DAMASCUS. 63 



CHAPTEE III. 



LEBANON AND THE LEVANT. 



Damascus — Bazaars and Gardens — An Enthusiastic Freemason — Snow- 

 storm on Anti-Lebanon — Baalbec — An Alpine Walk — The Cedars — - 

 Return to Beyroxit — Cyprus and Rhodes — Smyrna — The Valley of the 

 Maeander — Excavations at Ephesus — Constantinople — The Persian Khan 

 — May-Day at the Sweet Waters — Preparations for the Caucasus^ 



There are very few sights in Damascus, unless one con- 

 siders as such the window from which St. Paul was let 

 down, and the tomb of the legendary porter who aided 

 his escape. The Great Mosque is fine, but not so interest- 

 ing as that at Jerusalem. The commercial aspect of the 

 place is the most striking ; the bazaars, the rough wooden 

 roofs of which rather spoil their otherwise rich effect, are 

 very extensive ; and though Manchester goods meet you at 

 every turn, the ways and manners of the people are purely 

 Eastern. It is a very seductive place to go shopping in ; 

 "Williams once spent a whole day in a silk-mercer's den in 

 the Great Khan, and came home in the evening followed 

 by a man laden with gorgeovis scarves. Our friend, despite 

 the time and bargaining his purchases had cost him, was 

 troubled with an uneasy suspicion that, to use his own 

 expression, ' the old fellow had regularly waggled him.' 

 The gardens round the town are rather orchards than 

 gardens in our sense of the word ; but at this season, with 

 the fruit-trees in full blossom, they were very beautiful, 



