ia. They are large, stately buildings, and some of them have superb
gateways of sculptured marble. The interior courts are paved with stone,
with fountains in the centre, and many of them are covered with domes
resting on massive pillars. The largest has a roof of nine domes,
supported by four grand pillars, which inclose a fountain. The mosques,
into which no Christian is allowed to enter, are in general inferior to
those of Cairo, but their outer courts are always paved with marble,
adorned with fountains, and surrounded by light and elegant corridors. The
grand mosque is an imposing edifice, and is said to occupy the site of a
former Christian church.

Another pleasant feature of the city is its coffee shops, which abound in
the bazaars and on the outskirts of the gardens, beside the running
streams. Those in the bazaars are spacious rooms with vaulted ceilings,
divans running around the four walls, and fountains in the centre. During
the afternoon they are nearly always filled with Turks, Armenians and
Persians, smoking the narghileh, or water-pipe, which is the universal
custom in Damascus. The Persian tobacco, brought here by the caravans from
Baghdad, is renowned for this kind of smoking. The most popular
coffee-shop is near the citadel, on the banks and over the surface of the
Pharpar. It is a rough wooden building, with a roof of straw mats, but the
sight and sound of the rushing waters, as they shoot away with arrowy
swiftness under your feet, the shade of the trees that line the banks,
and the cool breeze that always visits the spot, beguile you into a second
pipe ere you are aware. _"El ma, wa el khodra, wa el widj el
hassan_--water, verdure and a beautiful face," says an old Arab proverb,
"are three things which delight the heart," and the Syrians avow that all
three are to be found in Damascus. Not only on the three Sundays of each
week, but every day, in the gardens about the city, you may see whole
families (and if Jews or Christians, many groups of families) spending the
day in the shade, beside the beautiful waters. There are several gardens
fitted up purposely for these picnics, with kiosks, fountains and pleasant
seats under the trees. You bring your pipes, your provisions and the like
with you, but servants are in attendance to furnish fire and water and
coffee, for which, on leaving, you give them a small gratuity. Of all the
Damascenes I have yet seen, there is not one but declares his city to be
t