I Myself Did Not Think That This Would Be The Case,
But I Could Not Of Course Force My Aid Upon The People Against
Their Will; And, Moreover, The Day Fixed For The Fulfilment Of This
Second Prophecy Was Not Very Close At Hand.
A little delay,
therefore, in providing against the impending danger would not
necessarily be fatal.
The men now confessed that although they had
come with so much mystery and, as they thought, at so great a risk
to ask my assistance, they were unable to suggest any mode in which
I could aid them, except indeed by mentioning their grievances to
the consul-general at Damascus. This I promised to do, and this I
did.
My visitors were very thankful to me for the readiness which I had
shown to intermeddle in their affairs, and the grateful wives of
the principal Jews sent to me many compliments, with choice wines
and elaborate sweetmeats.
The course of my travels soon drew me so far from Safed, that I
never heard how the dreadful day passed off which had been fixed
for the accomplishment of the second prophecy. If the predicted
spoliation was prevented, poor Mohammed Damoor must have been
forced, I suppose, to say that he had prophesied in a metaphorical
sense. This would be a sad falling off from the brilliant and
substantial success of the first experiment.
CHAPTER XXVII - DAMASCUS
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. {44}
When I entered 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 I chose,
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.
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.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 78 of 87
Words from 79156 to 80159
of 89094
