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unnecessary delay to a bath house. The cleansing process which is so
characteristic of the Eastern or Turkish bath was satisfactorily performed,
and as we had the sights of the city to see, without waste of time at the
bath, we hurried out soon after we had been pronounced clean by the
attendants, and did not linger in an anteroom where it is usual to
recline on a couch for about a half hour before going out into the open
air. The result of the hurry was that a few hours afterwards I felt
sore at the throat, and I knew it to have ben cause by my imprudence
in leaving while my system was relaxed and all the pores open. Bathing
à la Turque is an operation that requires time, and it will never become
naturalised in the western world as long as the life there is so feverish
and full of hurry and anxiety.

Damascus is a typical Mohamedan city and in that respect
alone is interesting. The Mosque is in an immense inclosure to
which we were not admitted, and there is no other public building
worthy of being visited. The bazaars we found very crowded and
the number of camels that were continually passing through was v
ery great. This was accounted for by the arrival a few days before
us of a great caravan from Bagdad consisting of 1500 of those
animals. We went to see where a large number of these were still teth-
ered, but there were then not over 500, the others having been removed.
My recollection is that all the camels were of the one humped variety
or Egyptian, and that there were some of the two humped or Persian
among them.

After a hurried walk through the principal parts of the city including
a trip to the outside of the fortifications where the point from which
St Paul was let down in a basket was shown us, we returned to
our inn and dined. After dinner we went to the house of an old Sy-
rian who dealt in articles that travellers usually buy in Damascus
and examined some of his wares. These were not displayed so that we
could see them, and upon explaining to him that Hambro wanted
a Damascus blade, he said that he would bring some to our hotel
the next afternoon. While at the old man’s house we were served to
coffee and pipes by a little negro boy servant about fourteen years old.
I asked whether he was a slave and was told that he was, and upon
inquiring what had been paid for him, was told $300. The slave
trade on the eastern coast of Africa is for the supply mainly of the
servants required in the households of the various provinces of the
Turkish empire. There is a constant demand for these and hence
the difficulty of suppressing it.

Damascus like other eastern cities is divided into certain quarters
which are separated from each other at night by closed gates, at
each one of which there is always a guard. The streets are mere alleys
and very confusing and complicated at first, although after a while
it becomes easy enough to thread one’s way through them. The quiet
and sedate people of the place are all at their homes at night, and
it is considered that those persons who are on the move after dark
are apt to be after some mischief. There is therefore always some risk
in going out then, as has been explained in the account given of Con-
stantinople. Having no desire to buy anything from the old man
at whose house we were, and Hambro being interested in looking at
some blades which were not of the best, I started to return, and had
proceeded some distance when Abdallah came running after me
and insisted that I should wait until we were all ready to return