eauty, drew nearer and nearer, stretching out a crescent of foliage for
miles on either hand, that gradually narrowed and received us into its
cool and fragrant heart. We sank into a sea of olive, pomegranate, orange,
plum, apricot, walnut, and plane trees, and were lost. The sun sparkled in
the rolling surface above; but we swam through the green depths, below
his reach, and thus, drifted on through miles of shade, entered the city.

Since our arrival, I find that two other parties of travellers, one of
which crossed the Anti-Lebanon on the northern side of Mount Hermon, were
obliged to take guards, and saw several Druse spies posted on the heights,
as they passed. A Russian gentleman travelling from here to Tiberias, was
stopped three times on the road, and only escaped being plundered from the
fact of his having a Druse dragoman. The disturbances are more serious
than I had anticipated. Four regiments left here yesterday, sent to the
aid of a company of cavalry, which is surrounded by the rebels in a valley
of Dejebel Hauaran, and unable to get out.

Chapter IX.

Pictures of Damascus.

Damascus from the Anti-Lebanon--Entering the City--A Diorama of
Bazaars--An Oriental Hotel--Our Chamber--The Bazaars--Pipes and
Coffee--The Rivers of Damascus--Palaces of the Jews--Jewish Ladies--A
Christian Gentleman--The Sacred Localities--Damascus Blades--The Sword
of Haroun Al-Raschid--An Arrival from Palmyra.

"Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the
waters of Israel?"--2 Kings, v. 12.

Damascus, _Wednesday, May_ 19, 1852.

Damascus is considered by many travellers as the best remaining type of an
Oriental city. Constantinople is semi-European; Cairo is fast becoming so;
but Damascus, away from the highways of commerce, seated alone between the
Lebanon and the Syrian Desert, still retains, in its outward aspect and in
the character of its inhabitants, all the pride and fancy and fanaticism
of the times of the Caliphs. With this judgment, in general terms, I
agree; but not to its ascendancy, in every respect, over Cairo. True, when
you behold Damascus from the Salahiyeh, the last slope of the
Anti-Lebanon, it is the realization of all that you have dreamed of
Oriental splendor; the world has no picture more dazzling. It is Beauty
carried to the Sublime, as I have felt when overlooking some boundless
forest of palms within the tropics. From the hill, whose ridges heave
behind