great and numerous smaller streams flow down into the Damascene plain,
and, carrying with them that strange fertilizing power which water
always has in hot climates, convert the arid sterility of the desert
into a garden of the most wonderful beauty. The Barada and Awaaj,
bursting by narrow gorges from the mountain chain, scatter themselves in
numerous channels over the great flat, intermingling their waters, and
spreading them out so widely that for a circle of thirty miles the
deep verdure of Oriental vegetation replaces the red hue of the Hauran.
Walnuts, planes, poplars, cypresses, apricots, orange-trees, citrons,
pomegranates, olives, wave above; corn and grass of the most luxuriant
growth, below. In the midst of this great mass of foliage the city of
Damascus "strikes out the white arms of its streets hither and thither"
among the trees, now hid among them, now overtopping them with its domes
and minarets, the most beautiful of all those beautiful towns which
delight the eye of the artist in the East. In the south-west towers
the snow-clad peak of Hermon, visible from every part of the Damascene
plain. West, north-west, and north, stretches the long Antilibanus
range, bare, gray, and flat-topped, except where about midway in its
course, the rounded summit of Jebel Tiniyen breaks the uniformity of the
line. Outside the circle of deep verdure, known to the Orientals as El
Merj ("the Meadow"), is a setting or framework of partially cultivable
land, dotted with clumps of trees and groves, which extend for many
miles over the plain. To the Damascus country must also be reckoned
those many charming valleys of Hermon and Antilibanus which open out
into it, sending their waters to increase its beauty and luxuriance,
the most remarkable of which are the long ravine of the Barada, and the
romantic Wady Halbon, whose vines produced the famous beverage which
Damascus anciently supplied at once to the Tyrian merchant-princes and
to the voluptuous Persian kings.