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 CHAPTER VIII

THE PORT OF THE WILDERNESS

LTHOUGH it is ninety miles by railway from navigable water, Damascus partakes of the characteristics of a seaport. It is, in fact, the port of the wilderness. Just to the east of its fertile "garden" is the Syrian desert, across which slow caravans have always been coming and going—traveling from the rich river-bottoms of Mesopotamia, from Persia and India, and even from far distant China, to bring the riches of Asia to the overflowing warehouses of Damascus. The lands from which the city derives its prosperity cannot compete with European industries, and so only a small proportion of their products is now sent westward across the Mediterranean. Yet Damascus remains still the metropolis of the desert peoples. From the viewpoint of the peasant or Bedouin Arab, it is a very modern place; and to the stranger who can see beneath the alluring glamour of its Orientalism, its chief characteristics are abounding prosperity and noisy activity. This oldest of cities is no mere interesting ruin or historical pageant. Even in the fast-month of Ramadan, its streets are as crowded [ 95 ]