The Ship-Dwellers: A Story of a Happy Cruise

They would not let us into the temple enclosure until our party came, so we wandered around the outer walls and gazed up at cornices and capitals and entablatures as beautiful, we thought, as any we had seen at Athens. Then the party arrived, and there was a gatekeeper to let us in.

It would take a man in perfect health to carry away even an approximate impression of Baalbec. Trying to remember now, I seem to have spent the afternoon in some amazing delirium of tumbling walls and ruined colonnades; of heaped and piled fragments; of scarred and defaced sculpture; of Titanic masonry flung about by the fury of angry gods. Athens had been a mellowed and hallowed dream of the past; Ephesus a vast suggestion of ancient greatness buried and overgrown; Baalbec was a wild agony of destruction and desecration crying out to the sky.

It is a colossal object-lesson in what religions can do when they try. Nobody really knows who began to build temples here, but from the time of Adam Baalbec became a place of altars. Before history began it was already a splendid Syrian city, associated with the names of Cain, Nimrod, and Abraham, and it may have been Cain himself who raised the first altar here when he made that offering for which the Lord "had not respect." More likely, however – and this is the Arab belief – it was the city of refuge built by Cain, whose fear must have been very large if one may judge from the size of the materials used.

Cain could not fail to build a temple, however. He would try to ease the punishment which he declared was greater than he could bear, and with burnt offering and architecture would seek to propitiate an angry God. How long the worship inaugurated by him lasted we can only surmise – to the flood, maybe – but the Phœnicians came next, and set up temples to their Gods, whoever they were, and after the Phœnicians came Solomon, who built a temple to a sort of compromise god by the name of Baal – a deity left over by the Phœnicians and adapted to Judean needs and ceremonies – hence the name, Baalbec. Solomon built the temple to Baal to satisfy certain of his heathen wives, and he made the place a strong city to rival Damascus – the latter having refused to acknowledge his reign.

After Solomon, the Romans. Two hundred years or so after Christ – in the twilight of their glory and their gods – the Romans under Elagabalus brought the glory of Grecian architecture to Baalbec, named the place Heliopolis, and set up temples that were – and are – the wonder of the world.

What satisfactory gods they must have been to deserve temples such as these – each shrine a marvel of size and beauty – more splendid even than those of the Acropolis of Athens in their lavish magnificence! This carved doorway to the Temple of Jupiter; this frieze of the Temple of Bacchus; these towering six columns of the Temple of the Sun; still holding their matchless Corinthian capitals and amazing entablature to the sky – where else will one find their equals, and what must they have been in their prime, when these scarred remnants can still overpower the world!

It was another religion that brought ruin here – early Christianity – presently followed by early Mohammedanism – each burning with vandalic zeal. It was the good Emperor Constantine that first upset the Roman gods and their temples. Then Theodosius came along and pulled down the great structures, and out of the pieces built a church that was an architectural failure. Then all the early Christians in the neighborhood took a hand in pulling down and overturning; hacking away at the heathen sculpture and tracery – climbing high up the walls to scar and disfigure – to obliterate anything resembling a face. Then pretty soon the early Mohammedans came along and carried on the good work, and now and then an earthquake took a hand, until by-and-by the place became the ghastly storm of destruction it appears to-day.

I was ill when I saw Baalbec. My flesh was burning and my pulse throbbing with fever. Perhaps my vision was distorted and the nightmare seemed worse than it really is, but as I stood in that field of mutilation and disorder, gazing along its wrecked and insulted glory, and through tumbling arch and ruined door caught vistas of fertile and snow-capped hill, I seemed to see a vision of what it had been in the day of its perfection. Also, I felt an itch to meet one or two of those early enthusiasts – some night in a back alley when they were not looking for me and I had a piece of scantling – I felt a sick man's craving, as it were, to undertake a little damage and disfiguration on my own account. Oh, well, it's all in the eternal story. Religions established these temples; religions pulled them down. The followers of one faith have always regarded as heathen those which preceded them. There lies a long time ahead. Will the next religion restore Baalbec or complete its desolation?

Some little Syrian girls beset Laura on the way back to the hotel and tried to sell her some bead embroidery which it seems they make in a mission-school established here by the English. One of them – a little brown madonna of about ten – could speak English quite well. Laura asked her name.

"Name Mary," she said.

"But that's an English name."

She trotted along silently, thinking; then said:

"No, Syria – Mary Syria name."

Sure enough, we had forgotten. The first Mary had indeed been Syrian, and I imagined her, now, a child – brown, barefoot and beautiful, like this Mary, with the same pathetic eyes. Laura – young, fair-skinned and pink-cheeked – was a marvel to these children. They followed her to the door, and when she could not buy all their stock in trade they insisted on making her presents, and one of them – little Mary – begged to be taken to America.

We saw the celebrated "big stones" next morning. Several of them are built into the lower tiers of the enclosing temple wall, and three of these – the largest ones – measure each from sixty-two to sixty-four feet long and are thirteen feet thick! They rest upon stones somewhat thicker, but shorter – stones about the size of a two-story cottage – and these in turn rest on masonry still less gigantic. Evidently it was the intention of the builders to increase the size of their material as they went higher, and the big block still in the quarry carries out that idea.

Authorities differ as to when these big stones were laid, and how. Some claim that they were put here by the Romans, because they find Greek axe-marks on the ones below them. But then I found American jack-knife marks on them too, and the names of certain of my countrymen, which proves nothing except that these puny people had been there and left their measurement. If these monster stones had been laid by the Romans only two thousand years ago, we should have had some knowledge of the means by which they were transported and lifted into place. There is no such record, and nowhere else at least did the Romans ever attempt structure of such gigantic proportions. That is precisely the word, "gigantic," for there were giants in the days when these stones were laid – stones that could have been there six thousand years as well as two thousand, being of such material as forms the foundations of the world.

If Cain did any building at Baalbec, he did it here. He did not finish the work, it would seem, or at least not in these proportions. Perhaps his giants deserted him – struck, as we say to-day. Perhaps the hands of men were no longer against him and the need of this mighty bulwark about his place of refuge ceased. At all events, the first stone hewn out for the next layer stands in the quarry still.

We drove over there. It was half a mile away, at least – possibly a mile, down hill and rather rough going. The stones we saw in the wall were brought up that road. The one standing in the quarry had been lifted and started a little, and would have been on its way presently, if the strike, or the amnesty, had not interfered.

It is seventy-two feet long and seventeen feet thick. Try to think of a plain box building, a barn or a store-house, say, of that size, then mentally convert it into a solid block of stone. Mark Twain likens it to two freight-cars placed end to end, but it is also as high and as wide. Eight freight-cars set four and four would just about express it! Think of that! Think of moving a stone of that size!

It is squared and dressed and ready to be taken to the temple wall. It will never be taken there. Perhaps that last item is gratuitous information, but at least it is authentic. We have no means of moving that stone half a mile up a rough hill in these puny times, and the speculations as to how Cain did it have been mainly hazy and random – quite random.

One writer suggests that such stones were "rolled up an inclined plane of earth prepared for the purpose." I should love to see a stone like that rolled. I'd travel all the way to Baalbec again for the sight, and they could prepare the inclined plane any way they pleased. An Oriental authority declares that these stones were moved and laid by the demon Echmoudi, which is better than the rolling idea. I confess a weakness for Echmoudi, but I fear hard cold science will frown him out of court.

It has taken an Englishman to lead the way to light. He says that Cain employed mastodons to do his moving. Now we are on the way to truth, but we must go further – a good deal further. Cain did employ mastodons, but only for his light work. Even mastodons would balk at pulling stones like these. Cain would use brontosaurs for such work as that. There were plenty of them loafing about, and I can imagine nothing more impressive than Cain standing on a handy elevation overlooking his force of giants and a sixteen-span brontosaur team yanking a stone as big as a bonded warehouse up Baalbec hill.

Truly, there is no reason why those monster stones should not have been quarried a million or so years ago and moved by the vast animal creatures of that period. We have biblical authority for the giants, and I have seen a brontosaur in the New York Museum that seemed to go with stones of about that size. Think of any force the Romans could summon rolling a three-million-pound square stone up an inclined plane. Preposterous! The brontosaur's the thing.

XXV

GOING DOWN TO DAMASCUS

There is a good deal of country, mainly desert, between Baalbec and Damascus, and a good many barren hills. Crossing the Anti-Lebanon mountains there is a little of water and soil and much red, rocky waste. Here and there a guide pointed out a hill where Cain killed Abel – not always the same hill, but no matter, it was a hill in this neighborhood; any one of them would make a good place. Occasionally the train passed a squalid village, perched on a lonely shelf – a single roof stretching over most of the houses – the inhabitants scarcely visible. We wondered where they got their sustenance. They were shepherds, perhaps, but where did their flocks feed?

Across the divide, between snow-capped hills, and suddenly we are face to face with green banks and the orchard bloom of spring. We have reached the Abana, the river which all the ages has flowed down to Damascus with its gift of eternal youth. For as the desert defends, so the river sustains Damascus, and the banks of the Abana (they call it the Barada now) are just a garden – the Garden of Eden, if old tales be true.

It is not hard to believe that tradition here, at this season. Peach, apricot, almond, and plum fairly sing with blossom; birch and sycamore blend a cadence of tender green; the red earth from which Adam was created (and which his name signifies) forms an abundant underchord. If we could linger a little by these pleasant waters we might learn the lilt of the tree of life – its whisper of the forbidden fruit.

We are among our older traditions here – the beginnings of the race. We have returned after devious wanderings. These people whom we see leading donkeys and riding camels, tending their flocks and bathing in the Abana, they are our relatives – sons and daughters of Adam. Only, they did not move away. They stayed on the old place, as it were, and preserved the family traditions, and customs. I am moved to get out and call them "cousin" and embrace them, and thank them for not trailing off after the false gods and frivolities of the West.

The road that winds by the Abana is full of pictures. The story of the Old Testament – the New, too, for that matter – is dramatized here in a manner and a setting that would discourage the artificial stage. Not a group but might have stepped out of the Bible pages. This man leading a little donkey – a woman riding it – their garb and circumstance the immutable investment of the East: so the patriarchs journeyed; so, two thousand years later, Joseph and Mary travelled into Egypt. No change, you see, in all that time – no change in the two thousand years that have followed – no change in the two thousand years that lie ahead. Wonderful, changeless East! How frivolous we seem in comparison – always racing after some new pattern of head-gear or drapery! How can we hope to establish any individuality, any nationality, any artistic stability when we have so little fixed foundation in what, more than any other one thing, becomes a part of the man himself – his clothing?

These hills are interesting. Some of them have verdure on them, and I can fancy Abraham pasturing his flocks on them, and with little Isaac chasing calves through the dews of Hermon. It would not be the "dews of Hermon," but I like the sound of that phrase. I believe history does not mention that Abraham and Isaac chased calves. No matter; anybody that keeps flocks has to chase calves now and then, and he has to get his little boy to help him. So Abraham must sometimes have called Isaac quite early in the morning to "go and head off that calf," just as my father used to call me, and I can imagine how they raced up and down and sweat and panted, and how they said uncomplimentary things about the calf and his family, and declared that there was nothing on earth that could make a person so mad as a fool calf, anyhow.

Travel on the highway has increased – more camels, more donkeys, more patriarchs with their families and flocks. Merchandise trains follow close, one behind the other. Dust rises in a fog and settles on the wayside vegetation. Here and there on the hillsides are villas and entertainment gardens.

A widening of the valley, an expanse of green and bloom, mingled with domes and minarets; a slowing down of speed, a shouting of porters through the sunlit dust, and behold, we have reached the heart and wonder of the East, Damascus, the imperishable – older than history, yet forever young.

XXVI

THE "PEARL OF THE EAST"

It is the oldest city in the world. It is the oldest locality mentioned in the Bible, if the Garden of Eden theory be true. I suspect that Noah's flood washed away the garden, and that his grandson, Uz, wanted to commemorate the site by building a city there. At all events, Uz built Damascus, according to Josephus, and he could not have picked a better location than this wide, level plain, watered by these beautiful living streams. That was about 2400 b. c., which means that Damascus was already an old city – five hundred years old, or more – when Abraham overtook Chedorlaomer, King of Elam – Tidal, King of Nations, and two other kings – these four having captured Abraham's nephew, Lot, "who dwelt in Sodom, and his goods, and departed."

A matter of four kings did not disturb Abraham. He had a better combination than that. He armed his trained servants, three hundred and eighteen in number, "born in his own house," and went after those kings and "smote them and pursued them unto Hobah, which is on the left hand of Damascus, rescued Lot and brought back the goods."

That is the first Bible mention of Damascus, and it was no doubt a goodly city, even then. After that it appears, time and again, in both the scriptures, and one never fails to feel its importance in the world's story. Five hundred years after Abraham, Thothmes III. thought it worth while to cross over from Egypt to conquer Damascus, and after still another five hundred years King David ravaged the country round about and set up a garrison here. Those were not frequent changes. Damascus does not do things frequently or without reflection. I believe the Medes came next, and after them the Romans, and then, quite recently – recently for Damascus, I mean – only thirteen hundred years ago – the Mohammedans took the place and have held it ever since.

And Damascus herself has remained unchanged. Other cities have risen and prospered and perished even from memory. They did not matter to Damascus. Nothing matters to Damascus. It may have altered its appearance a trifle now and then, but not materially. It is the same Damascus that Abraham knew and that David conquered. I can see both of these old fellows any time I look out of my hotel window; also, the three hundred and eighteen servants born in Abraham's household – all the tableau of the ancient city that has remained forever young.

"Though old as history itself, thou art as fresh as the breath of spring, blooming as thine own rosebud, and fragrant as thine own orange-flower, O Damascus, pearl of the East!"

We are at the Grande Hotel Victoria. All these hotels are "Grande" something or other. A box shanty ten by fifteen is likely to be called "Grande Hotel de France." However, the Victoria is grand, rather, and quite Oriental in its general atmosphere. The rooms are clean, too, and the Turkish pictures amusing. Furthermore, our rooms look across the river – the soul of Damascus – the water in which Eve first saw her sweet reflected form, if tradition holds. Its banks are bordered by a great thoroughfare now, where against a background of peach-bloom and minaret an eternal panorama flows by. Camel trains from Bagdad and the far depths of Persia; mule trains from the Holy Land; donkey trains from nowhere in particular; soldiers with bands playing weird music; groups of Arabs mounted on splendid horses – dark men with long guns, their burnouses flying in the wind. One might sit here forever and drift out of time, out of space, in the fabric of the never-ending story.

Being late in the afternoon, with no programme, Laura and I set out to seek adventure, were immediately adopted by a guide, and steered toward the bazaars. We crossed a public square near the hotel where there were all sorts and conditions of jackasses – some of them mounted by men, others loaded with every merchandise under the sun. We saw our first unruly donkey just then – a very small donkey mounted by a very fat son of the prophet with a vast turban and beard. It being the Mohammedan Sunday (Friday), he had very likely been to the mosque and to market, and was going home. He had a very large bush broom under his arm, and it may have been this article thrashing up and down on the donkey's flank that made him restive. At all events, he was cavorting about (the donkey, I mean) in a most unseemly fashion for one bestridden by so grave a burden, and Mustapha Mohammed – they are all named that – was bent forward in a ball, uttering what Laura thought might be quotations from the Koran. We did not see what happened. They were still gyrating and spinning when we were caught up by the crowd and swept into the bazaar.

The Grande Bazaar of Damascus excels anything we have seen. It is bigger and better and cleaner than the bazaar of Constantinople, and a hundred – no, a million – times more inviting. No Christian could eat anything in a Constantinople market-place. The very thought of it gags me now as I write, while here in Damascus, Laura and I were having confections almost immediately – and lemonade cooled with snow brought on the backs of camels from the Lebanon mountain-tops. Mark Twain speaks of the place as being filthy. I think they must have cleaned up a good deal since then; besides, that was midsummer. I would not like to say that the place is speckless, but for the Orient it was clean, and the general bouquet was not disturbing. Also, I had a safer feeling in Damascus. I did not feel that if I stepped into a side-street I would immediately be dragged down and robbed. I did not feel as if I were a lost soul in a bedlam of demons.

We noticed other things. The little booths, one after another, were filled with the most beautiful wares – such wares as we have seen nowhere else – but the drowsy merchants sat cross-legged in meditation, smoking their nargileh or reading their prayers, and did not ask us to buy. If we stopped to look at their goods they hardly noticed us. If we priced them they answered our guide in Arabic monosyllables. Here and there a Jew with a more pretentious stock would solicit custom in the old way of Israel, but the Arab was silent, indifferent, disinterested. Clearly it was his preference that we pass by as quickly as possible. His goods were not for such as us. I did manage to add to my collection of donkey-beads, and would have bought more if Laura had not suggested that they probably thought I was buying them to wear myself. At the book-booth they even would not let us touch the volumes displayed for sale.

Another thing I have noticed: there are no beggars here – none worth while. Now and then, perhaps, somebody half extends a timid hand, but on the whole there is a marked absence of begging. Damascus does not beg from the Christian.

It is a weird, wonderful place, that bazaar. It covers an endless space, if one may judge from its labyrinthine interior. Everywhere they stretch away, the dim arcades, flimsily roofed with glass and matting and bark, fading into vague Oriental vistas of flitting figures and magic outlines. Here in the main thoroughfare a marvellous life goes on. The space is wide, and there are masses of people moving to and fro, mingled with donkeys and camels, and even carriages that dash recklessly through; and there is a constant cry of this thing and that thing from the donkey-boys and the pedlers of nuts and bread and insipid sweetened drinks. Some of the pedling people clatter little brass cymbals as they walk up and down, and repeat over and over some words which our guide said were something between a prayer and a song, probably as old as the language.6 And the vendors of drinks carry their stock in trade in a goat-skin, or maybe in a pigskin, which is not a pretty thing to look at – all black and hairy and wet, with distended legs sticking out like something drowned. We didn't buy any of those drinks. We thought they might be clean enough, but we were no longer thirsty.

All sorts of things are incorporated in this bazaar: old dwelling-houses; columns of old temples; stairways beginning anywhere, leading nowhere; mosques – the limitless roof of merchandise has stretched out and enveloped these things. To attempt a detailed description of the place would be unwisdom. One may only generalize this vast hive of tiny tradesmen and tiny trades. All the curious merchants and wares we have seen pictured for a lifetime are gathered here. It is indeed the Grande Bazaar – the emporium of the East.

The street we followed came to an end by-and-by at a great court open to the sky. It was a magnificent enclosure, and I was quite willing to enter it. I did not do so, however. I had my foot raised to step over the low barrier, when there was a warning cry and a brown hand pushed me back. Our guide had dropped a step behind. He came hurrying up now, and explained that this was the court of the Great Mosque. We must have special permission to enter. We would come with the party to-morrow.

The place impressed me more than any mosque we have seen – not for its beauty, though it is beautiful, but because of its vastness, its open sky, and its stone floor, polished like glass by the bare and stockinged feet that have slipped over it for centuries. We could not enter, but we were allowed to watch those who came as they removed their shoes and stepped over into the court to pray. When you realize that the enclosure is as big as two or three city squares, and that the stones, only fairly smooth in the beginning, reflect like a mirror now, you will form some idea of the feet and knees and hands that have pressed them, and realize something of the fervor of the Damascus faith.

We left the bazaar by a different way, and our guide got lost getting us back to the hotel. I didn't blame him, though – anybody could get lost in those tangled streets. We were in a hopeless muddle, for it was getting dark, when down at the far end of a narrow defile Laura got a glimpse of a building which she said was like one opposite our hotel. So we went to look for it, and it was the same building. Then our guide found the hotel for us, and we paid him, and everything was all right. He didn't know anything about the city, I believe, but was otherwise a perfect guide.