Damascus, like most Eastern towns, has nothing to boast of in the outside appearance of its rough unwhitewashed houses. Its streets are narrow, dark and intricate—crowds of people—caravans of camels—mules—and troops of donkeys—are all perpetually on the move, though not with that rapidity of locomotion so striking to a foreigner on his first visit to London.
The stranger is struck dumb with amazement and disappointment. He has heard so much and he sees so little, that his first exclamation is sure to be, “Can this really be Sham-al Sharif?—the much praised Damascus;—the so-styled paradise of the East!” Yes, stranger, this is the justly celebrated Damascus; but the secret cause of your amazement lies hid as the kernel in the shell of a nut, the outer surface of which is the walls of the houses, while within lies concealed the sweet kernel. Open the street-door of rough and unpolished wood; and after carefully closing the same, as if by magic, the whole train of your thoughts and your discontentment will be diverted into another channel, and you will be struck with surprise and admiration, as the hidden beauties of the city will then burst upon your view. The same may be said with regard to the ladies of Damascus, notoriously the handsomest women in the East—Houris, whose bright eyes have afforded an endless theme for the poet’s song! Forms carefully enveloped in white and coloured _izars_—features muffled up and completely disguised by white veils! That man must needs be a magician who could identify even his own wife or sister from amidst the herd of ghostly figures continually flitting to and fro in the streets; though now and then some Eastern _akruti_ (coquette), may even here be found slily contriving to allow the light of her sparkling eyes to beam through this dark screen. Here also is the same mystery, and the beauty lies concealed within the outer shell.
Now standing in a spacious quadrangle, exquisitely paved with marble, we take a hasty survey of all around us. In the centre is a square basin of clear crystal-like water, in which gold and silver fish are playfully swimming about; and in the middle of this _birkat_ a fountain continually throws its sportive jets to return in showers of pearls upon the many pretty little flowers that are planted round the borders. An arcade, supported by elegant columns, runs round three sides; and the fourth side of the quadrangle is occupied by the lower apartments of the house. The _corna_ (or cornices), are all ornamented with Arabic inscriptions, both in poetry and prose, being invariably Scripture texts. { 21a} In little _fistakiares_, or parterres, walled in with marble slabs, a few choice orange and lemon trees are carefully cultivated; and it is difficult to say whether the sweet odour of their blossoms is not rivalled, or even surpassed, by the delicious fragrance of the roses and rich _Baghdad ful_ (or dwarf jessamine), which so thickly cluster about their roots. Of the interior of such a mansion no one could have given a better idea than did His Excellency Mahomed Pasha, { 21b} the late ambassador to the court of St. James’s, who, during his residence in London, gave several balls, having some of the apartments at the Embassy, so fitted up, as exactly to resemble the interior of a house at Damascus. These rooms were the leading topic of chit chat among the fashionables of London for many weeks afterwards.