Mohammedan purgatory out of Arabia.  Where you see one green turban of a Hadji elsewhere (the honored sign that my lord has made the pilgrimage to Mecca,) I think you will see a dozen in Damascus.  The Damascenes are the ugliest, wickedest looking villains we have seen.  All the veiled women we had seen yet, nearly, left their eyes exposed, but numbers of these in Damascus completely hid the face under a close-drawn black veil that made the woman look like a mummy.  If ever we caught an eye exposed it was quickly hidden from our contaminating Christian vision; the beggars actually passed us by without demanding bucksheesh; the merchants in the bazaars did not hold up their goods and cry out eagerly, “Hey, John!” or “Look this, Howajji!” On the contrary, they only scowled at us and said never a word.

The narrow streets swarmed like a hive with men and women in strange Oriental costumes, and our small donkeys knocked them right and left as we plowed through them, urged on by the merciless donkey-boys.  These persecutors run after the animals, shouting and goading them for hours together; they keep the donkey in a gallop always, yet never get tired themselves or fall behind.  The donkeys fell down and spilt us over their heads occasionally, but there was nothing for it but to mount and hurry on again.  We were banged against sharp corners, loaded porters, camels, and citizens generally; and we were so taken up with looking out for collisions and casualties that we had no chance to look about us at all.  We rode half through the city and through the famous “street which is called Straight” without seeing any thing, hardly.  Our bones were nearly knocked out of joint, we were wild with excitement, and our sides ached with the jolting we had suffered.  I do not like riding in the Damascus street-cars.

We were on our way to the reputed houses of Judas and Ananias.  About eighteen or nineteen hundred years ago, Saul, a native of Tarsus, was particularly bitter against the new sect called Christians, and he left Jerusalem and started across the country on a furious crusade against them.  He went forth “breathing threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord.”

     “And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there
     shined round about him a light from heaven: 

     “And he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, ’Saul,
     Saul, why persecutest thou me?’

     “And when he knew that it was Jesus that spoke to him he trembled,
     and was astonished, and said, ‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’”

He was told to arise and go into the ancient city and one would tell him what to do.  In the meantime his soldiers stood speechless and awe-stricken, for they heard the mysterious voice but saw no man.  Saul rose up and found that that fierce supernatural light had destroyed his sight, and he was blind, so “they led him by the hand and brought him to Damascus.”  He was converted.