the afternoon they are nearly always filled with Turks, Armenians and
Persians, smoking the narghileh, or water-pipe, which is the universal
custom in Damascus. The Persian tobacco, brought here by the caravans from
Baghdad, is renowned for this kind of smoking. The most popular
coffee-shop is near the citadel, on the banks and over the surface of the
Pharpar. It is a rough wooden building, with a roof of straw mats, but the
sight and sound of the rushing waters, as they shoot away with arrowy
swiftness under your feet, the shade of the trees that line the banks,
and the cool breeze that always visits the spot, beguile you into a second
pipe ere you are aware. _"El mà, wa el khòdra, wa el widj el
hassàn_--water, verdure and a beautiful face," says an old Arab proverb,
"are three things which delight the heart," and the Syrians avow that all
three are to be found in Damascus. Not only on the three Sundays of each
week, but every day, in the gardens about the city, you may see whole
families (and if Jews or Christians, many groups of families) spending the
day in the shade, beside the beautiful waters. There are several gardens
fitted up purposely for these picnics, with kiosks, fountains and pleasant
seats under the trees. You bring your pipes, your provisions and the like
with you, but servants are in attendance to furnish fire and water and
coffee, for which, on leaving, you give them a small gratuity. Of all the
Damascenes I have yet seen, there is not one but declares his city to be
the Garden of the World, the Pearl of the Orient, and thanks God and the
Prophet for having permitted him to be born and to live in it. But, except
the bazaars, the khans and the baths, of which there are several most
luxurious establishments, the city itself is neither so rich nor so purely
Saracenic in its architecture as Cairo. The streets are narrow and dirty,
and the houses, which are never more than two low stories in height, are
built of sun-dried bricks, coated with plaster. I miss the solid piles of
stone, the elegant doorways, and, above all, the exquisite hanging
balconies of carved wood, which meet one in the old streets of Cairo.