on a placid sea the warwickshire sped eastward, sighting the mountain ranges of corsica and sardinia, and sweeping through the straits of messina so close to the sicilian shore that we could make out plainly, from the deck, the evening strollers on the brightly-lighted promenade. the crew was east indian. the white quartermasters with whom i messed were gorged with such food as only a french chef can cook, and valiantly i struggled to make up for those famished days in the dismal streets of marseilles. my official duties were largely confined to “polishin’ ’er brasses,” and, with all due modesty, i assert that the ship was the brighter for my presence. the bibby line scorned to carry any but first-class passengers. i took my “watch below” within easy hailing distance of the promenade deck and those belinened voyagers to whom the custom of tipping for every possible service had become second nature, and picked up many a franc and six-pence among them.
on the morning of the fifth day out the brasses were pronounced in a satisfactory condition, and i was ordered into the hold, with a score of the native crew, to send up the trunks of egyptian travelers. the weather grew perceptibly warmer with every throb of the engines. when i climbed on deck after the last chest, the deep blue of the ocean had turned to a shabby brown, but the horizon was still unbroken. suddenly there rose from the sea, on our starboard bow, as a marionette bobs up in a puppet-show, a flat-topped building, then another and another, until a whole village, the houses of which seemed to sit like gulls on the ruddy sea, spread out before us. it was port sa?d. the pilot-boat had swung alongside and the statue of de lesseps was plainly visible before we caught the first glimpse of land, a narrow stretch of reddish desert sand beyond the town. slowly the warwickshire nosed her way into the canal, the anchor ran out with a rattle and roar of cable, and there swarmed upon our decks a countless multitude of humans, that seemed the denizens of some remote and unknown sphere.
104darkness fell soon after. i had signed on the warwickshire under a promise that i might leave her at port sa?d. through all the voyage, however, the quartermasters had spent the hours of the dogwatch in pouring into my ears tales of the horrors that had befallen white men stranded among the arabs. the shrieks that rose from the maze of buildings ashore, the snarling, scowling mobs that raced about our decks, called back these stories all too vividly. in the blackest of nights, this new and unknown world was in imagination peopled with diabolical creatures lying in wait for lone mortals who might venture ashore unarmed and well-nigh penniless. if i escaped a quick assassination among these black hordes, a lingering starvation on this neck of sand might be my lot. the captain had given me leave to continue to rangoon. an englishman, returning to the burmese district he governed, had promised me a well-salaried position. most foolhardy it seemed to halt in this “dumping ground of rascality” when in a few days i might complete half my journey around the globe and find a ready employment.
for an hour i sat undecided, staring into the black inferno beyond the wharves. palestine and egypt, however, were lands too famous to be lightly passed by. i bade farewell to the astonished quartermasters, collected my few days’ wages from the mate, and with some two pounds in francs, lire, and shillings in my pocket, dropped into a feluca and was rowed ashore.
a scene typically oriental graced my landing. in my ignorance, i had neglected to spend a half-hour in bargaining with the swarthy boatman before stepping into his craft. that the legal fare i paid him was posted conspicuously on the wharf made him none the less assertive in his demands. for an hour he dogged my footsteps, howling threats or whining pleas in a cracked treble, now in his native arabic, now in such english as he could muster. the summary vengeance of the islamites, prophesied with such fullness of detail by my shipmates, seemed at hand; but i shook the fellow off at last and set out to find a lodging.
the task at which i had grown so proficient in europe was a far more difficult problem in this strange world. to be sure, there were several hotels along the avenue facing the wharves, before which well-dressed white men lounged at little tables; and black, barefooted waiters flitted back and forth, carrying cool drinks that we of america are wont to associate with august mid-days rather than with december evenings. but a strong financial backing is nowhere so indispensable 105as in hostelries offering “european accommodations” in the orient. there were, undoubtedly, scores of native inns in the maze of hovels into which i plunged at the first step off the avenue, but how distinguish them when the only signs that met my eye were as meaningless as so many spatters of ink? even in holland i had been able to guess at shop names. but arabic! i had not the remotest idea whether the ensign before me announced a lodging house or the quarters of an undertaker. i returned to the avenue; but the few white men who paused to listen to my inquiry for a “native” hotel stared at me as at one who had lost his wits, and passed on with a shrug of the shoulders. a long evening i pattered in and out of crooked byways, bumping now and then into a swarthy mussulman who snarled at me and made off, and bringing up here and there in some dismal blind alley. fearful of wandering too far from the lighted square, i turned back toward the harbor and suddenly caught sight of a sign in english: “catholic sailors’ home.” whether the establishment was catholic or coptic was small matter, so long as it announced itself in a human language, and i dashed joyfully towards it.
the “home” comprised little more than a small reading-room. half-hidden behind the stacks of ragged magazines sat the “manager,” a maltese boy, huddled over paper and pencil and staring disconsolately at an italian-english grammar. i stepped forward and offered my assistance, and together we waded through an interminable lesson. before we had ended, six tattered white men wandered in and carefully chose books over which to fall asleep.
“you must know,” said the manager, as he closed the grammar, “that there am no sleepings here. and we closes at eleven. but i am fix you oop. i am shelter all these seamans while i lose my place when the catholic society found it out.”
he peered out into the night, locked the doors, blew out the lights, and aroused the sleepers. we groped our way along a stone-paved corridor to the back of the building.
“you are getting in here,” said the maltese, pulling open what proved by morning light to be a heavy pair of shutters, “but be quietness.”
i climbed through after the others. a companion struck a match that lighted up a stone room eight feet square, once the kitchen of the home. closely packed as we were, it soon grew icy cold on the stone floor. two “beachcombers” rose with exclamations of disgust 106and crawled out through the window, to tramp up and down the corridor. i groped my way to a coffin-shaped cupboard in one corner, laid it lengthwise on the floor, pulled out the shelves, and, crawling inside, closed the doors above me. my sleep was unbroken until morning.
by the light of day my bedfellows, squatted against the wall of the corridor, formed a heterogeneous group. at one end sat a boer dressed in heavy, woolen garments of the veldt, of a faded, weather-beaten condition startlingly in keeping with the bronzed and bewhiskered countenance of the wearer. a seedy austrian youth lolled open-mouthed between the south african and an oily turk. a liberian negro was sharing a mangled crust with a russian finn, half-hidden behind a forest of unpruned whiskers. a ragged englishman stood stiffly erect near the door.
we found ample time to divulge the secrets of our past before the turnkey came to release us. with the englishman i strolled down to the harbor. myriads of “coaling niggers,” in dirty, loose robes, as indistinguishable one from another as ants, swarmed up the sides of newly-arrived ships, or returned, jaded and begrimed, in densely packed boat-loads, from a night of toil. the custom police, big, pompous negroes beside whom the arabs seemed light colored, strutted back and forth within the wharf enclosure. as each band of heavers arrived, the officers laid aside their brilliant fezes, slipped over their gay uniforms a bag-like garment that covered them to their gaitered shoes, and gathered the workmen, one by one, in a loving embrace.
“affectionate fellows, these followers of the prophet,” i mused.
“aye,” croaked my companion, “and bloody good smugglers, dressed in them dirty skys’ls.”
they live in coal, these heavers of port sa?d. their beds, their wives, their children, the merchants with whom they come in contact, even the little baked fish which bleary-eyed females sell them outside the gates, are covered with its dust.
the englishman knew of but one “graft” in port sa?d. each day, at noon, the friars of a catholic monastery served dinner to the penniless. a crowd overwhelmingly oriental lined up with us under the trees of the convent garden to await the serene pleasure of the tawny arab who dispensed the charity of the priests. between a tartar and a nubian, i received, after long delay, a deep tin-plate, a pewter spoon, and a misshapen slice of bread. the entire party had lost hope of obtaining anything more edible, when the monasterial 107servant appeared once more, straining painfully along with a huge caldron of soup, which he deposited on the flat grave-stone of a defunct friar. as we filed by him, the arab tossed at each of us a ladleful of the boiling concoction. whether it landed in our plates or distributed itself generously over our nether garments depended entirely on our own dexterity, for the haughty server dumped the ladle where, in his opinion, our dishes ought to have been, utterly indifferent as to whether they were there or not.
the englishman disappeared next day, and i joined fortunes with the seedy austrian. with a daily dinner and a lodging, even in a cupboard, assured, i found port sa?d a more agreeable halting-place than marseilles. there was work to be had here, too. on this second afternoon we were stretched out on the breakwater, under the shadow of the statue of de lesseps, watching the coming and going of the pilot-boats and the sparkle of the canal that dwindled to a thread on the far horizon of the yellow desert, when a portly greek approached and asked, in italian, if we wanted employment. we did, of course, and followed him back to land and off to the westward along the beach to a hovel in the native section. on the earth floor sat two massive stone mortars. the greek motioned to us to seat ourselves before them, poured into them some species of small nut, and handed each of us a stone pestle. when we had fallen to work, he sat down on a stool, prepared his narghileh and, except for an occasional wave of the hand as a signal to us to empty the mortars of the beaten pulp and refill them, remained utterly motionless for the rest of the day.
mechanically we pounded hour after hour. the pestles were heavy when we began, before the day was done my own weighed at least a ton. what we were beating up and what, in the name of allah, we were beating it up for, i do not know to this day. the austrian asserted that he knew the use of the product, but fell silent when i asked to be enlightened. night sounds were drifting in through the door of the hovel when the greek signed to us to stop, and with the air of one who feels himself to be over-generous but proud of his fault, handed each of us five small piastres (12? cents). my companion at once raised his voice in vociferous protest, in which, at a nudge of his elbow, i joined. the greek was hurt to the point of tears. the ingratitude of man, when he had, out of the kindness of his heart, given us a whole day’s wages for a half-day’s work! how could we bring ourselves to complain when he had cut his own profit in half simply because we were men of his own color for whom he felt an 108altruistic and unmercenary sympathy? at the end of a half-hour of noisy clamoring he consented to present us each with another piastre, and we hurried away across the beach to a native shop where spitted mutton sold cheaply.
two days later i took a “deck-passage” for beirut and boarded a hulk flying the british flag. by sundown we lost sight of the low-lying port and set a course northeastward. a throng of arabs, turks, and syrians, christian and mohammedan, male and female, squatted on the half-covered deck. in one scupper were piled a half-hundred wooden gratings, the use of which remained a mystery to me until my fellow-passengers fell to pulling them down one by one and spreading their beds on them. i alone, of all the multitude, was unsupplied with bedding; even the lean, gaunt bedouins, dressed in tattered filth, had each a roll of ragged blankets in which, their evening prayers and salaams towards mecca ended, they rolled themselves and lay down together in a place apart. this dividing into groups was general, for caste lines are sharp drawn in the orient and, when i stretched out on a bare grating, the entire throng was huddled in a dozen isolated bands, each barricaded by the sturdiest males.
morning broke bright and clear. far off to starboard rose the snow-capped range of the lebanon; but we were bearing northward now, and several hours did not bring us perceptibly nearer the coast. the time was close at hand when i must learn something of the modes of travel in asia minor, though, to tell the truth, i had small hope of landing, for passports were reported indispensable in this mysterious land of the turk. i strolled anxiously about the deck. in a group of christian turks i came upon two who spoke french, and engaged them in conversation with the ulterior motive of “pumping” them. a few stories of the highways of europe amused the party greatly. casually i announced my intention of walking to damascus. the interpreted statement evoked loud shouts of incredulity, not unmixed with derision.
“what!” cried one of the french-speaking turks, waving a flabby hand towards the snow banks that covered the wall-like lebanon range, “go to damascus on foot! pas possible. you would be buried in the snow. this country is not like europe! there are thousands of murderous bedouins between here and damascus who would glory in cutting the throat of a dog of an unbeliever! why, i have lived years in beirut, and no man of my acquaintance, native or frank, would ever undertake such a journey on foot.”
109“and you would lose your way and die in the snow,” put in the other. all through the morning the pair were kept busy interpreting the opinion of the group on the absolutely unsurmountable obstacles against such an undertaking. it was the first version of a story that grew old and threadbare before i ended my journeyings in the orient. but it was a new tale then, told with an unoriental vehemence, and as i ran my eye along the snow-cowled wall that faded into hazy distance to the north and south, i was half inclined to believe that i was nearing a land where my plans must be abandoned.
the coast line drew nearer. on the plain at the mountain foot appeared well-cultivated patches, interspersed with dreary stretches of blood-red sand. at high noon we dropped anchor well out in the harbor of beirut. clamoring boatmen were soon rowing first-class passengers ashore. but the red flag of quarantine was snapping in the breeze above the custom house, and as deck passengers, more likely to spread the plague than tourists well supplied with “backsheesh,” we were detained on board. four sweltering hours had passed when a screech sounded ashore, and several company tenders put out from the inner harbor. down the gangway tumbled a mighty cascade of orientals, male and female, large and small, dirty and half dirty, pushing, kicking, scratching, and biting each other with utter disregard of color, sex, or social standing, and hopelessly entangled with bundles of every conceivable shape. the sinewy boatmen established something like an equality of burdens by rough and ready tactics, and amid the shrieks of husbands separated from wives, children from parents, bedouins from their priceless rolls of blankets, the tenders set off for a stern, stone building on a barren rock across the bay. the spirit of segregation grew contagious. as we swung in against the rock i caught a haughty bedouin attempting to separate me from my knapsack. a well-directed push landed him in the laps of several heavily-veiled females and i sprang up a stairway cut in the face of the rock. the building at the summit bore the star and crescent, and the title “lazeret.” in small groups we passed into a room where a pudgy-faced man in european garments, topped by a fez, stared at me long and quizzically before he beckoned to the first of our party to approach. one by one my fellow passengers answered a few questions, received a paper signed by the man in the fez, and fell to quarreling with him over the price thereof. well they knew that no amount of bellowing could reduce the official fee, but as orientals they could not have purchased a postage stamp without attempting to “beat 110down” the salesman. the officer heaved a sigh of relief when i handed him without protest the five piastres demanded, and i passed on, still wondering why i had been taxed. the paper was in french as well as turkish and informed me that i had paid for disinfection.
some time after the last man had paid his fee—the female passengers had mysteriously disappeared—a second door swung open, an official folded our papers, tore a round hole in them, and we entered a room containing several long tables. an unwashed and officious arab handed to each of us a garment not unlike a scanty nightshirt, and ordered us to strip. when our wardrobes had been laid out on the tables in separate heaps, a half-dozen ragged urchins appeared, rolled each heap into a bundle, and disappeared through a tight-fitting steel door. disinfecting a frank was, evidently, a new problem in the lazeret of beirut. an urchin stared at my clothing, bawled something to the unwashed official, and passed me by. the officer picked my garments up one by one with a puzzled air, handed me my sweater and suspenders, as if he did not feel that such mysterious articles could be rated as clothing, and sped away with the rest.
a long hour passed. the nightshirts lent their wearers neither dignity nor modesty. my own had been designed for the smallest of arabs and did a white man meager service, but the jabbering natives would not have been in the least disturbed if their wardrobe had been reduced to the fig leaf of notorious past. the steel door opened. we filed into the next room and found our disinfected bundles arrayed on more long tables and steaming like newly-boiled cabbages. as rapidly as the garments cooled, i attired myself and turned out upon a tiny square before the lazeret. suddenly there rang out a cry for passports. an icy bubble ran up and down my spine, but i stepped boldly forward and thrust my letter of introduction into the face of a diminutive, white-haired officer at the gate. he received it gingerly, as if expecting it to explode in his hands, turned it up sidewise, upside down, sidewise once more, and, certain that he had found its proper position, began to run his finger up and down the lines, mumbling to himself and shaking his head sagely from side to side. slowly he turned, eyed me suspiciously, and after several preliminary gurgles, wheezed: “paseeporto? paseeporto?”
“sure, it’s a passeporto!” i replied, nodding my head vigorously. the officer glanced from the paper to my face and back at the paper several times, plainly as helpless before a problem for which he knew no precedent as a child. the doctor who had made out our disinfection 111slips stepped out into the square, and the officer, knowing that he read and spoke french, rushed upon him. the good leech could hold the letter right side up, but he knew no more of its contents than the man who had read it sidewise. he turned to ply me with questions. i assured him that american passports were just such simple things, and he accepted my assertion. the officer thrust the letter into his sack—for in turkey passports are held over night by the police and returned to the owner’s consulate in the morning—and waved his hand as a sign of dismissal.
darkness had fallen and the city was some miles distant. the doctor called a sinister-looking native, attired in a single garment that reached his knees, and ordered him to guide me to the town. we set off through the night, heavy with the smell of oranges, along a narrow road, six inches deep in the softest mud. at the outskirts of the city the native halted and addressed me in arabic. i shook my head. like most uneducated orientals, he was of the opinion that, if a full-grown frank could not understand language intelligible to the smallest child of his acquaintance, it was through some fault of his hearing. he put the question again and again, louder and more rapidly with every repetition. i let him bellow until breath failed him and he gave up and splashed on. he halted once more in a square, reeking with mud, in the center of the city, and burst forth in a greater vehemence of incoherency than before.
“ingleesee?” he shrieked with his last gasp.
“no,” i answered, comprehending this one word, “americano.”
“ha!” shouted the arab, “americano?” and he began his bellowing once more. evidently he was attempting to explain something about my fellow countrymen, for the word “americano” was often repeated. exhausted once more, he struck off to the southward. i shouted “hotel” and “inn” in every language i could muster, but after a few mumbles he fell silent and only the splash of our feet in the muddy roadway attended our progress. we left the city behind, but still the arab plodded steadily and silently southward. many a quartermaster’s story of white men led into mussulman traps passed through my mind. far out among the orange groves of the suburbs he turned into a small garden and pointed to a lighted sign above the portal of the building among the trees. it announced the american consulate. not knowing what else to do with a frank who did not understand the loudest arabic, the native had led me to the only man in beirut to whom he had heard the term “americano” applied.
112when i had paid my bill next morning in the french pension to which i had been directed, my worldly wealth was reduced to one english sovereign. i turned in at the office of cook and son and, tossing the piece to the native clerk, asked him to change it into coin of the realm, of small denomination. he turned the sovereign over several times, bit it, laid it carefully away, and set to pulling out boxes and drawers and dumping the coins they contained on the counter before me. there were pieces of copper, pieces of silver, pieces of bronze, tin, iron, nickel, zinc; coins half the size of a dime, coins that looked like tobacco tags, coins big enough with which to fell an ox, coins with holes in them, coins bent double, saucer-shaped coins, coins that had been scalloped around the edge by some erstwhile possessor of artistic temperament and hours of leisure; and still the clerk continued to pour out coins until i felt in duty bound, as a tolerably honest member of society, to call a halt.
“say, old man,” i put in, “that was only a sov. i gave you, you know.”
“yes, yes, i know,” panted the native, dumping another handful that rattled down the sides of the heap like a bucketful of stones on the pile under a stone crusher, “i know, and i am very sorry i have not enough to change him. but i give you this and he just make him up.”
he tossed towards me a gold piece of ten francs.
“what!” i cried, “you don’t mean that i get that heap and ten francs besides, for one quid?”
“aywa, efendee, yes, that makes one pound,” he answered.
i pawed over the heap. each rake brought to light pieces of new and unique pattern. “fine collection,” i said, “but what’s the answer?”
the clerk drew a long breath as if for an extended lecture, and picked up one of the tobacco tags; “this,” he said, “is a metleek. it is worth eleven-twelfths of a half-penny. five of these coppers make a metleek—only not quite—that is—here in beirut—in damascus five of them make a metleek and a little more. ten metleeks make a bishleek—” he picked up one of the coins the owner of which would be arrested, in a civilized country, for carrying concealed weapons, “one bishleek—that is—except one and a half of these copper coins—that is—here—in damascus ten metleeks make a bishleek and four coppers—except not quite—and in sidon they make the same as in damascus—only a little less—and these 113coins are worth the same as a bishleek—except not quite—that is—here—if they have a hole in them they are worth a copper and three-fourths—more—that is, here—in damascus they are worth a copper and one-fourth more, and this dish-shaped one is worth three bishleeks and three metleeks and two coppers and sometimes three-fourths of a copper more, except they with holes in them which are worth two metleeks and a copper and a half more, and this mejeedieh is worth in damascus seven bishleeks and seven metleeks and two coppers and sometimes three and sometimes here not so much by two and a half coppers and in jerusalem—”
“and suppose it is a rainy day?”
“oh, that does not make any difference,” said the clerk, with owl-like solemnity, “but sometimes on busy days, as on feast days, the bishleek is worth three coppers and a half more—that is, here—in damascus it is worth two more and sometimes not so much—as in ramadan, and in sidon it is worth three-fourths of a copper less and in—here in beirut—”
“hold on, efendee,” i cried. “if you have a pencil and a ream of paper at hand—”
i understood his explanation perfectly, of course, but i had an unconquerable dread of forgetting it in my sleep.
“certainly,” cried the obliging clerk, and he dragged forth two sheets of paper and covered both with figures. reduced to writing, the monetary system of syria was simplicity itself. one could see through it as easily as through six inches of armor plate.
“now, in carting this around—” i asked, tucking the sheets of paper away in a pocket, “you don’t hire a porter—”
“ah,” said the clerk, “you have not the large purse? our syrians carry a purse which is very long, which is long like the stocking which it is said are worn by the lady; but if you have not such a long purse and you have not any ladies—” i drew out a large handkerchief and fell to raking the heap of coins into it. “ah,” he cried, “that does very good, only you do not forget that in damascus the mejeedieh is worth seven bishleeks and seven metleeks and two coppers and sometimes—” but i had escaped into the silence outside.
i reduced my burden somewhat by spending the heaviest pieces of junk for breakfast and, strolling down to the harbor, sat down on a pier. the bedlam of shrieking stevedores, braying camels, and the rattle of discharging ships drowned for some time all individual sounds. in a sudden lull, i caught faintly a shout in english behind me and 114turned around. a lean native in european dress and fez was beckoning to me from the opening of one of the narrow streets. i dropped from the pier and turned shoreward. the native ran towards me. “you speak eengleesh?” he cried, “yes? no? what countryman you?”
“american.”
“no? not american?” shrieked the native, dancing up and down, “you not american? ha! ha! ver’ fine. i american one time, too. i be one time sailor on american warsheep brooklyn. you know brooklyn? ver’ nice sheep, brooklyn. you write eengleesh, too, no? yes? ver’ fine! you like job? i got letters write in eengleesh! come, you!”
he led the way through the swarming bazaar, shouting answers to the questions i put to him. he claimed the name of abdul razac bundak and the profession of “bumboat-man,” one of those familiar figures of oriental ports, a native who had picked up a fluent use of so-called english, the language of the shipping world, and turned it to practicable account. his activities were varied. he sold supplies to foreign ships, acted as interpreter for officers ashore, led tourists on sight-seeing expeditions, and, in the busy season, ran a sailors’ boarding house.
some distance back from the harbor, in a shoe shop kept by his uncle, i sat down to write three letters at bundak’s dictation. by the time we had finished them—and a dozen cigarettes—my familiarity with other languages had leaked out, and i wrote three more, two in french and one in spanish. with one exception, all six were bids to ship captains accustomed to visit beirut. the bumboat-man paid me two unknown coins, and “set up” a dinner in a neighboring shop.
as i appeared during my tramp in asia minor. a picture taken by abdul razac bundak, bumboat-man of beirut
that afternoon we piloted a party of germans through the labyrinthian bazaars and out across the orange groves to dog river. abdul chattered in his pidgin english, and i strove to turn his uncouth speech into the language of the fatherland. in the days that followed, our “company,” as abdul styled it, was the busiest in beirut. the fame of bundak’s “faranchee secretary” spread abroad. the scribes who sat in their little stands in the market-places were called upon now and then to pen letters in some european language. hitherto, they had refused such commissions. now they despatched an urchin to the shop in custom-house street, before which our “company” was wont to sit dreaming over narghilehs supplied by a neighboring café, and summoned us to some distant corner of the bazaars. the priest 115in his confessional was never entrusted with more secrets than fell from the lips of the scribes amid the droning of bundak, the interpreter. had those men of letters been less indolent, the volume of their business might well-nigh have doubled. but they insisted on exercising their profession after the laggard manner of the east, and ever and anon drifted away into the land of day-dreams with a sentence stranded on their lips. the palm of the left hand was the writing desk to which they were accustomed; it was always with difficulty that i stirred them up to clear a space on their littered stands. they and their fathers before them had always written from right to left; they stared in amazement when i began in the left-hand corner. more than one burst forth in vociferous protest at this unprecedented use of a pen, and long harangues from the senior member of our firm did not always convince them that the result of my labor was more than meaningless scratches. the fees of this new profession were never princely. the scribes themselves received no more than a bishleek for a letter, and must supply the materials. but even from the half of our share i added something each day to the scrap iron in my handkerchief.
when business lagged there were but two resources left to abdul—to eat or to drink. let his narghileh burn out before a summons came, and the bumboat-man rose with a yawn and we rambled away through the intricate windings of the bazaars to some tiny tavern, tucked away in an utterly unexpected corner. the keepers were always delighted to be awakened from their siestas by our “company.” while we sat on a log or an upturned basket and sipped a glass of some native concoction which the proprietor placed on the ground—there being no floor—at our feet, abdul spun long tales of the faranchee world. they were bold forays into the field of fiction, most of them, but with a live faranchee to serve as illustration, the shopkeepers were never critical and listened open-mouthed, after the fashion of all children of the east before a story teller.
there was really no reason why these taverns should not have supplied all our wants during the day, for the “free lunch” system, that has long been credited to america, is indigenous to beirut. with every drink the keeper served a half-dozen tiny dishes of hazelnuts, radishes, peas in the pod, cold squares of boiled potatoes, and berries and vegetables known only in syria. but abdul was gifted with an inexhaustible appetite, and at least once after every transaction he led the way to one of the many eating-shops facing the busiest 116streets and squares. in a gloomy grotto, the front of which was all door, stood two long tables of the roughest materials, flanked by rougher benches with barely space enough between them for the passage of clients. the proprietor rarely stirred from behind a great block of brick and mortar near the entrance, over which simmered a score of black kettles. i read the bill of fare by raising the covers of each caldron in succession, chose a dish of the least unfathomable mystery, picked up a discus-shaped loaf and a cruse of water from the bench at the entrance, and retreated to the rear. whatever i chose, it was almost certain to contain mutton. the sheep appears in sundry and strange disguises in the mohammedan world. the arabian cook, however, sets nothing over the fire until he has cut it into small pieces, and each dinner was an almost unbroken succession of stews of varying tastes and colors. each order, whether of meat or vegetables, we ate separately, with a bread-cake.
abdul rarely concerned himself with the contents of the kettles, for his unrivaled favorite was a dish prepared by running alternately tiny cubes of liver and kidneys on a spit and revolving them over the glowing coals. i, too, should have ordered this delicacy more often had not abdul, with his incurable “eengleesh,” persisted in referring to it as “kittens.” i parted from the bumboat-man each evening; for, though his home was roomy enough, he was a true mohammedan and would never have thought of introducing even his business partner into the same building with his wives. beds were good and rates low in the native inns. though we lived right royally in beirut, my expenses were rarely twenty-five cents a day.
with all its mud and squalor there was something marvelously pleasing about this corner of the arab world. the lazy droning of its shopkeepers, the roll of the incoming sea, the twitter of birds that spoke of summer and seemed to belie the calendar, above all, the picturesque contrast of orange trees bending under the ripening fruit that perfumed the soft air, with the snowdrifts almost within stone’s throw on the peaks above, lent to the spot a charm unique. for all that, i should not have remained so long in beirut by choice, for the road was long before me, and to each day i had allotted its portion of the journey. the traveler in the east, however, must learn that he cannot lay plans and expect to hold to them as at home. to the oriental it is entirely immaterial whether he sets out to-day or to-morrow, and the view point of the frank is beyond his grasp. had you planned a departure for monday and find 117that some petty obstacle makes it impossible? “oh! well,” says the native, “tuesday is as good a day as monday. wait until to-morrow.” does tuesday bring some new difficulty? the native will repeat his consoling advice just as jauntily as if he had not worn it threadbare the day before. the expression “wasting time” has no meaning whatever to the oriental. twenty-four hours does not represent to him one-half the value of one of his miserable copper coins. a certain number of days must run by between his birth and death. what matters it just how he occupies himself during that period? he is, perhaps, a bit happier if a task already planned must be put off, for the postponement reduces the sum-total of exertion of his allotted span, and nothing does the oriental hate so much as exertion.
the officials of the porte, imbued with this philosophy of life, were in no haste to examine my papers. not until my third visit to the consulate did the air of consternation with which the american representative met me at the door inform me that my letter had been returned.
“what the devil did you pass this note as a passport for?” shouted the consul; “why, man, in ten years i never heard of a man entering turkish territory without a passport—except one, and he was fined a hundred pounds.”
“tourist, wasn’t he?” i answered, “i’ve found that workingmen pass more easily.”
“in europe, perhaps,” said the consul, “but not here. now don’t venture into the interior until you have a teskereh—a local passport—unless you want to be shipped to one of the sick man’s dungeons on the double quick.”
four days passed before this document, with its description of my features in the unfathomable orthography of the turk, was ready. even had i received it earlier, it is by no means certain that i could have set out for damascus at once. native or frank, not a resident of beirut admitted knowing which of her reeking alleyways led to the foothills to the eastward. abdul threw up his hands in startled horror when i broached the subject of my intended journey. “impossible!” he shrieked, “there is not road. you be froze in the snow before the bedouins cut your liver. you no can go. business good. damascus no good. ver’ col’ in damascus now.”
it cost me a day’s earnings one afternoon among the tavern keepers to revive his flagging memory before he recalled that there was a road 118to damascus, and that caravans had been known to pass over it; but even in such good spirits he persisted with great vehemence that the journey could not be made on foot.
the bumboat-man left me next morning at the outskirts of the city and a bend in the road soon hid him from view. for an hour the highway was perfectly level, flanked by rich gardens and orange groves, and thronged with dusky, supple-limbed men and women garbed in flowing sheets. soon all this changed. the road wound upward, the delicate orange tree gave place to the sturdy olive, the fertile gardens to haggard hillsides, the gay throng to an occasional arab, grim and austere of visage, leading or riding a swaying camel. over the dull solitude fell a silence broken only by the rising wind sighing mournfully through the jagged gullies and stocky trees. the summer breeze of the sea level turned chilly and i found it worth while to seek the sunny side of a boulder before broaching the lunch in my knapsack. nearer the summit of the first range the aspect was less dreary. the cedar forests began and broke the monotony of the ragged landscape. here and there a group of peasants was grubbing on the wayside slopes. to the north or south a flat-roofed village clung to a mountain flank.
how strange and foreign seemed everything about me! the implements of the peasants, the food in my knapsack, the very tobacco in my pipe, every detail of custom and costume seemed but to widen the vast gulf between this and my accustomed world. if i addressed a fellow-wayfarer, he answered back an incomprehensible jumble of words, wound the folds of his unfamiliar garments about him, and hurried on. if i caught sight of a village clock, its hands pointed to six when the hour was midday. even the familiar name of the famous city to which i was bound was meaningless to the natives, for they called it “shaam.”
my pronunciation of the word was at fault, no doubt, for though i stood long at a fork in the route in the early afternoon shouting “shaam” at each passer-by, i took the wrong branch. some hours i had tramped along a rapidly deteriorating highway before a suspicion of this mistake assailed me. even then, with no means to verify it, i kept on. at last the route emerged from a cutting, and the shimmering sea almost at my feet showed that i was marching due southward. two peasants appeared above a rise of ground beyond. as they drew near, i pointed off down the road and shouted “shaam?” the pair halted, wonderingly, in the center of the highway some distance 119from me. “shaam! shaam! shaam!” i repeated, striving to give the word an accentuation that would suggest the interrogation point that went with it. the peasants stared open-mouthed, drew back several paces, and peered down the road and back at me a dozen times, as if undecided whether i was calling their attention to some phenomenon of nature or attempting to distract their attention long enough to pick their pockets. then a slow, half-hearted smile broke out on the features of the quicker witted. he stood first on one leg, then on the other, squinted along the highway once more, and began to repeat after me, “shaam! shaam! shaam.”
“aywa, shaam!” i cried.
he turned to his companion. the parley that ensued was long enough to have settled all differences of opinion in politics, religion, and the rotation of crops. then both began to shake their heads so vigorously that the muscles of their necks stood out like steel hawsers. two broad grins that were meant to be reassuring distorted their leathery visages. they stretched out their arms to the southward and burst forth in unharmonious duet: “la! la! la! la! la! shaam! la! la! la! la! la!” the arab says “la” when he means “no.” i turned about and hurried back the way i had come.
dusk was falling when i traversed for the second time a two-row village facing the highway. as i expected, there was not a building in any way resembling an inn. for the arab, even of the twentieth century, considers it a sin that “the stranger within his gates” shall be obliged to put up at a public house. i had already seen enough of the syrian, however, to know the chief weakness of his character—insatiable curiosity. one thing he cannot do is mind his own business. is there a trade going on, a debt being paid, a quarrel raging? the vociferations of bargaining, the jingle of money, the angry shrieks drive from his head every thought of his own affairs, and he hastens to join the increasing throng around the parties interested, to offer his advice and bellow his criticisms. i sat down on a boulder at the end of the village.
in three minutes a small crowd had collected. in ten, half the population was swarming around me and roaring at my vain attempt to address them, as at some entertainment specially arranged for their enjoyment. a good half-hour of incessant chattering ensued before one of the band motioned to me to follow him, and turned back into the village. the multitude surged closely around me, examining minutely every article of my apparel that was visible, grinning, smirking, 120running from one side to the other, lest they lose some point in the make-up of so strange a creature, and babbling the while like an army of apes.
the leader turned off the highway towards the largest building in the village. ten yards from the door he halted, the multitude formed a semicircle, leaving me in the center like the chief buffoon in a comic opera ensemble, and one and all began to bellow at the top of his lungs. a girl of some sixteen years appeared on the threshold. “taala hena!” (come here) roared the chorus. the girl ran down the steps. a roar as of an angry sea burst forth as every member of the company stretched out an arm towards me. plainly, each was determined that he, and not his neighbor, should have the distinction of introducing this novel being.
“sprechen sie deutsch?” shrieked the girl in my ear.
“ja wohl,” i answered.
the rabble fell utterly silent at the first word, and i asked to be directed to an inn.
“there is no hotel in our city of bhamdoon,” replied the girl, with flashing eyes; “we should be insulted. in this house, with my family, lives a german missionary lady. you must stop here.”
she led the way to the door. the missionary met me on the steps with a cry of delight, which she hastened to excuse on the ground that she had not seen a european in many months.
“what would supper and lodging cost me here?” i demanded. the habit of making such an inquiry had become almost an instinct among the grasping innkeepers of europe. luckily, the german lady was hard of hearing. the girl gave me a quick glance, half scornful, half astonished, which reminded me that such a question is an insult in the land of the arabs.
“the lady is busy, now,” said the girl, “come and visit my family.”
she led the way along a hall and threw open a door. i pulled off my cap.
“keep it on,” said my guide, “and leave your shoes there.”
she stepped out of her own loose slippers and into the room. it was square and low, the stone floor half covered with mats and cushions; in the center glowed a small, sheet-iron stove, and around three of the walls ran a divan. two men, two women, and several children were seated in a semicircle on the floor, their legs folded in front of them. they rose without a word as i entered. the girl placed a cushion for me on the floor. the family sat down again, carefully and 121leisurely adjusted their legs, and then one and all, in regular succession, according to age, cried “lailtak saeedee” (good evening).
in the center of the group set three large bowls, one of lentils and another of chopped-up potatoes in oil. the third contained a delicacy made of sour milk—a cross between a soup and a pudding, that is a great favorite among the arabs. on the floor, beside each member of the family, lay several sheets of bread, half a yard in diameter and as thin as cardboard, each heap bearing a close resemblance to the famous “stack of wheats” of our own land. the head of the house pushed the bowls toward me, ordered a stack of bread to be placed beside my cushion, and motioned to me to eat. i stared helplessly at the bowls, for there was neither knife, fork, nor spoon in sight. the girl, however, knowing the ways of faranchees from years in a mission-school in beirut, explained my perplexity to her father. he cast upon me such a look as an american society leader might bestow upon an australian bushman at her table, begged my pardon, through his daughter, for overriding the dictates of etiquette by partaking of a morsel before his guest had begun, tore a few inches from a bread-sheet, and folding it between his fingers, picked up a pinch of lentils and ate. i lost no time in falling to.
a wonderful invention is this gkebis or arab bread. if one purchases food in a native bazaar, it is wrapped in a bread-sheet—and a very serviceable wrapper it is, for it requires a good grip and a fair pair of biceps to tear it. a bread-sheet takes the place of many table utensils: arab matrons, ’tis said, never complain of their dishwashing tasks. it makes a splendid cover for pots and pans, it does well as a waiter’s tray. never have i seen it used to cover roofs, nor as shaving paper—but the oriental is noted for his inability to make the most of his opportunities. in its primary mission—as an article of food—however, gkebis is not an unqualified success. in taste it is not always unsavory, but ten minutes chewing makes far less impression on it than on a rubber mat. it is rumored, too, that more than one frank has lost his appetite in striving to pronounce its guttural arabic name. very often—as on this occasion—when weeks have passed since its baking, the gkebis grows brittle and is inclined to break when used as a spoon. my host picked up one of my sheets, held it against the glowing stove with the flat of his hand, and returned it. it was as pliable as cloth and much more toothsome than before.
the younger man rolled cigarettes for the three of us. we 122had settled back to chat—through interpreter—when there came a tap at the door and a few words in arabic that caused the family to jump hurriedly to their feet. an awe-struck whisper passed from mouth to mouth; “sheik! sheik!” the children were whisked into one corner, the door flung open, and there entered a diminutive man of about sixty. long, flowing robes enveloped his form, a turban-wound fez perched almost jauntily on his head, and his feet were bare, for he had dropped his slippers at the door. his face, above all, attracted attention. deep-wrinkled, with a long scar across one cheek, a visage browned and weather-beaten by the wild storms that sometimes rage over the lebanon, there was about it an expression of frankness; yet from his eyes there flashed shrewd, worldly-wise glances that stamped him as a man vastly different from his simple fellow-townsmen.
the sheik greeted the head of the family, took a seat near me on the divan, salaamed solemnly to each person present, acknowledged the greetings they returned, and with a wave of his hand bade them be seated. the newcomer had, quite plainly, been attracted to the house by the rumor that a faranchee was visiting the family. after a few preliminary remarks, the drift of which i could follow from his expressive gestures and the few words i had picked up, he turned the conversation, with the ease of a diplomat, to the subject of their strange guest. my hosts needed no urging. for a time the sheik listened to their explanations and suppositions with an unruffled mien, puffing the while at a cigarette with as blasé an air as if faranchees were the most ordinary beings to him.
as a climax to his tale the head of the house remarked that i was bound to “shaam” on foot. the ending was fully as effective as he could have hoped. the sheik fairly bounded into the air, threw his cigarette at the open stove, and burst forth into an excited tirade. the girl interpreted. it was the old story of “impossible,” “can’t be done,” and the rest; but a new element was introduced into a threadbare prediction; for the sheik declared that, as village magistrate, he would not permit me to continue in such a foolhardy undertaking. how many weapons did i carry? none? what? no weapon? travel to far-off damascus without being armed? why, his own villagers never ventured along the highway to the nearest towns without their guns! he would not hear of it; and he was still disclaiming as only an excited oriental can, when the missionary came to invite me to a second supper.
123i took leave of my host early next morning, swung my knapsack over my shoulder, and limped down to the road. but bhamdoon was not yet done with me. in the center of the highway, in front of the little shop of which he was proprietor, stood the sheik and several fellow townsmen. with great politeness, he invited me to step inside. my feet were still swollen and blistered from the long tramp of the day before, for the cloth slippers of port sa?d offered no more protection from the sharp stones of the highway than a sheet of paper, and i accepted the invitation. the village head placed a stool for me in the front of the shop, in full sight from up or down the route. it soon became evident that i was on exhibition as a freak of humanity, for the sheik pointed me out with great delight to every passer-by. apparently, too, he had chosen this opportune moment to collect some village tax. on the floor beside me stood an earthenware pot, and the sheik, as soon as his exhibit had been viewed from all sides, called upon each newcomer to drop into it a bishleek (ten cents). like true orientals, they gave smaller pieces, some half bishleeks, some one or two metleeks; but not a man passed without contributing his mite, for the command of the sheik of a syrian village is law to all its inhabitants.
some time i had served as a bait for tax-dodgers when a villager i had not yet seen put in an appearance, and addressed me in fluent english. he had gathered a syrian fortune in maine and returned, years before, to the rugged slopes of his native lebanon. he insisted that i visit his house nearby and, once there, fell to tucking bread-sheets, black olives, raisins, and pieces of sugar-cane into any knapsack, shouting incessantly at the same time of his undying affection for america and things american. out of mere pride for his bleak country, he took care, on the way back to the shop, to point out a narrow path that wound up the steep slope of a neighboring range.
“that,” he said, “leads to the damascus road. but no man can journey to damascus on foot.”
the earthenware pot was almost full when i took my seat again on the stool. i turned to my new acquaintance.
“what special taxes is the sheik gathering this morning?” i demanded.
“eh! what?” cried the erstwhile new englander, following the indication of my finger, “the pot? why, don’t you know what that’s for?”
“no,” i answered.
124“why, that is a collection the sheik is taking up to buy you a ticket to damascus on the railroad.”
i picked up my knapsack from the floor and stepped into the highway. the sheik and several bystanders threw themselves upon me with cries of dismay. it was no use attempting to escape from a dozen horny hands. i permitted myself to be led back to the stool and sat down with the knapsack across my knees. the sheik addressed me in soothing tones, pointing at the pot with every third word. the others resumed their seats on the floor, rolled new cigarettes, and fell quiet once more. with one leap i sprang from the stool into the street and set off at top speed down the highway, a screaming, howling, ever-increasing but ever more distant throng at my heels. a half-hour later i gained the summit of the neighboring range and slid down the opposite slope onto the highway to damascus.
for miles the road ascended sharply, elbowing its way through narrow gorges, or crawling along the face of a mountain where its edge was a yawning precipice. the giant cedars of the first slopes had given way to clumps of stunted dwarfs, cowering in deep-cut ravines behind protecting shoulders of the range. few were the villages, and being low and flat and built of the same calcareous rock as the mountains, they escaped the eye until one was almost upon them. in every hamlet one or more of the householders marched back and forth on the top of his dwelling, dragging after him a great stone roller and chanting a mournful dirge that seemed to cheer him on in his labor. at first sight these flat roofs seem to be of heavy blocks of stone. in reality they are made of branches and bushes, plastered over with mud, and, were the rolling neglected for a fortnight in this rainy season, they would soon sag and fall in of their own weight. more frequent than the villages were the ruins of a more pretentious generation, standing bleak and drear on commanding hillsides and adding to the haggard desolation. at long intervals appeared a line of camels, plodding westward with a tread of formal dignity, a company of villagers on horseback, or a straggling band of evil-eyed bedouins astride lean asses. never a human being alone, never a man on foot, and never a traveler without a long gun slung across his shoulders. the villagers stared at me open-mouthed, the camel drivers leered sarcastically, the scowling bedouins halted to watch my retreating form as if undecided whether i was worth the robbing.
125the snow, which, seen from beirut, seemed to cover the entire summit of the range in impenetrable drifts, lay in isolated patches along the way. here was no such arctic realm as abdul had pictured. the air was crisp at noonday; by night, no doubt, it would have been bitter cold—mere autumn weather to us of northern clime. but it was easy to understand why those accustomed to the perpetual summer of the coast had fancied the passage an unprecedented hardship.
at the summit, the snow lay deeper. far below stretched a rectangular tableland, a fertile plain dotted with clusters of dwellings, and shut in on every side by mountain ranges. across it, like a white ribbon, lay the damascus highway, growing smaller and smaller, to be lost in tortuous windings in the foothills beyond.
i reached the plain by evening and halted in a hamlet not far off the city of zakleh. among the heavy-handed peasants who surrounded me was one who had labored long enough in italy to have picked up a smattering of her language. we of the west might well take lessons in hospitality from the arab. imagine a syrian arriving at night and on foot in, let us say, a village of rural kansas; a syrian in native costume who, in answer to the questions put to him could do no more than point to the road across the prairie and gurgle some such word as “chikak! cheekako!” each time with a different accent. an arabic-speaking villager, arriving on the scene, would, possibly, pause to inquire the stranger’s wants. he might direct him to an inn, but he would not consider it his duty to put himself to the annoyance of seeing that he found it. such was not the italian-speaking arab’s notion of the proper treatment of strangers. he took personal charge of me at once, led the way to the caravanserai, acted as interpreter, quarreled with the proprietor when he tried to overcharge me, and to save me a dismal evening surrounded by a jabbering multitude, remained until late at night.
i took leave of him at the door of a stone stable—the only lodging which the hamlet offered. the few camel drivers already gathered there were well supplied with bags and blankets which they made no offer to share with me. when i had watched them chasing through the mysteries and hiding-places of their manifold garments the nimble creatures with which they were infected, i lay down on the cobblestone floor without a sigh of regret. long before morning, however, i should gladly have accepted the most flea-bitten covering. the kodak that served me as a pillow rattled hour after hour with my shivering. 126i shivered until my neck and arms ached with the exertion of vainly trying to hold myself still, and never before had i realized the astonishing length of a december night.
i put off with the first suspicion of dawn and was already halfway across the plain when the sun climbed the mountain rampart to the eastward. to the natives the morning was bitter cold. bands of laborers on their way to the fields grinned at me sympathetically and passed their hands over the scarfs wound round and round their necks and heads. they were certain that, with face and ears unprotected, i was suffering acutely; yet each and all of them, in low slippers, was bare of leg halfway to the knee.
where the plain ended the highway wound upward through a narrow, rocky defile. marauding bedouins could not have chosen a better spot to lie in wait for their victims. i started in alarm when a shout rang out at the summit of the pass. the summons came from no highwayman, however. before a ruined hut on the hill above, stood a man in khaki uniform, the reins of a saddle horse that grazed at his feet over one arm. “teskereh!” he bawled. i climbed the hillside and handed over my turkish passport. the officer grew friendly at once, tethered his horse, and invited me into the hut. its only furnishings were a mat-covered bench that served the guardian as a bed, and a pan of coals. i drew out a few coins and ate an imaginary breakfast. the officer could not—or would not—understand my pantomime. he motioned me to a seat, offered a cigarette, and poured out a cup of muddy coffee from a pot over the coals. but food he would not bring forth.
while we sat grinning speechlessly at each other, the tinkle of a bell sounded up the pass. the officer sprang to his feet and hurried down the hill. not once before had i been called upon to produce the teskereh which the american consul had assured me was indispensable, and a suspicion that one-half the amount it had cost would have sufficed to blind the officers of the porte to its absence grew to conviction at this thermopyl? of the lebanon. a war of words sounded from the highway. i stepped to the door. the soldier and the driver of an overburdened ass were screaming at each other in the center of the route. when the quarrel had reached its height, the traveler dropped something into the guardsman’s hand and continued on his way. the officer climbed the hill, smiling broadly, “teskereh, ma feesh!” he cried, “etnane bishleek!” (he had no teskereh! two bishleeks); and he dropped the coins with a rattle into a stocking-like purse that was by no means empty. i drew him out of the hut and, once in the sunshine, opened my kodak. he gave one wild shriek and stumbled over himself in his haste to regain the hovel; nor could any amount of wheedling induce him to venture forth again until i had closed the apparatus. accepting a bribe was a mere matter of business; to have his picture taken was a sure way to future perdition.
the lonely, bedouin-infected road over the lebanon. “few corners of the globe offer more utter solitude than syria and palestine”
the palestine beast of burden loaded with stone
127beyond the pass stretched mile after mile of desolation absolute, hills upon hills sank down behind each other, barren and drear, except for an occasional olive tree, a sturdy form of vegetation that, in itself, added to the general loneliness. few corners of the globe can equal in fearful stretches of utter solitude this land so aptly termed, in biblical phraseology, “the waste places of the earth.” all through the day i tramped on, with never a sight nor sound of an animate object, save once in mid-afternoon, when i broke my fast on bread-sheets and cakes of ground sugar-cane at an isolated shop. darkness fell over the same haggard wilderness. the wind, howling across the solitary waste, filled my ears. on this blackest of nights i could not have made out a ghost a yard away, and the unknown highway led me into many a pitfall. long hours after sunset i was plodding blindly on, my cloth slippers making not a sound, when i ran squarely into the arms of some species of human whose native footwear had rendered his approach as noiseless as my own. three startled male voices rang out in guttural shrieks of “allah”—arabic invocations, evidently, against evil spirits—as the trio sprang back in terror.
before i could pass on, one of them—plainly a materialist—struck a match. the howling wind blew it out instantly, but in that brief flicker i caught sight of three ugly faces under a headdress that belongs to the roving bedouin. with a simultaneous scream of “faranchee!” the nomads flung themselves upon the particular corner of the darkness where the match had shown me standing. the motive of their attack, perhaps, was oriental hospitality. in the excitement of the moment i credited them with a desire to increase their capital in the kingdom of black-eyed houris, and evacuated the spot by a bit of side stepping that would have won me fame in the roped arena. in my haste to execute the man?uvre, however, i fell off the highway, and the rattling of stones under my feet precipitated another charge. a dozen times during the ensuing game of hide-and-seek i felt the breath of one of the flea-bitten rascals in my face. the arabic rules of the game, fortunately, required the players to keep up a continual 128howling for mutual encouragement, while i moved silently, after the fashion of the west. aided by this unfair advantage, i eluded their welcoming embraces until they stopped for a consultation, and, creeping noiselessly on hands and knees, i lay hold on the highway and sped silently away, by no means certain whether i was headed towards damascus or the coast.
an hour later the howling of dogs heralded my approach to some hamlet. once in it, i halted to listen for sounds of human life. its inhabitants, apparently, were lost in slumber, for what syrian could be awake and silent? the lights that shone from every hovel proved nothing, for the arab nations are unaccountably fearful of the evil spirits that lurk in the darkness. i beat off the snapping curs and started on again. suddenly muffled peals of laughter and the excited voices of male and female sounded from the depths of a building before me. i hurried towards it and knocked loudly on the iron-studded door. the festivities ceased as suddenly as if i had touched an electric button controlling them. for several moments the silence was absolute. then there came the slapping of slippered feet along the passageway inside, and a woman’s voice called out to me. i summoned up my limited arabic: “m’abarafshee arabee! faranchee! fee wahed locanda? bnam!” (i don’t speak arabic! foreigner! is there an inn? sleep!). without a word the unknown lady slapped back along the corridor. a good five minutes elapsed. i knocked once more and again there came the patter of feet. this time a man’s gruff voice greeted me. i repeated my arabic vocabulary. there sounded the sliding of innumerable bolts and bars, the massive door opened ever so slightly, and the muzzle of a matchlock was thrust out into my face.
the eyes that appeared above it were evidently satisfied with their inspection. the door was thrown wide open, and a very hercules of a native, with a mustache that would have put the kaiser to shame, stepped out, holding his clumsy gun ready for instant use. i could not but laugh at his frightened aspect. he smiled sheepishly and, retreating into the house, returned in a moment unarmed, and carrying a lamp and a rush mat. at one end of the building he pushed open a door that hung by one hinge and lighted me into a room with earth floor and one window, from which five of the six panes were missing. a heap of dried branches at one end stamped it as a wood shed.
a gaunt cur wandered in at our heels. the native drove him off, spread the mat on the ground and brought from the house a pan of 129live coals. i called for food. when he returned with several bread-sheets, i drew out my handkerchief and began to untie it. my host shook his head fiercely, made the sign of the cross and pointed several times at the ceiling, implying, evidently, that he was a convert of the catholic missionaries and that the allah of the christians would pay my bill.
barely had the native disappeared when the dog poked his ugly head through the half-open door and snarled viciously at me. he was a wolfish animal of the yellow mongrel variety so common in syria, and in his eye gleamed a rascality that gave him a startling resemblance to the thieving nomads that infect that drear land. i drove him off and made the door fast, built a roaring fire of twigs, and rolling up in the mat, lay down beside the blaze. i awoke from a half-conscious nap to find that irrepressible cur sniffing at me and displaying his ugly fangs within six inches of my face. a dozen times i fastened the door against him in vain. had he merely bayed the moon all night it would have mattered little, for with a fire to tend i had small chance to sleep; but his silent skulking and muffled snarls kept me wide-eyed with apprehension until the grey of dawn peeped in at the ragged window.
the village was named hemeh—a station of the railway from the coast not far beyond told me as much. the dreary ranges of the day before fell quickly away. the highway descended a narrow, fertile valley in close company with a small river, on the banks of which grew willows and poplars in profusion.
a bright morning sun soon made the air grateful, though the chill of night and the mountains still hovered in the shadows. travelers became frequent; peasant families driving their asses homeward from the morning market, bands of merchants on horseback, well-to-do natives in a garb that recalled the ill-omened coat of joseph. here passed a camel caravan whose drivers would, perhaps, purchase just such a slave of his brothers this very day. there squatted a band of bedouins at breakfast and their eating was as ceremonial as any meal among the ancient jews. beyond rode a full-bearded sheik who was surely as much a patriarch in appearance as abraham of old.
the road continued its descent, the passing throng became almost a procession, and i swung at last round a mountain spur that had hidden from view an unequaled sight. two miles away, across a vast, level plain, traversed by the sparkling river, and peopled by a battalion of soldiers in man?uvre, the white city of damascus stood out against 130a background of dull-red hills, the morning sun gleaming on graceful domes and minarets of superb saracenic architecture. it was an ultra-oriental panorama before which that first quatrain of omar sprang unbidden to the lips. i passed on with the throng and was soon swallowed up in the multitude that surged through “the street called straight”—which isn’t.