The dazzling diamonds of the ladies, and the various colours of their dresses, the lights, the singing of the birds, and the trickling of the water falling on the marble basins, made one fancy it to be Fairyland. Since then, whining Suzuki trucks, the only vehicles small enough to negotiate the alleys, have replaced the pad and c latter of camels overthe cobblestones, but the ageless din of braying donkeys, bargaining women and shouting boys is much the same. Labyrinthine passages still twist beneath arched stone vaults, their subterranean gloom punctured only by shafts of sun fro m skylights. Overhead, sheep graze on the grassy roofs, where guard dogs once roamed at night to foil inventive thieves. People and animals still stream down the many miles of bazaar streets.
Donkeys squeeze past, laden with wood, vegetables, or burlap bags stuffed with cottonand wool.
Massive gates open off the streets into the khans, or inns. Al eppo's great Mamlukand Ottoman khans were built on a modelused throughout the Islamic world. Merchandise, and sometimes animals, were housed in ground-floor rooms around acourtyard, while merchants lodged in cells above. The khans' great doors were locked at night to safeguard goods and owners. Among Aleppo's most beautiful khans is Khan al-Wazir, the Minister's Khan, built between 1678 and 1682.