But the grand attractions in this “Flower of the Levant and Florence of Turkey” are the coffee-houses and the palaces of the rich. The writer of Eothen, I think it is, says, “there is one coffee-house at Damascus capable of containing a hundred persons.” A Damascus friend, a resident clergyman, carried me into one where he had himself seen three thousand people on a gala-day, and several where hundreds of visitors would not make a crowd. This great necessity of Turkish life,—this deliverance from the loneliness of an oriental home,—this luxurious substitute for the daily newspaper, is carried to perfection here. First of all comes the lofty, dome-covered hall, surrounded by couches like beds, enlivened on all festivals by the Arabian improvisator with his song and his tale; back of this are a number of rude arbours, interlaced with noble shade-trees, and watered profusely by nimble brooks, the whole lighted every night by little pale lamps. These are the gossiping-places for the Damascene gentlemen; where the fragrant tchébouque, the coal narghilch, or water-pipe, the delicious coffee, the indolent game at dominoes (I never saw chess played at the east), is relieved by such domestic anecdotes as, according to my American friend, brand the domestic life of the city with beastly sensuality. One would fain hope that these are the prejudices of an earnest missionary; but, until the residence of years had given familiarity with the language, any opinions of a visitor would be erroneous, as well as presuming. Nothing, however, can bring back so powerfully the Arabian tales of enchantment as the interior of the wealthier Damascus houses. The outside is always mean and forbidding. You have sometimes to stoop under the rude, low gate; and the first court, surrounded only by servants’ rooms, has nothing of interest. But the second and third quadrangles become more and more spacious, and are always of variegated marble, containing a perpetually playing fountain, overhung by the orange, the citron, and the vine, whose fragrance floats dreamily on the moist air, lulling the senses to repose. The grand saloon I found to be always arranged pretty much the same. A lower part of the pavement near the door is the place of deposit for slippers, shoes, and the pattens which Damascus women use so much in the winter—articles, all of them, never intended for ornament, and never fitted to the foot, but worn as loose as possible, and never within the sitting-room, but simply as a protection from out-door wet and soil. The lower portion of the room and its rug-strewn floor are of variegated marbles; then comes curiously-carved woods, then painted stucco, decorated with mirrors rising to the distant, gay-coloured roof. The immense loftiness, the moist coolness, the gorgeous hues, the emblazoned texts from the Koran, the sweet murmur of the various fountains, the fragrance of the orange-groves, succeed to the out-door dreariness like a dream of Haroun