No picture can ever adequately represent the bazaar, not even a moving picture; for besides the unending kaleidoscopic changes of coloring, as brightly dressed peddlers and purchasers move hither and thither, there is a ceaseless, deafening, indescribable and untranslatable tumult of sound. Yet to one who understands Arabic, this is more than noise: it is music, poetry and romance. The hawker of each commodity uses a peculiarly worded appeal which, in eloquent circumlocution, extols the virtues of his wares. These calls are usually rhyming; often they include one of the ninety-nine sacred titles of Allah, and frequently they are sung to a set tune. Back and forth through the perilously crowded streets they go—boys with great trays of sweetmeats on their heads, men with tubs of pickled vegetables, peasants bearing heavy loads of fresh figs, water-carriers stooping low under their goatskin bottles, peddlers of cakes and nuts and sherbets and the nosegays which the Syrian gentleman loves to hold—literally under his nose—as he strolls through the city. All are shouting their wares. “Oh, thirsty one!” “Oh, father of a family!” “Oh, Thou who givest food!” “Allay the heat!” “Rest for the throat!” When Abraham passed through Damascus he doubtless heard these same cries. If we are driving, as is possible in the wider bazaars, our gallant coachman adds to the din as he proudly snaps his long whip, toots the strident automobile horn which is now affixed to all Damascus carriages and, in courteous gentleness or bawling rage or sighing relief, keeps up an unintermitting flow of Arabic adjuration to the passers-by whom he almost, but never quite, runs down. “Look out for your back! Hurry up, uncle! Your back, your back!—may your house be destroyed! Your right, lady! Your left, sir! Slowly, oh, inmates of the harem! Oh, pilgrim, your back! Child, beware! Your back, my friend! _Your back!_ YOUR BACK! E-e-eh! A-a-ah!” High above the other calls rises now and then the shrill, nasal song of the vender of sweetened bread, _Allah er-Razeek!_—“God is the Nourisher!” A half-naked beggar changes his pathetic whine to a lusty curse as he slinks out of the way of a galloping, shouting horseman. Any one who feels in the mood kneels down anywhere he happens to be and prays aloud. As a kind of accompaniment to the vociferous chorus there sounds the continuous tinkling of the brass bowls which are rattled against each other by the lemonade-sellers. And—very frequently in Damascus—there pierces through the deafening tumult the thin, penetrating chant of the muezzin who, from his lofty minaret or from the mosque door in the crowded, narrow street, calls to the greedy bazaar to think on the things that are unseen and eternal.