The spirit of Syria is darkened by a shadow of death that has grown not only familiar but congenial, as darkness does to all who choose it rather than the light. Strange that Syria should thus have “made a covenant with death,” she from whom shone forth once the Light of the World. But that was long ago. These many centuries this has been one of that sad multitude of nations and of individuals who have sent forth a spirit that has inspired and moved the world, and who yet themselves sit desolate and listless. CHAPTER III THE SPECTRAL THE shadow of death is always haunted. A strong and pure faith peoples it with angels, and is accompanied through its darkness by that Good Shepherd whose rod and staff comfort the soul. When the faith is neither strong nor pure, and when those who sit in darkness have been disloyal to their faith, it is haunted by spectres, and its darkness becomes poisonous. The fascination of the marvellous passes into “what French writers call the _macabre_--that species of almost insane preoccupation with our mouldering flesh, that luxury of disgust in gazing on corruption.”[47] This unclean spectral element is a very real part of the spirit of Syria. The spell of the East is proverbial, and it is a more literal fact than is sometimes realised. Even such a commonsense Englishman as the captain of the _Rob Roy_ confesses to a nameless fear that came upon him in the solitudes of the upper Jordan.[48] There is a well-known passage in Eothen, where Kinglake describes the calculating merchant, the inquisitive traveller, the wakeful post-captain all coming under the spell of Asia.[49] The warmth and strangeness of the land may have something to do with it; but the associations and the prevalent tone of thought have more. Every one feels it whose imagination and heart are in the least measure open to spiritual impressions.