It was Ramadan. So soon as the sun, in his daily farewell, had stained with blood the sand-dunes outside the town, life took possession of Damascus. Immediately the lamps were lit in the most beautiful mosques, for in this Orient which is all violence, shock and contrast one knows not the delicate charm of the mauve hours in which the twilight is born. Lady Hester sauntered through the crowded by-streets. The waters of the Barada reflected in commas of gold the illuminations of the little cafés which opened on to its steep banks. Songs rose from the _moucharabys_, whose distant lights traced the designs of legends. Behind a mysterious wall viols lamented, those seven-stringed viols which retain for a long time the melancholy notes. The shops of the vendors of eatables were in a wild ferment: plates loaded with cakes dripping with honey and grease, juicy halawys, loaves flat as handkerchiefs, little skewers of birds roasted whole. On the threshold of his kingdom, naked down to the waist, a fat negro rolled without shame forcemeat balls on his belly. Odour of grilled mutton, of fresh pasties, of burned almonds, of ginger, of canella! Tumult of buyers! Confusion at the crossways! Theatre of Chinese shadows recounting the inevitable story: illness of a lady, her desire to have a Frank doctor, thoughtlessness of the doctor, jealousy of the husband and speedy catastrophe. In the cafés, the Damascenes, gravely squatting in a heap on rustic carpets, smoke the narghileh or suck in the tiny cups of coffee perfumed with ambergris. If the customers were thirsty, they stopped on his way a water-carrier, a djoullab seller or a vendor of raisins. Sometimes a storyteller presented himself and began a story of "The Thousand and One Nights," in which figured marvellous houris and one-eyed giants. He went, came, gesticulated, varying his voice with an infinite art, transforming the expressions of his face with a skill which the most famous of our actors would not attain. Sometimes they listened to him, sometimes he talked for himself alone, and his pleasure was as keen as though he were playing before the Sultan. Ah! who will restore to Lady Hester those long luminous nights of Ramadan with the charm of new scenes and exotic perfumes never lost later?