volume 2 - Robert Bedrosian's Armenian History Workshop

170 The Garden of Dainascus.
is ended. Sleep when Muhammad bids you sleep,
ride when he bids you ride, camp where he camps, and
avoid houses. So shall Allah protect thee. I will
give Muhammad papers which will help thee as far as
Tudmur." We then left him and Mr. Dickson took me
to his house to lunch.
When we came out of the Consulate in the afternoon
we found Muhammad waiting for us, and we at once
discussed business with him. He understood the position
of things thoroughly well, and though he thought
we should have trouble with the quarantine officials
between Damascus and Tudmur, he seemed to fear
more the unsettled state of the country beyond the
Euphrates. The point of importance was that he was
willing to take me beyond Sukhnah to Mosul. Mr. Dickson
then called one of his clerks and drew up a formal contract.
Muhammad said it would be necessary to take
two camels, two mules to carry baggage and fodder,
a good horse and a donkey ; and as a sort of afterthought
he added his nephew to this company. He
proposed to select the animals that afternoon and then
to feed them well and carefully for three days, and I gave
him money on account and he departed. Mr. Dickson
then most kindly offered to show me the things best worth
seeing in Damascus, and we set off to visit some of his
friends who possessed old and beautifully decorated
houses.
We walked through the city eastwards and soon
came to a region of beautiful gardens and plantations.
The portion of each garden which contained the house
was surrounded by mud walls that were in many cases
in a terrible state of ruin. It was impossible to imagine
that merchants of wealth and position lived within
such, but as soon as we passed through the outer tumbledown
doors and gates and entered the immediate
precincts of the houses we found ourselves in beautiful
paradises. Each courtyard was paved with slabs of
marble of different colours, and in its centre was a
fountain of water which came from the Barada river,
and all the walls about were covered with flowering