We left the bazaar by a different way, and our guide got lost getting us back to the hotel. I didn't blame him, though--anybody could get lost in those tangled streets. We were in a hopeless muddle, for it was getting dark, when down at the far end of a narrow defile Laura got a glimpse of a building which she said was like one opposite our hotel. So we went to look for it, and it was the same building. Then our guide found the hotel for us, and we paid him, and everything was all right. He didn't know anything about the city, I believe, but was otherwise a perfect guide. Following, we put in a busy two days in Damascus--a marvellous two days, I thought. Our carriages were at the hotel next morning, and I want to say here that of all the carriages and horses we have seen, those of Damascus are far and away the best. The horses are simply beautiful creatures and in perfect condition. Even those kept for hire are superb animals with skins of velvet. They are Arabian, of course, and I can believe, now, that the Arab loves his horse, for I have never seen finer animals, not even on Fifth Avenue. I can understand, too, why the _Quaker City_ pilgrims--ambling into Damascus on those old, blind, halt and spavined Beirut nags--made their entry by night. And these Damascus horses go. Their drivers may love them, but they make them hurry. They crack their whips, and we go racing through the streets like mad. However deliberate the East may be in most things, it is swift enough in the matter of driving. I don't care for it. It keeps me watching all the time to see what kind of an Arab we are going to kill, and I miss a good many sights. We went through that crowded thoroughfare of the Grande Bazaar at a rate which fairly was homicidal. Certainly if those drowsy shopkeepers did not hate Christians enough before, they do now. We drove to the Grande Mosque, and we had to put on slippers, of course, to enter even the outer court. It is nearly a quarter of a mile long, and we slid and straddled across that vast marble skating-rink, pausing at a little pavilion--the Dome of the Treasury--where they keep some venerable books--the oldest books in the world, I believe, and so sacred that nobody ever sees them. Then we entered the Grande Mosque itself--still known as the Church of St. John the Divine. For, like the temples of Baalbec and otherwheres, the Grande Mosque of Damascus has sheltered a variety of religious doctrines. It was the Temple of Rimmon, first, god of the Syrians. The Romans, who conquered and templed the world, came next, and built here, as they always built, in magnificence and pride, with architecture stolen from the Greeks. After the Romans, the early Christians under Constantine and Theodosius, who for some reason did not destroy, as was their habit, but only adapted the great temple to their needs. The son of Theodosius made some improvements, and above the south door left a Christian inscription which stands to this day.