According to the Mohammedans, Abraham first received the divine revelation of the unity of God in Damascus; and Josephus says that the town was founded by Uz, the great-grandson of Noah. The Bible tells us that Abraham had a steward who came from Damascus, and we know that King David besieged and conquered the place. There is no doubt that it is one of the oldest towns, if not the very oldest, upon earth. It was in existence before the days of Rameses and Thebes, before Alexandria sprang into greatness on the Mediterranean shores, and while Nebuchadnezzar was chewing grass in the gardens of Babylon. It was old long before Athens had begun to be, was already gray-haired when Rome was a baby, and antedates any of the cities of the present. It is now one of the most thriving centres of the Mohammedan world. [Illustration: It is in the horse market that men foregather to trade and gossip or to enjoy a cooling drink from such a bottle as is shown here] [Illustration: “O Allah, send customers,” cry the bread sellers in Damascus, as they squat in the street with their stock and scales] [Illustration: The beautiful rugs of the Orient are all hand-made, from carding and spinning the wool to the long months of weaving in the lovely patterns. But there is more time in the East than we hustling Westerners ever find] Damascus lies on the eastern side of the Lebanon Mountains about one hundred and fifty miles northeast of Jerusalem, and, as the crow flies, about fifty-three miles from the Mediterranean Sea. It is an oasis city surrounded by deserts. It is fed by two cold, clear rivers flowing out of great springs in the mountains of Lebanon and making green this sandy plain in which they are lost. These rivers are the Abana and Pharpar of the Bible. You remember how Naaman, the leper, referred to them when Elisha told him to go and wash in the Jordan seven times and his flesh would be clean. Whereupon Naaman replied: “Are not Abana and Pharpar rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. You remember also how one of his servants told Naaman that Elisha was asking a little thing of him and how he then went down and bathed in the murky Jordan, “and his flesh came again, like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.”