Our cities are filled and ornamented with hotels, coffee-houses, hospitals, work-houses, prisons, and similar conspicuous buildings. Generally speaking, there are none of these in the East. Hospitals and institutions for the sick and the poor were the offspring of Christianity, and are, I am inclined to think, peculiar to Christian lands.

There are few prisons in the East, and these are very wretched. Imprisonment as a punishment is little practiced,and is altogether unsuited to the Mohammedan law and mode of thinking. Life is not so sacred as with us. It is urged that if a man deserves to be confined as a dangerous member of society, he deserves to die; society will never miss him, and some expense will be spared: “Off with his head; —so much for Buckingham.”

Hence in Damascus, and in the East generally, people are not liable to the reproach which is sometimes brought against us—that the best house in the county is the jail. Besides, in the East, punishment follows crime instantaneously. The judge, the mufti, the prisoner, and the executioner, are all in the court at the same time. As soon as the sentence is delivered, the back is made bare, the donkey is ready (for perjury, in Damascus, the man rides through the city with his face to the tail), or the head falls, according to the crime, in the presence of all the people. Awful severity, and the rapidity of lightning, are the principles of their laws; nor do they deem it necessary to make the exact and minute distinctions of crime that we do. The object is to prevent crime, and this is most effectually done by the principle of terror and the certainty of immediate punishment.

A certain baker in Constantinople used false weights in selling his bread: the Sultan ordered him to be roasted alive in his own oven, and afterwards boasted that this one act of severity had effectually prevented all similar crimes. Here you see the principle of government in the East; —it is nothing but terror and religious fanaticism.

As to coffee-houses, there are plenty of them in Damascus; but they can hardly be called houses, much less palaces: they are open courts with fountains of water, sheltered from the sun; and in many cases they have little stools, some six inches high, on which, if you do not prefer the ground, you can rest while you enjoy your sherbet, coffee, and tobacco. Pipes, nargilies, ices, eau sucre, sherbet, and fruits of all kinds, are in abundance, and of the lowest possible price.

These cafes are very quiet: there is no excitement, no reading of newspapers, no discussion of politics and religion; no fiery demagogue or popular orator to mislead the people; no Attic wit provokes a smile, and no bold repartee calls forth applauding laughter on the other side. But yet they have their own amusements, and they play earnestly at games both of chance and of skill. The traveller tells his escapes and dangers to an admiring little circle; the story-teller repeats one of the “Thousand and One Nights” to a wondering audience; and if memory fails, the imagination, fertile as an oriental spring, supplies its boundless stores.

We have in the East great khans, but they bear little relation to our hotels. Ring, eat, and pay, is not the law in the East.They have no bells in Damascus, nor even the silver call or whistle which our grandmothers used in England. Bells in churches and in houses are alike an abomination to the Moslems; and the Maronites alone, by permission of the Government, have a right to use them.

The Khan in Damascus is a large circular building surmounted by a noble dome, in which the great merchants have their goods and wares of all kinds; and in which the traveller can find a resting-place for himself and his camels, and be supplied with water from the central fountain; —but there are no tables spread for the travellers, and no beds ready made for the weary pilgrims: you must find your dinner as you best can, make your own bed, and when you rise, take it up, and walk. The Khan is, however, a very noble building, and excites not a little astonishment among the Orientals.

In European cities your attention is arrested by book-shops, pictures, placards, caricatures, &c.; now in Damascus we have nothing of the sort. Among the Jews you may find a few miserable stalls, from which you may pick up a copy of the Talmud, or some old rabbinical prayer-book. The sheikh who sold me the Koran, laid his hand upon his neck, and told me to be silent, for were it known that he had done so, he might lose his head. In the schools they are taught only to read the Koran, and to master the simplest elements of arithmetic and writing.

Men of letters there are at present none, and the highest of their sciences is the knowledge of grammar. When I lived in Damascus, some wit (the first thing of the kind known) uttered a pun or squib reflecting on the corpulency of the pasha, and he was banished for it! The old observation of the caliph, as he fired the Alexandrian library, holds true in the East still—“If the books agree with the Koran, they are useless; if they oppose it, they are pernicious; and in both cases they are unnecessary.”

“But has not Damascus one hundred thousand inhabitants?” says the traveller.“Where are their newspapers, spreading light and knowledge through a portion of the sixty millions who use the noble Arabic language? Take me to the office of some Oriental Sun,Times,Globe,or Morning Chronicle.”

There is no such thing. Even in Constantinople there is only one newspaper, and the one half of it is in Turkish, and the other in French! Tyranny and superstition, like two monstrous mill-stones, rest upon and compress the energies of the oriental nations; even Greece, the fountain of science and literary and mental activity, was for a time blotted from the rank of nations, and the inquisitive character of its people all but annihilated by the stern rule of the Turks…….

But there is another great difference between the general appearance of London and of Damascus, namely, in the eastern city you see not the bright, joyous countenance of woman—she is deeply veiled. In Egypt she is enveloped from head to foot in a dark, and in Syria in a white sheet, which effectually obliterates all traces of shape, absolutely equalizes to the eye all ranks, ages, and conditions, and suggests to the beholder the idea of a company of ghosts……

Conceive now how ludicrous the streets of London would appear, if green, white, black, and gray turbans moved indiscriminately, instead of the present hats; and if all the ladies, walking or on donkeys, instead of the present varieties of showy dress, beautiful bonnets, and smiling faces, presented only the appearance of headless ghosts clothed in white!

As to the general motion and life, the difference is immense between Damascus and a western city. Let us glance for a moment at two streets, and compare them:—

1.In Damascus there is more openness and publicity.The tradesmen of every kind work in the open bazaars; many of the merchants and artisans dine in public—that is, eat their bread and oil, bread and honey, or bread and grapes, in the street where they work. All are smoking, without exception, in the intervals of business. Some are engaged in reading the Koran, swinging their bodies to and fro in the most earnest and violent manner. Some are sleeping calmly, with the long pipe in their mouth! There a butcher is killing a sheep, surrounded by a circle of hungry, expectant dogs. Yonder is a company engaged at a game of skill. Everything is done in the open air, and nothing seems to be concealed but the ladies.

2. In the eastern city there is much more quiet. Their manners are sober, formal, and stately; arising partly, I believe, from the famous and universal dogma of obedience. There is, indeed, hardly any other law. The subject, the wife, the son, the slave obeys:to hear is to obey. This principle of unhesitating, unquestioning obedience leads to quiet. There is no contradiction. There is nothing to talk about. There is nothing like politics. There is no public opinion, of course; for that is upon private opinion, and determined, resolute will. This extraordinary quiet and solemnity of demeanour may rise partly, also, from a sense of danger. Every man has arms, and has the right both of wearing and of using them: and no man makes a journey, be it only to a neighbouring village, without sword and pistols. Now this tends to quiet, earnest, solemn manners. If a scuffle takes place, it is not a black eye or a bloody face that is the result, but the certain death of some of the parties; and hence they are taught the principle of self-restraint and moral control……

3. The Arabs, and Orientals in general, sit much more than we do. The tradesmen all sit at their work: the smith, the carpenter, and the merchant, the butcher, the joiner, and the spice-monger, sit quietly and transact their business. They sit as tailors do, cross-legged, but with their feet doubled in beneath them. They sit on their feet, and maintain that such is the most natural and easy position! They seem to have no pleasure in motion: no man goes out to take a walk; no man moves for the sake of exercise.They go out,as they say,to smell the air,by some spreading tree or fountain of water. And yet they are capable of enduring great and long-continued labour. Abu Mausur travelled with us nearly forty days, during which we rode at the rate of from six to eighteen hours a day; and yet, though never upon a horse, he was always with us at the requisite time and place. He performed the journey on foot, and was rarely far behind.

Take, then, these things together, and you will easily perceive that in the city of Damascus everything is still and calm as the unclouded sky and the balmy air. The hoof of the camel falls noiselessly on the unpaved street; the sheep-skin foot-gloves of the Damascenes make no sound; and all the movements, both of men and of animals, are slow and solemn.

—Rev. Dr. Graham

Words

abomination,object of disgust.

amusements,entertainments.

annihilated,extinguished.

applauding,approving.

astonishment,wonder.

corpulency,fatness.

demean our,deportment.

distinction,discrimination.

dogma,Maxim,law.

effectually,thoroughly.

enduring,undergoing.

engaged,occupied.

excitement,stir.

expectant,waiting.

hospitals,infirmaries.

inclined,disposed.

indiscriminately,confusedly.

inquisitive,prying.

instantaneously,immediately.

ludicrous,ridiculous.

obliterates,destroys.

perjury,false swearing.

permission,sanction.

pernicious,mischievous.

principle,rule.

reflecting,animadverting.

reproach,censure.

sheltered,protected.

similar,of the same na.

solemnity,gravity ture.

superstition,fanaticism.

transact,discharge.

unsuited,inappropriate.

Questions

Of what public buildings are eastern cities generally destitute? Why are there few prisons in the East? What is the object of their penal system? How do they attain it? Describe the appearance of a Damascus coffee-house. What is a khan? What are the children taught in the schools? How is the absence of newspapers to be explained? How do women go about in Damascus? In comparing two streets, one in London, the other in Damascus, what three points of difference would be most noticeable?

在我們的城市里，遍布酒店、咖啡屋、醫(yī)院、工廠、監(jiān)獄和類似顯眼的建筑，它們同時(shí)也裝飾了我們的城市。一般來說，這些在東方世界都是不存在的。醫(yī)院及為病人和窮人而設(shè)置的機(jī)構(gòu)是基督教的產(chǎn)物，我傾向于認(rèn)為，這些是基督教國家所特有的。

在東方，很少有監(jiān)獄，即使有也都幾乎形同虛設(shè)。作為懲罰的監(jiān)禁在東方很少執(zhí)行，并且是完全不適應(yīng)伊斯蘭教法和思維方式的。他們的生活并不像我們這樣。人們都認(rèn)為，一個(gè)危險(xiǎn)的社會(huì)成員應(yīng)該受到限制，應(yīng)該被處死；社會(huì)永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)懷念他，有些代價(jià)也將不能幸免，“砍掉他的頭——在白金漢宮是這樣的?！?

因此，在大馬士革和普遍的東方世界一樣，人們有時(shí)不應(yīng)因?yàn)閷ξ覀兲岢龅男呷瓒?fù)責(zé)，一個(gè)國家最好的房子就是監(jiān)獄。此外，在東方，處罰和犯罪幾乎同時(shí)進(jìn)行。法官、法學(xué)家、囚犯和劊子手，都同時(shí)出現(xiàn)在法庭上。判決一旦交付，囚犯的后背會(huì)被脫光，驢子也會(huì)準(zhǔn)備好（在大馬士革，犯偽證罪的人，會(huì)被罰臉面對著驢子的尾巴，騎行穿城而過，或依據(jù)他所犯的罪行，在所有人面前被砍頭示眾。）可怕的嚴(yán)重程度以及閃電般的快速?zèng)Q斷，是他們的法律原則；他們也不認(rèn)為有必要確定犯罪之間精確和微小的區(qū)別，就像我們一樣。他們這樣做的目的是通過最有效的恐懼和懲罰的確定性原則，來防止犯罪。

某個(gè)面包師在君士坦丁堡以虛假的重量銷售他的面包，皇帝就會(huì)下令，他將在他自己的烤箱中被活活烤死，事后再吹噓這一行為的嚴(yán)重性。這樣可以有效地阻止所有類似的罪行。通過這件事情，你可以看到在東方國家，政府的運(yùn)行原則，僅在于恐怖和宗教狂熱。

至于咖啡屋，在大馬士革有很多；但它們也很難被稱為房子，更不用說是宮殿了。他們是帶有流水噴泉的開放庭院，處在太陽光線的隱蔽處，而且在許多咖啡屋里幾乎沒有凳子，如果你不喜歡坐在地上，你可以休息在大約六英寸高的地方，享受你的果子露、咖啡和煙草。煙斗、水煙斗、冰塊、淡蘇克雷、果子露，還有各種水果，在這里都十分充足，價(jià)格也極其低廉。

這些咖啡館都非常安靜，沒有令人興奮的事件，沒有人讀報(bào)，沒有人討論政治和宗教，沒有狂熱的煽動(dòng)者或流行的演說者在這里誤導(dǎo)民眾，沒有智者的話語挑逗其他人大笑，也沒有大膽的辯論者讓對方鼓掌歡呼。但是，他們有自己特有的娛樂方式，他們認(rèn)真地玩游戲，機(jī)遇和技巧是他們的兩大法寶。一名旅客會(huì)對著一小圈圍在他周圍顯露出崇拜目光的聽眾，講述他的逃逸和危險(xiǎn)的故事。說書人對著許多好奇的聽眾一遍一遍地重復(fù)著“一千零一夜”的故事。如果他的記憶力減退，想象力卻如東方的春天一樣蓬勃，他就會(huì)無窮無盡地講述他的故事。

在東方，我們會(huì)見到很多小客棧，但它們與我們這里的酒店似乎沒有多大關(guān)系。搖鈴、吃飯、付錢，這不是東方世界的規(guī)矩。在大馬士革，你根本聽不到鈴聲，甚至也沒有銀勺子敲擊的聲音或口哨聲，就像我們英國的祖母做的那樣。在教堂和房間里，鐘聲意味著對穆斯林的憎惡，只有馬龍派教徒在政府的許可之下，有權(quán)使用它們。

大馬士革的客棧是一個(gè)巨大的圓形建筑，最上方是一個(gè)壯觀的圓頂，其中放置著許多商家自己的各種商品和器皿，而旅客可以在這里找到一個(gè)安身之處，中央噴泉可以為他和他的駱駝提供水源。但這里沒有供旅客休息駐足的桌子，也沒有為疲憊的朝圣者準(zhǔn)備床鋪，你必須自己準(zhǔn)備晚餐，自己鋪床，當(dāng)你起床后，要將床支起，然后離開。然而，客棧是一種非常尊貴的建筑，對于東方人來說，它引起的不僅僅是一點(diǎn)興奮的感受。

在歐洲的城市里，你的注意力可能會(huì)被書店、圖片、標(biāo)語、漫畫等事物所吸引。然而，在大馬士革，根本不是這回事。在猶太人中間，你可能會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)一些慘淡的攤位，從中你可以挑出一本猶太法典的副本，或者一些古老的猶太教的祈禱書。賣給我一本《古蘭經(jīng)》的酋長，把他的手放在他的脖子上，告訴我不要作聲，因?yàn)槿绻腥酥浪@樣做，他可能會(huì)被砍頭殺死。在他們的學(xué)校里，人們接受教育只能讀《古蘭經(jīng)》，并掌握最簡單的元素，那就是算術(shù)和寫作。

迄今為止，那里還沒有能讀書識字的人。而那里，最高深的科學(xué)是語法知識。當(dāng)我住在大馬士革時(shí)，一些智者（類似事件的第一件）說出一個(gè)關(guān)于帕夏的肥胖病的雙關(guān)語、嘲諷的話，很快他就被驅(qū)逐了！老國王焚燒了亞歷山大圖書館，而他在東方擁有真正的權(quán)威。他說：“如果這些書與《可蘭經(jīng)》表達(dá)的意見相同，它們就是無用的；如果它們膽敢反對，它們就是有害的，而在這兩種情況下，它們都是不必要的?！?

“但大馬士革不是擁有十萬居民嗎？”旅客會(huì)問，“哪里有他們的報(bào)紙，可以在這六千萬高貴的阿拉伯語使用者中的一部分人群中，傳播光明和知識？誰能帶我找到東方的《太陽報(bào)》《泰晤士報(bào)》《環(huán)球時(shí)報(bào)》或《紀(jì)事晨報(bào)》?”

我沒有見到這樣的事情。即使在君士坦丁堡，也只有一種報(bào)紙，而它的一半是在土耳其，另一半在法國！專制和迷信，就像兩個(gè)怪異磨石，倚靠和壓縮著東方國家的能源，甚至希臘這個(gè)科學(xué)、文學(xué)和心理活動(dòng)的源泉，也有一段時(shí)間從國家的排名中被抹去，而它的人民所特有的好學(xué)的特性，也因土耳其人的規(guī)則而徹底泯滅了……

在大馬士革和倫敦的普遍外觀之間，還存在另一個(gè)巨大的區(qū)別，那就是，在東方的城市中，你看不到女人明亮、快樂的面容——她們的臉龐都深藏在面紗之下。在埃及，她們甚至從頭到腳都包裹在深色的面紗之中。在敘利亞，女性則包裹在白色的蔓布之中，這有效地抹殺了任何她們身材的痕跡，而且讓人們看到了絕對相同的階層、年齡和生活條件……

設(shè)想一下，如果這樣的街道出現(xiàn)在倫敦；如果綠色、白色、黑色和灰色的頭巾到處移動(dòng)，而不是現(xiàn)在我們這樣的帽子；如果所有的女士，無論是走路或是騎在驢子上，不穿著多姿多彩的絢麗禮服，戴著美麗的頭巾，顯露出面帶微笑的面孔，而是呈現(xiàn)出白色紗幔下無頭的幽魂，這些場景，會(huì)是多么可笑！

至于一般化的運(yùn)動(dòng)和生命，大馬士革和西方城市之間的不同也是巨大的。我們可以花片刻的時(shí)間瞥一眼兩座城市的兩條街道，并加以比較：

（1）在大馬士革有著更多的開放性和公眾性。經(jīng)營各種物品的商人都在露天集市做買賣，很多商人和工匠都在公共場合吃飯。也就是說，他們在他們工作的街道上吃面包和黃油、面包和蜂蜜，或者面包和葡萄。沒有例外，所有人都在生意的間隔時(shí)間內(nèi)吸煙。一些人會(huì)平靜地睡著，口哨就在他們的嘴里含著！一個(gè)屠夫在殺一只羊，四周就會(huì)圍著一圈饑腸轆轆、充滿期待的狗。在街道的那邊，一群人正在探討游戲的技巧。這一切都是在戶外進(jìn)行，除了女士們，似乎沒有什么是隱藏著的。

（2）東方的城市安靜得多。當(dāng)?shù)厝说呐e止清醒、正式、莊重。我相信，這種現(xiàn)象的一部分原因是對著名的和普遍教條的服從。事實(shí)上，這里幾乎不存在任何其他律法。歸屬物、妻子、兒子、奴隸都服從于此，聽到便要服從。毫不猶豫的、無條件地服從，就會(huì)帶來這樣的安靜。這里不存在矛盾。沒有什么可談?wù)摰?，不存在政治。?dāng)然也不存在公眾輿論，因?yàn)楣娸浾撌腔谒饺说囊庖姸嬖诘?，而且是?jiān)決的、堅(jiān)定的意志。這非凡的安靜，莊嚴(yán)的神態(tài)可能一部分也來自于危險(xiǎn)感。每個(gè)人都擁有武器，并有權(quán)佩戴、使用它們，沒有人不佩戴著劍和手槍去旅行，即使只是去一個(gè)鄰近的村子。如今，這些都帶來了安靜的、認(rèn)真的、嚴(yán)肅的舉止。如果混戰(zhàn)發(fā)生，黑眼圈或血肉模糊的臉并不會(huì)是混戰(zhàn)的結(jié)果，而一定是某些當(dāng)事人的死亡，因此，他們學(xué)會(huì)了自我約束和道德控制的原則……

（3）阿拉伯人和一般的東方人一樣，比我們坐著的時(shí)候要多得多。商販在工作的時(shí)候都是坐著的，鐵匠、木匠、商人、屠夫、木匠和香料販子，都靜靜地坐著，做著他們的生意。他們的坐姿像極了裁縫，盤著雙腿，雙腳重疊著放在雙腿之下。他們坐在自己的腳上，認(rèn)為這是最自然和簡單的姿勢。他們似乎在運(yùn)動(dòng)中沒有什么樂趣，沒有人出去散步，沒有人為了鍛煉而活動(dòng)。他們走出去，正如他們所說的，在一些青翠的樹下或噴泉周圍去“呼吸空氣”。然而，他們能夠承受巨大的和長期持續(xù)的勞動(dòng)。阿布·毛瑟與我們一起行進(jìn)了近40天，在此期間，我們以每天6至18個(gè)小時(shí)的速度騎行，然而，他雖然從未騎過馬，他總是在必要的時(shí)間和地點(diǎn)跟得上我們。他一直是徒步前進(jìn)，并很少落后于我們。

那么，將所有這些混雜在一起思考，你會(huì)很容易察覺到，在大馬士革，一切都像萬里無云的天空和溫暖的空氣一樣安詳、平靜。駱駝的蹄子無聲地落在了尚未鋪砌的街道之上，大馬士革人做成的綿羊皮腳套也完全不會(huì)發(fā)出任何聲音，所有動(dòng)物和人類的動(dòng)作，都是如此的緩慢而莊重。

——雷夫·格雷厄姆