2.In the eastern city there is much more quiet. Their manners are sober, formal, and stately; arising partly, I believe, from the famous and universal dogma of obedience. There is, indeed, hardly any other law. The subject, the wife, the son, the slave obeys: to hear is to obey. This principle of unhesitating, unquestioning obedience leads to quiet. There is no contradiction. There is nothing to talk about. There is nothing like politics. There is no public opinion, of course; for that is based upon private opinion, and determined, resolute will. This extraordinary quiet and solemnity of demeanour may arise partly, also, from a sense of danger. Every man has arms, and has the right both of wearing and of using them: and no man makes a journey, be it only to a neighbouring village, without sword and pistols. Now this tends to quiet, earnest, solemn manners. If a scuffle takes place, it is not a black eye or a bloody face that is the result, but the certain death of some of the parties; and hence they are taught the principle of self- restraint and moral control……3.The Arabs, and Orientals in general, sit much more than we do. The tradesmen all sit at their work: the smith, the carpenter, and the merchant, the butcher, the joiner, and the spice-monger, sit quietly and transact their business. They sit as tailors do, cross-legged, but with their feet doubled in beneath them. They sit on their feet, and maintain that such is the most natural and easy position! They seem to have no pleasure in motion: no man goes out to take a walk; no man moves for the sake of exercise. They go out, as they say, to smell the air , by some spreading tree or fountain of water. And yet they are capable of enduring great and long-continued labour. Abu Mausur travelled with us nearly forty days, during which we rode at the rate of from six to eighteen hours a day; and yet, though never upon a horse, he was always with us at the requisite time and place. He performed the journey on foot, and was rarely far behind.
Take, then, these things together, and you will easily perceive that in the city of Damascus everything is still and calm as the unclouded sky and the balmy air. The hoof of the camel falls noiselessly on the unpaved street; the sheep-skin foot-gloves of the Damascenes make no sound; and all the movements, both of men and of animals, are slow and solemn.
- REV. DR. GRAHAM
WORDS
abomination, object of disgust. amusements, entertainments. annihilated, extinguished. applauding, approving. astonishment, wonder. corpulency, fatness. demeanour, deportment. distinction, discrimination. dogma, maxim law. effectually, thoroughly. enduring, undergoing. engaged, occupied. excitement, stir.
expectant, waiting. hospitals, infirmaries. inclined, disposed. indiscriminately, confusedly.
inquisitive, prying. instantaneously, immediately. ludicrous, ridiculous. obliterates, destroys.
perjury, false swearing. permission, sanction. pernicious, mischievous. principle, rule.
reflecting, animadverting. reproach, censure. sheltered, protected. similar, of the same nature. solemnity, gravity. superstition, fanaticism. transact, discharge. unsuited, inappropriate.
NOTES
① "Off with his head;-so much for Buckingham."-This now famous line occurs in an altered version of the play of Richard III. , by Colley Cibber, a dramatist of the time of George I. In Shakespeare"s Richard III. the order, "Off with his head," is given by Glo"ster with reference to Hastings.
② Mufti, a Mohammedan high-priest.
③ Nargilies, tobacco pipes constructed so as to make the smoke pass through scented water④ Eau sucre, sugared water.
⑤ Attic, elegant; pure; characteristic of Attica in Greece, or of Athens its capital.
⑥ "Thousand and One Nights."-A famous collection of Arabian tales, called "The Arabian Nights" Entertainments," translated into French in 1704, and since into most modern languages.
⑦ Khan, a caravansary, or eastern inn.
⑧ Maronites, a sect of Christians in the district of Mount Lebanon. (See lesson on Mount Lebanon , Note 6.)⑨ Talmud, the book containing the ancient Jewish oral or unwritten law and traditions. It was compiled by the scribes, between the sixth and third centuries B. C.
⑩ Rabbinical prayer-book, a prayer-book in the later Hebrew tongue, prepared after the Christian era by the Jewish doctors, or Rabbins.
Sheikh, a man of eminence and position amongst the Arabs; lit a venerable old man, orchief.
Koran, the sacred book of the Mohammedans; written by Mohammed, with the aidof two or three associates, in 610, and declared by him to have been revealed to him by the angel Gabriel during twenty-three years.
Alexandrian Library.-The great library of Alexandria (Egypt) was burned by the Caliph Omar in 640 A. D. The saying here ascribed to him is denied by Mohammedans. The MSS. in the library supplied the public baths of Alexandria with fuel for six months!
The Turks.-Greece was subject to the Turks from 1540 till 1822, when the Greeks rose in arms and proclaimed their independence. After a five-years" struggle they succeeded in securing it, and it was guaranteed by the Treaty of London, to which Great Britain, Russia, and France were parties, in 1827.
QUESTIONS
Of what public buildings are eastern cities generally destitute? Why are there few prisons in the East? What is the object of their penal system? How do they attain it? Describe the appearance of a Damascus coffee- house. What is a khan? What are the children taught in the schools? How is the absence of newspapers to be explained? How do women go about in Damascus? In comparing two streets, one in London, the other in Damascus, what three points of difference would be most noticeable?