Europe. Damascus! A city surviving an age-long struggle with the
encroaching desert--a struggle that must go on through ages to
come; but, as long as the Abana and Pharpar continue to flow, the
sands that would bury her forever in oblivion will be changed into
a soil of life-giving and life-sustaining fertility sufficient to
support her thousands of inhabitants. Damascus! A city of the long
ago, practically unchanged, where the Occidental may look to-day
with unfeigned interest upon architecture, costumes, and customs
similar to those that prevailed in the East while Greece and Rome
were yet young. Damascus! A city celebrated for a thousand years
for its bazaars, work-shops, and roses; a city so beautiful
thirteen hundred years ago that Mohammed, viewing it for the first
time from a distance, is said to have exclaimed: "Man can have but
one paradise. My paradise is heaven; I cannot enter yonder city!"
a city to-day of unsurpassed beauty, when viewed from the
distance, with its white domes and slender minarets rising above
the shrubbery and trees of its thirty thousand gardens. Here in
this old city; in this historic city; in this beautiful city; in
Damascus, I greet you and extend to you an invitation to join me
in my proposed trip through Gilead.

My party as yet consists of but two persons. My dragoman, William
Barakat, of Jerusalem, in response to a telegram sent from
Constantinople, met me several days ago at Beyrout. He is a native
Syrian, talks good English, dresses like an American, (save that
he wears a red fez,) and is a Christian in faith. Before reaching
this city he has already rendered me excellent service. He is
intelligent, having attended the American College at Beyrout. I
can trust him.