Description
Antique print dated 1895.
The page is over 115 years old and in good condition.
In order to enhance and protect the page we have set in within a bespoke frame and mount.
Frame size 400mm x 370mm. available also in a
gold frame, your choice. RtW.100.
Entitled – Damascus. Tower from which St. Paul Descended in a Basket.
Below the picture an inscription reads:
Damascus. – The bazaars of this city cannot be surpassed in varied interest throughout the Orient.
“Damascus blades” are still sold to eager purchasers; but, alas ! they are of inferior steel, imported wholesale from Solingen, in Germany.
The city streets are alive with people; crowds of veiled women waddle from shop to shop in the Cloth Bazaar, and disturb the placid merchants who are reading the Koran within.
Now and then the soldiers of a Turkish effendi clear a way for their dignified master; and the appalling din is further augmented by the lusty singing of the beggars, and the sonorous repetition of the Mohammedan creed by the muezzins, whose voices resound from one minaret to another all over the city.
Public writers sit at the street corners; and the street sellers are the most interesting of “living pictures.”
The local baker’s boy carries about with him many flat warm loaves, besides thin wheaten bread, slightly covered with butter and grape syrup, and sprinkled with sesame; he cries, “Allah-er-razik, ya berazik” (“God is the nourisher, buy my bread”).
Another sells lemonade, cooled with snow from the heights of Lebanon; and the miscellaneous refreshment hawker stoops beneath his big jar and rattles his brazen cups.
It is instructive to note that the shibboleth of the flower-sellers is “Salih hamatak,” literally “Appease thy mother-in-law” (by buying her a nosegay).
Round and square towers flank the city wall, but these are in a tottering condition.
Opposite the old gate of Bab Kisan is the tomb of St. George, who is said to have assisted St. Paul to escape from Damascus; and the window is still pointed out (above the Turkish wall) whence the apostle was let down in a basket by night.
The chief mosque of Damascus is 429ft. long and 124ft. wide.
Six hundred golden lamps hang from the inlaid ceilings of the interior.
If you buy an item and then see it relisted this is because we occasionally have more than one available, each page is
original and not a photocopy.
Thank you for looking, please visit our shop.
