The course of my travels soon drew me so far from Safed, that I never heard how the dreadful day passed off which had been fixed for the accomplishment of the second prophecy.  If the predicted spoliation was prevented, poor Mohammed Damoor must have been forced, I suppose, to say that he had prophesied in a metaphorical sense.  This would be a sad falling off from the brilliant and substantial success of the first experiment.

CHAPTER XXVII—­DAMASCUS

For a part of two days I wound under the base of the snow-crowned Djibel el Sheik, and then entered upon a vast and desolate plain, rarely pierced at intervals by some sort of withered stem.  The earth in its length and its breadth and all the deep universe of sky was steeped in light and heat.  On I rode through the fire, but long before evening came there were straining eyes that saw, and joyful voices that announced, the sight of Shaum Shereef—­the “holy,” the “blessed” Damascus.

But that which at last I reached with my longing eyes was not a speck in the horizon, gradually expanding to a group of roofs and walls, but a long, low line of blackest green, that ran right across in the distance from east to west.  And this, as I approached, grew deeper, grew wavy in its outline.  Soon forest trees shot up before my eyes, and robed their broad shoulders so freshly, that all the throngs of olives as they rose into view looked sad in their proper dimness.  There were even now no houses to see, but only the minarets peered out from the midst of shade into the glowing sky, and bravely touched the sun.  There seemed to be here no mere city, but rather a province wide and rich, that bounded the torrid waste.

Until about a year, or two years, before the time of my going there Damascus had kept up so much of the old bigot zeal against Christians, or rather, against Europeans, that no one dressed as a Frank could have dared to show himself in the streets; but the firmness and temper of Mr. Farren, who hoisted his flag in the city as consul-general for the district, had soon put an end to all intolerance of Englishmen.  Damascus was safer than Oxford. {44} When I entered the city in my usual dress there was but one poor fellow that wagged his tongue, and him, in the open streets, Dthemetri horsewhipped.  During my stay I went wherever I chose, and attended the public baths without molestation.  Indeed, my relations with the pleasanter portion of the Mahometan population were upon a much better footing here than at most other places.

In the principal streets of Damascus there is a path for foot-passengers, which is raised, I think, a foot or two above the bridle-road.  Until the arrival of the British consul-general none but a Mussulman had been permitted to walk upon the upper way.  Mr. Farren would not, of course, suffer that the humiliation of any such exclusion should be submitted to by an Englishman, and I always walked upon the raised path as free and unmolested as if I had been in Pall Mall.  The old usage was, however, maintained with as much strictness as ever against the Christian Rayahs and Jews:  not one of them could have set his foot upon the privileged path without endangering his life.