure79.jpg" width-obs="400" alt="" /> THE TEKYAH OF NAKSHIBENDI </div> My next visitor was Sheikh Ḥassan Nakshibendi, he of the sleek and cunning clerical face. He contrived to make good use even of the ten minutes he spent in the inn parlour, for noticing a gaudy ring on Selīm Beg's finger he asked to see it, and liked it so well that he put it in his pocket saying that Selīm would certainly wish to give a present to his khānum, the youngest of his wives, whom he had married a year or two before. Selīm replied that in that case we must go at once to his house in Ṣalaḥiyyeh that the present might be offered, and both Sheikh Ḥassan and Muḥammad Pasha having their victorias at the door, we four got into them and drove off to Ṣalaḥiyyeh through the bright holiday streets. At the door of the house Selīm announced that I ought first to take leave of the Vāli, who lived close at hand, and borrowed Jerūdi's carriage that we might go in style. Then said Selīm to Muḥammad Pasha: [Pg 155] "Are you not coming with us?" But the question was put in sarcasm, for he knew well that Jerūdi was going through a period of disgrace and that he had but recently emerged from a well-merited imprisonment. Jerūdi shook his head and drawing near to us, seated in his victoria, he whispered: "Say something in my favour to the Pasha." We laughed and promised to speak for him, though Selīm confided to me as we drove away that when he had been in disgrace ("entirely owing to the intrigues of my enemies"), not a man had come forward to help him, while now that he was in favour every one begged for his intervention; and he drew his frock coat round him and lent back against the cushions of Jerūdi's carriage with the air of one who is proudly conscious that he is in a position to fulfil scriptural injunctions to the letter. Nāzim Pasha was on his doorstep taking leave of the commander-in-chief. When he saw us he came down the steps and called us in with the utmost friendliness. The second visit to his house (he had been to see me in between) was much less formal than the first. We talked of the Japanese War, a topic never far from the lips of my interlocutors, great or small, and I made bold to ask him his opinion. "Officially," said he, "I am neutral." "But between friends?" "Of course I am on the side of the Japanese," he answered. And then he added: "It is you who have gained by their victory." I replied: "But will you not also gain?" He answered gloomily: "We have not gained as yet. Not at all in Macedonia." Then he asked how I had enjoyed my visit to Damascus. Selīm replied hastily: "To-day she has had a great disappointment." The Vāli looked concerned. "Yes," continued Selīm, "she had hoped to see a chief of brigands, and she has found only a peaceful subject of your Excellency." "Who is he?" said Nāzim. [Pg 156] "Muḥammad Pasha Jerūdi," answered Selīm. The good word had been spoken very skilfully. <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/figure80.jpg" width-obs="400" alt="" /> OUTSIDE DAMASCUS GATES </div> When we returned to Sheikh Ḥassan's house we related this conversation to the subject of it, and Jerūdi pulled a wry face, but expressed himself satisfied. Sheikh Ḥassan then took me to see his wife—his fifth wife, for he had divorced one of the legal four to marry her. He has the discretion to keep a separate establishment for each, and I do not question that he is repaid by the resulting peace of his hearths. There were three women in the inner room, the wife and another who was apparently not of the household, for she hid her face under the bed clothes when Sheikh Ḥassan came in, and a Christian, useful in looking after the male guests (there were others besides Jerūdi and Selīm) and in doing commissions in the bazaars, where she can go more freely than her sister Moslems. The harem was shockingly untidy. Except when the women folk expect your visit and have prepared for it, nothing is more forlornly unkempt than their appearance. The disorder of the rooms in which they live may partly be accounted for by the fact that there are neither cupboards nor drawers in them, and all possessions are kept in large green and gold boxes, which must be unpacked when so much as a pocket-handkerchief is needed, and frequently remain unpacked. Sheikh Ḥassan's wife was a young and pretty woman, though her hair dropped in wisps about her face and neck, and a dirty dressing gown clothed a figure which had, alas! already fallen into ruin. [Pg 157] But the view from Nakshibendi's balcony is immortal. The great and splendid city of Damascus, with its gardens and its domes and its minarets, lies spread out below, and beyond it the desert, the desert reaching almost to its gates. And herein is the heart of the whole matter. This is what I know of Damascus; as for the churches and the castles, the gentry can see those for themselves. <div class="footnote"> [8]Since I wrote these sentences, a turn of the political wheel has brought him down, and he is now reduced to an unimportant post in the island of Rhodes. </div> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/figure81.jpg" width-obs="200" alt="400" /> A WATER SELLER </div> [Pg 158] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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