Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/121

 92 privileges and aped the luxurious habits, without the chivalry or manliness, of the Roman citizen. It was altogether a civilisation of forced, and of exotic, growth. No sooner was the western prop removed than the people returned to their Bedawi life, true sons of the desert; the chariot and waggon were banished for the camel; and nothing left of Roman rule but columns and peristyles, causeways and aqueducts, great masses of ruined masonry,—which still startle the traveller as if belonging to another world. But, at the time we write of, the age of so-called civilisation was still dominant there. Such was the beautiful country, strange to the southern Arab both in natural feature and busy urban life, which was now traversed by the invading armies, and soon became the beaten highway between Syria and the Muslim shrines.

The course of Muslim victory in Syria advanced with little let or hindrance. Persia's struggle was not for a limb, but for life itself. Here it was otherwise. Syria, indeed, contained the Holy Places, and what was dear to the Greeks as the cradle of their faith. But after all, it was, though fair and sacred, but an outlying province of which a supine and selfish Court could without vital injury afford the loss. There were no such mortal throes in Syria as on the plains of Chaldæa.

Damascus, the most ancient city in the world, has, ever since the days of Abraham, survived through all vicissitudes, the Capital of Syria. The great plain on which it stands is watered by streams issuing from adjoining mountain ranges; and the beautiful groves and rich meadows around have named it (with more reason than the Chaldæan delta) the "Garden of the world." An entrepôt of commerce between the east and west, it has been from age to age with varying fortune, ever rich and populous. The city wall, twenty feet high and fifteen broad, still contains stones of cyclopean size that must have been builded in ages before our era. Over the gates and elsewhere there are turrets for defence, all of venerable structure. The traveller entering at the eastern gate may even in the present day pass through the narrow "street which is called Straight," as did St Paul 1800 years ago. The Cathedral of St John the Baptist still rears its great Dome, towering above all other buildings;