is beyond the Syrian desert. There, now, solve the
problem for yourself.

Hidden in the grove of silver-tufted poplars is the little Temple of
Venus, doomed to keep company with a Mosque. But it is a joy to stand
on the bridge above the stream that flows between them, and listen to
the muazzen in the minaret and the bulbuls in the Temple. Mohammad
calling to Venus, Venus calling to Mohammad--what a romance! We leave
the subject to the poet that wants it. Another Laus Veneris to another
Swinburne might suggest itself.

An Arab Prophet with the goddess, this time--but the River flows
between the Temple and the Mosque. In the city, life is one such
picturesque languid stream. The shop-keepers sit on their rugs in
their stalls, counting their beads, smoking their narghilahs, waiting
indifferently for Allah's bounties. And the hawkers shuffle along
crying their wares in beautiful poetic illusions,--the flower-seller
singing, "Reconcile your mother-in-law! Perfume your spirit! Buy a
jasmine for your soul!" the seller of loaves, his tray on his head,
his arms swinging to a measured step, intoning in pious thankfulness,
"O thou Eternal, O thou Bountiful!" The _sakka_ of licorice-juice,
clicking his brass cups calls out to the thirsty one, "Come, drink and
live! Come, drink and live!" And ere you exclaim, How quaint! How
picturesque! a train of laden camels drives you to the wall, rudely
shaking your illusion. And the mules and donkeys, tottering under
their heavy burdens, upsetting a tray of sweetmeats here, a counter of
spices there, must share the narrow street with you and compel you to
move along slowly, languidly like themselves. They seem to take Time
by the sleeve and say to it, "What's your hurry?" "These donkeys,"
Shakib writes, quoting Khalid, "can teach the strenuous Europeans and
hustling Americans a lesson."

In the City Square, as we issue from the congested windings of the
Bazaar, we are greeted by one of those scrub monuments that are found
in almost every city of the Ottoman Empire. And in most cases, they
are erected to commemorate the benevolence and public zeal of some
wali or pasha who must have made a handsome fortune in the promotion
of a public enterprise. Be this as it may. It is not our business here
to probe the corruption of any particular Government. But we observe
that this miserable botch of a monument is to the ruins of the
Acropolis, what this modern absolutism, this effete Turkey is to the