AT four o’clock, on the second day after leaving Baalbek, I spy one of the prettiest objects that ever greeted human vision. It is Damascus, the oldest city in the world—Damascus, laid out by Uz, the great-grandson of Noah. For days I have been riding over a ruined and desolate country, and now my eyes fall and feast on a broad, rich valley, through which flow Abana and Pharpar, two rivers of pure water. The whole valley is one great garden, or orchard, in which flourishes almost every tropical plant. Here are the orange, olive and oleander, the peach, pear, palm and pome-granate, the banana, the apple, apricot and myrtle. Amid the rich green foliage of these trees, their golden fruit is seen. Autumn, which is only summer meeting death with a smile, has seared the leaves of some of the more delicate plants of the valley. Red leaves are beautifully interwoven with the green, and they gleam in the rays of the setting sun like sheets of purest gold. Here and there tall and slender silver poplars rise high, and are gracefully swaying to and fro in the evening breezes. Damascus is situated in the midst of this luxuriant garden. Looking down from the hilltop I see the taller houses, the mosques and minarets, rising from amidst the luxuriant foliage of the trees. Ah, what a picture! According to tradition, when Mohammed reached this point and looked down upon Damascus for the first time, he said: “Man can enter only one paradise, and I prefer to enter the one above.” So he sat down here and feasted his eyes upon the earthly paradise of Damascus and went away without entering its gates, that hereafter he might be permitted to enter the portals of the paradise of God. A stone tower marks the spot where the prophet stood. From that early period Damascus has been regarded by all Arabs as an earthly reflection of paradise, where a foretaste of all the joys of heaven are obtainable. In accordance with the description given in the Koran, the Mohammedan Bible, Arabs picture to themselves paradise as a limitless orchard, traversed by streams of water, where the most delicious fruits are ever ready to drop into the mouth. [Illustration: DAMASCUS.]