s with double rows of shops, where the dealers, who are all
Moslems, sit on platforms raised about three feet and a half from the
pavement. They constitute a guild among themselves, presided over by a
sheikh, with a deputy and six elders; and are so highly esteemed for
their probity, that valuable deposits are frequently left in their
charge by persons going on pilgrimage or to distant countries; but
this privilege has lately been interfered with by government, which
has claimed, in failure of heirs, the reversions which formerly fell
to the guild. "It would be an endless task to describe the articles
exposed to sale in Djevahir-Bezestany, which, from jewels being rarely
sold there at present, might be more appropriately called the bezestan
of antiquities." The principal objects of attraction, especially to
foreigners, are the arms, to which Mr White accordingly confines his
remarks: but the once famed Damascus sabres (called _Sham_ or Syrian)
are now held as inferior to those of Khorassan and Persia, (_Taban_ or
polished,) unless anterior to the destruction of the old manufactory
by Timour in 1400; and those of this ancient fabric are now of extreme
rarity and value. "A full-sized Khorassan, or ancient Damascus sabre,
should measure about thirty-five inches from guard to point; the back
should be free from flaws, the watering even and distinct throughout
the whole length: the colour a bluish grey. A perfect sabre should
possess what the Turks call the Kirk Merdevend, (forty gradations:)
that is, the blade should consist of forty compartments of watered
circles, diminishing in diameter as they reach the point. A tolerable
_taban_ of this kind, with plain scabbard and horn handle, is not
easily purchased for less than 2000 piastres; some fetch as much as
5000, and when recognised as extraordinary, there is no limit to the
price. Damascus sabres made prior to 1600 are seldom seen, but modern
blades of less pure temper and lighter colour are common. Their form
is nearly similar to the Khorassan; but the latter, when of
extraordinary temper, will cut through the former like a knife through
a bean-stalk." The shorter swords of bright steel called _pala_,
watered not in circles, but in waving lines, are mostly from the
manufactory established at Stamboul by Mahommed II. soon after the
conquest, and which maintained its celebrity up to the time of Mourad
IV., the last sultan who headed his armies in person:--"After his
death, t