Men of letters there are at present none, and the highest of their sciences is the knowledge of grammar. When I lived in Damascus, some wit (the first thing of the kind known) uttered a pun or squib reflecting on the corpulency of the pasha, and he was banished for it! The old observation of the caliph, as he fired the Alexandrian library, holds true in the East still- "If the books agree with the Koran, they are useless; if they oppose it, they are pernicious; and in both cases they are unnecessary.""But has not Damascus one hundred thousand inhabitants?" says the traveller. "Where are their newspapers, spreading light and knowledge through a portion of the sixty millions who use the noble Arabic language? Take me to the office of some Oriental Sun, Times, Globe , or Morning Chronicle "There is no such thing. Even in Constantinople thereis only one newspaper, and the one half of it is in Turkish, and the other in French! Tyranny and superstition, like twomonstrous mill-stones, rest upon and compress the energies of the oriental nations; even Greece, the fountain of science and literary and mental activity, was for a time blotted from the rank of nations, and the inquisitive character of its people all but annihilated by the stern rule of the Turks. ……But there is another great difference between the general appearance of London and of Damascus, namely, in the eastern city you see not the bright, joyous countenance of woman- she is deeply veiled. In Egypt she is enveloped from head to foot in a dark, and in Syria in a white sheet, which effectually obliterates all traces of shape, absolutely equalizes to the eye all ranks, ages, and conditions, and suggests to the beholder the idea of a company of ghosts……Conceive now how ludicrous the streets of London would appear, if green, white, black, and gray turbans moved indiscriminately, instead of the present hats; and if all the ladies, walking or on donkeys, instead of the present varieties of showy dress, beautiful bonnets, and smiling faces, presented only the appearance of headless ghosts clothed in white!
As to the general motion and life , the difference is immensebetween Damascus and a western city. Let us glance for a moment at two streets, and compare them: -1.In Damascus there is more openness and publicity . Thetradesmen of every kind work in the open bazaars; many of the merchants and artisans dine in public-that is, eat their bread and oil, bread and honey, or bread and grapes, in the street where they work. All are smoking, without exception, in the intervals of business. Some are engaged in reading the Koran, swinging their bodies to and fro in the most earnest and violent manner. Some are sleeping calmly, with the long pipe in their mouth! There a butcher is killing a sheep, surrounded by a circle of hungry, expectant dogs. Yonder is a company engaged at a game of skill. Everything is done in the open air, and nothing seems to be concealed but the ladies.
