Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/827

Rh DAMASCUS troops. A few of tlie Mahometans, however, are now more enlightened, and have gained a high position as merchants. The Christians are enterprising and industrious, and a large proportion of the trade of the city is in their hands, Until the massacre they were rapidly advancing in numbers, wealth, and influence ; but that event gave a fatal blow to their prosperity. The Jews are the leading bankers and money-dealers. Both Christians and Jews occupy distinct quarters of the city. The manufactures of the city consist principally of silks, which are exported to Egypt, Baghdad, and Persia ; coarse woollen cloth for the abbas, or cloaks, worn by the peasants of Syria ; cotton cloths, chiefly for home use ; gold and silver ornaments, arms, and household utensils. An exten sive trade is carried on with the Bedouins of the Arabian desert. The bazaars are always crowded ; and on Friday, the market day, it is difficult to pass through them. On the arrival of the great pilgrim caravan, in going to or returning from Mecca, the city presents a gay and animated appearance. Vast multitudes of Persians, Circassians, Anatolians, and Turks throng the streets, and each pilgrfm is a merchant for the time being, buying or selling as the case may be. The bazaars have long been celebrated, and are among the best in the East. They are narrow covered lanes, with ranges of open stalls on each side. Each department of trade has its own quarter or section, where may be seen Manchester prints, Persian and Turkish carpets, French silks, Sheffield cutlery, amber mouth-pieces for pipes, antique China, Cashmero shawls, Mocha coffee, Dutch sugar, Damascus swords, and tobacco from Lebanon and Bagh dad. The khans of Damascus are spacious, and some of them splendid buildings. They are public marts where the leading merchants meet, and expose their wares for sale. The largest is Khan Asad Pasha, situated in the Bizuriyeh, or &quot; Seed Bazaar.&quot; It was erected about 125 years ago, and bears the name of its founder. The gate is a noble specimen of Moorish architecture. The interior is a quadrangle, with a gallery, and a domed roof supported on massive piers. Round it are ranges of small chambers, like cells, in which the goods are stored. All the khans are upon the same plan. The private houses are the admiration of every visitor. No contrast could be greater than that between the exterior and interior ; the rough mud walls give poor promise of splendour within. The entrance is usually by a low door, and through a narrow winding passage which leads to the outer court, where the master has his reception room. From this another winding passage leads to the harem, which is the principal part of the house. The plan of all is the same an open court, with a tesselated pavement, and one or two marble fountains ; orange and lemon trees, flowering shrubs, and climbing plants give freshness and fragrance. All the apartments open into the court ; and on the south side is an open alcove, with a marble floor, and raised dais round three sides, covered with cushions ; the front wall is supported by an ornamented Saracenic arch. The decoration of some of the rooms is gorgeous, the wails being covered in part with mosaics and in part with carved work, while the ceilings are rich in arabesque ornaments, elaborately gilt. A few of the modern Jewish houses have been embellished at an enormous cost, but they are want ing in taste. Antiquities. Although Damascus is one of the oldest cities in the world, its antiquities do not present such a striking appearance as those of many other places of far less note. This is in some measure owing to the fact that the old materials have been largely used in the erection of modern houses. The walls which inclosed the old city are about three miles in circuit, and their foundations are probably of the age of the Seleucidae. Some of the Roman gateways are in tolerable preservation. Through the centre of the city, from the east to the west gate, ran the Via Recta, &quot; the street called Straight,&quot; lined on each side with a double colonnade. It is now mostly built over, but many fragments of columns remain in situ. The castle, which stands at the north-west corner, on the bank of the river, is a quadrangle 280 yards long by 200 wide, surrounded by a moat. The exterior walls are in good preservation, but the interior is a heap of ruins. It is not easy to determine the date of its erection, or to say whether Romans, Byzantines, or Saracens contributed most to it. The foundations are not later, and may be earlier, than the Roman age. A few vaults beneath the exterior battlements are used as magazines, and contain some pieces of old armour, with bows, arrows, and other weapons. The Great Mosque is the most important building in the city. It stands near the castle, and is now, unfortunately, so closely hemmed in with bazaars and houses that its exterior is concealed from view. It occupies a quadrangle 163 yards long by 108 wide, facing the cardinal points. Along the north side is an open court surrounded by cloisters, resting on pillars of granite, marble, and lime stone. The mosque itself extends along the whole southern side, and its interior dimensions are 431 feet by 125 feet. It is divided into three aisles of equal breadth, by two ranges of Corinthian columns 22 feet high, supporting round arches. In the centre is a dome resting on four massive piers. Underneath is said to be a cave in which the head of John the Baptist is preserved in a golden casket. The mosque lias three minarets, one of which is 250 feet high, and upon it, according to Moslem tradition, Jesus will descend on the day of judgment. The style and workmanship of three periods are distin guishable in the building. There are the massive founda tions and exterior colonnades of a Greak or Roman temple. There are next the round-topped windows and ornamented doorway of an early Christian church. Over the door is an inscription in Greek to the following elFect : &quot;Thy kingdom, Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all generations.&quot; Then there are the miaarets, dome, and arcades of Saracenic origin. Round the mosque are traces of a court, 1100 feet long by 800 feet wide, encompassed by colonnades similar to those of the temple of Herod in Jerusalem, and the temple of the sun at Palmyra. It seems highly probable that this was the site of the temple of Riminon, mentioned in 2 Kings v. 18, and that it became in .after times the seat of the worship of Jupiter. In the 4th century it was con verted into a church, and dedicated to John the Baptist ; and in the beginning of the 8th century it was seized by the Mahometans. There arc many other mosques in the city, some of them large and beautiful. Among them are the Tekiyeh, on the bank of the Abana at the western end of the city, founded by Sultan Selim, in 1516, for the accommodation of poor pilgrims, the graceful dome of which, flanked by two slender minarets, is seen from afar, and tire Senainych, in the centre of the city, distinguished by a minaret coated with green tiles, for the manufacture of which Damascus was once celebrated. It was built by Senan Pasha in 1581, and has a splendid cloistered court. There are also small and richly decorated chapels, connected with the tombs f Salaciin, Bibars, and some other great princes. Among the traditional holy places of Damascus are the sanctuary of Abraham, at Burzeh, three miles north of the city ; the house of Naaman, now a leper hospital ; the scene of Paul s