Behind us rise the bare, chalky cliffs of Anti-Lebanon. Beyond those low azure hills at the east is the cruel desert. But between the mountains and the desert hills lies the hundred square miles of the _Ghûta_—the “Garden” of Damascus. No language is too extravagant for the Arabic writers who describe this land of fruits and flowing waters. It is “the most excellent of all the beautiful places of earth,” exclaims the learned Abulfeda; and the famous geographer Idrisi says, “There are grown here all sorts of fruits, so that the mind cannot conceive the variety, nor can any comparison show what is the fruitfulness and excellence thereof, for Damascus is the most delightful of God’s cities in the whole world.” Indeed, this is the place which, among all the habitations of men, comes nearest to the description of the Moslem paradise— “The people of the Right Hand! Oh, how happy shall be the people of the Right Hand!... In extended shade, And by flowing waters, And with abundant fruits, Unfailing, unforbidden ... Gardens beneath whose shades the rivers flow.”[27] The prophet who sang thus of the celestial delights of the Faithful once stood, it is said, on the summit of this sacred mountain and gazed with wondering admiration, as we are gazing, on the bounteous splendor of the Garden of Damascus. But Mohammed refused to go down into the city for fear lest, having tasted the joys of this earthly paradise, he might lose his desire for the heavenly. CHAPTER VIII THE PORT OF THE WILDERNESS Although it is ninety miles by railway from navigable water, Damascus partakes of the characteristics of a seaport. It is, in fact, the port of the wilderness. Just to the east of its fertile “garden” is the Syrian desert, across which slow caravans have always been coming and going—traveling from the rich river-bottoms of Mesopotamia, from Persia and India, and even from far distant China, to bring the riches of Asia to the overflowing warehouses of Damascus. The lands from which the city derives its prosperity cannot compete with European industries, and so only a small proportion of their products is now sent westward across the Mediterranean. Yet Damascus remains still the metropolis of the desert peoples. From the viewpoint of the peasant or Bedouin Arab, it is a very modern place; and to the stranger who can see beneath the alluring glamour of its Orientalism, its chief characteristics are abounding prosperity and noisy activity. This oldest of cities is no mere interesting ruin or historical pageant. Even in the fast-month of Ramadan, its streets are as crowded as the most congested shopping district of London or New York or Paris.[28]