Let us go this morning for a walk through the bazaars of this the oldest of all the world’s cities. They are more oriental than those of Tunis or Cairo and more quaint than those of Constantinople. Take the Street called Straight, up which St. Paul came to meet Ananias. It is a vaulted tunnel where the only light comes through little windows in the roof, which rises to a height of about one hundred feet. Suppose you could cover lower Broadway at the top of its third-story windows, and in place of the doors and windows of plate-glass have the walls made up of cave-like stores opening out on the roadway. Let each store have a floor about as high above the street level as the seat of a chair, and let it be filled with the most gorgeous goods of the Orient. Let each have its turbaned or fez-capped merchant sitting on the floor at the front, with workmen similarly dressed labouring away in the rear. The bazaars of Damascus are made up of many such vaulted streets so roofed that only dim light comes in through the little windows high up overhead. The shops are mere holes in the walls, but they are packed full of goods. The walls between them are little more than partitions of boards, and there is hardly a business establishment where the traditional bull of the china shop could turn round without losing his hide. The customers bargain standing out in the roadway, or sitting on the floors of the stores and hanging their heels in the street. Each trade has its own section and we walk for blocks filled with booths containing only one kind of goods. Here is the saddle bazaar. The air is heavy with the rich smell of leather. Harness hangs from the walls, and inside are saddles for camels, donkeys, and horses. There are gay trappings for Arabian steeds, and leather buckets in which one can carry water with him over the desert. There are also necklaces of blue beads to put on your horses to ward off the evil eye, as well as other charms for the journey. The harness shops are twelve feet deep and each is a little factory where two or three saddlers are at work. In some places they are making harness of wool and in others trappings of leather beautifully decorated. A little farther on we come to a bazaar selling panniers for camels and donkeys, while not far away is a street where they handle nothing but shoes. The cobblers are turning out footgear of wood, wool, and leather. They are cutting out sandals somewhat like the rain shoes of Japan. The finer ones, which are beautifully inlaid with mother-of-pearl, are for the better class women. Such shoes are used at home and when madame goes to the bathhouse. They are worn without stockings. In another place the merchants are selling shoes of red leather such as are used by the country people and the poorer Damascenes. They are of goatskin, camelskin, or cowhide, and have no heels. The leather is not very well tanned, the shoes being kept on the lasts until sold.