ms are much the same today as
they were fifty or even one hundred years ago. Witness Damascus. The
following pen picture of the cafes in this ancient city was written in
1836 to accompany the drawing by Bartlett and Purser, which is
reproduced here; but it might have been written in 1922, so slight have
been the changes in the setting or the spirit of the original coffee
house that Shemsi first brought to Constantinople from Damascus in
1554.[370]

[Illustration: STREET COFFEE SERVICE IN CONSTANTINOPLE]

The Cafes of the kind represented in the plate are, perhaps, the
greatest luxury that a stranger finds in Damascus. Gardens,
kiosques, fountains, and groves are abundant around every Eastern
capital: but Cafes on the very bosom of a rapid river, and bathed
by its waves, are peculiar to this ancient city: they are formed so
as to exclude the rays of the sun, while they admit the breeze; the
light roof is supported by slender rows of pillars, and the
building is quite open on every side.

A few of these houses are situated in the skirts of the town, on
one of the streams, where the eye rests on the luxuriant vegetation
of garden and wood: others are in the heart of the city: a flight
of steps conducts to them from the sultry street, and it is
delightful to pass in a few moments from the noisy, shadeless
thoroughfare, where you see only mean gateways and the gable-ends
of edifices, to a cool, grateful, calm place of rest and
refreshment, where you can muse and meditate in ease and luxury,
and feel at every moment the rich breeze from the river. In two or
three instances, a light wooden bridge leads to the platform, close
to which, and almost out of it, one or two large and noble trees
lift the canopy of their spreading branches and leaves, more
welcome at noonday than the roofs of fretted gold in the "Arabian
Nights." The high pavilion roof and the pillars are all constructed
of wood: the floor is of wood, and sometimes of earth, and is
regularly watered, and raised only a few inches above the level of
the stream, which rushes by at the feet of the customer, which it
almost bathes, as he sips his coffee or sherbet. Innumerable small
seats cover the floor, and you take one of these, and place it in
the position you like best.

Perhaps you wish to sit apart from the crowd, just