Connecticut western news., 1890-12-10


 as star in comparison. 1t was the face of the slain and ascended Christ looking from the heavens, and under the dash of that overpowering light all the horses dropped with their riders. Human face and horses mane together in the dust And then two claps of thunder followed uttering the two words, the second word like the first: Saul! Saul!''
 For three days that fallen equestrian swas totally blind, for excessive light will sometimes extinguish the eyesight And what cornea and crystalline lens could endure a brightness greater than the monday Syrian sun? had readit hundred times, but it never so i'm pressed me before, and probably will never SO impress me again, as l took my Bible from the saddle bags and read aloud to our comrades in travel: "As he journeyed he came near Damas- GUS, and suddenly there shined round about him light from heaven, and he fell to the earth and heard voice say ing unto him: Saul! Saul! why per secutest thou meY And he said, Who art thou, LordY And the Lord said, T am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. ,
 But we cannot stop longer on this road, for we shall see this unhorsed equestrian later in Damascus, toward which his horses head is turned and at which we must ourselves arrive before night. The evening is near at hand, and as we leave snowy Hermon behind us and approach the shadow of the cupolas of two hundred mosques we cut through circumference of many miles of garden which embower the city So luxuriant are these gardens, so opulent in colors, so luscious of fruits, so glittering with fountains, so rich with bowers and kiosks, that the Mohammedan's heaven was fashioned after what are to be seen here of bloom l and fruitage. Here in Damascus at the right season are cherries and mul- berries and apricots and almonds and pistachios and po1negranates and pears l and apples and plums and citrons and all the richness of the round worlds pomology. No wonder that Julian | called this city "the eye of the east" and that the poets of Syria have styled l it ''the luster on the neck of doves, ," and historians said, "It is the golden l clasp which couples the two sides of 1 the world together"
 1 Many travellers express disappoint- | ment with Damascus, but the trouble is they have carried on their minds l from boyhood the book which dazzles so many young people-''Th Arabian Nights" {" and they come into Damascus looking for Aladdin's lamp and Alad din's ring and the genii which appeared by rubbing them. But as I have never read '"The Arabian Nights" such stuff not being allowed around our house in my boyhood, and nothing lighter in the way of reading than .sBaxters Saints Everlasting Rest and D'Aubigny's History of the Ref ormation," Damascus appeared to me as sacred and secular histories have pre- sented it, and so the city was not dis appointment, but with few exceptions a surprise.
 THE RUSH OF THE RIVER ALBANIA.
 Under my window tonight in the ho- tel at Damascus I hear the perpetual l ripple and rush of the river Abana An, the secret is out Now I know why all this flora and fruit and why every thing is so green, and the plain one great emerald The river Abana! And not far off the river Pharpar, which | ho,~cnc xr,olo1 fhrO,1r1 fNlou Thank the rivers or rather the God who made the rivers! Deserts to the north, deserts to the south, deserts to the east, deserts to the west, but here a paradise And as the rivers Gihon and Pison and Hiddekel and Euphrates make the other paradise, Abana and Pharpar make this Damascus a para disc. That is what made Gen. Naaman of this city of Damascus so mad when he was told for the cure of his leprosy to go and wash in the river Jordan.
 The river Jordan is much of the year muddy stream. and it Is never so clear as this river Abana that hear rum bling under my window tonight, nor as the river Pharpar that we crossed to- day. They are as clear as though they had been sieved through some especi al sieve of the mountains Gen. Naaman had great and patriotic pride in these two rivers of his own country, and when Elisha the prophet told him that if he wanted to get rid of his leprosy he must go and wash in the Jordan he felt as we who live on the magnificent Hudson would feel if told that we must go and wash in the muddy Thames, or as if those who live on the transparent Rhine were told that they must go and wash in the muddy Fiber. So Gen. Naaman cried out with 8 voice as loud as ever he had used in commanding his troops, uttering those memorable words which every minister of the gospel sooner or later takes for his text: "Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers ot Damascus, better than the waters ot Israeli May I not wash in them and be clean?'
 Thank God we live in land with plenty of riv, rs, and that they bless all our Atlantic coast and all our Pacific coast, and reticulate all the continent between the coasts. Only those whe have travelled in the deserts of Syria oa Egypt, or have in the oriental cite:
 heard the tinkling of the bells of those
 who sell water, can realize what it is te have this divine beverage in abund
 ance. Water rumbling over the rocks
 turning the mill wheel, saturating tht
 roots of the corn, dripping from buck
 cts, filling the pitchers of the house l hold roJl;p,r +bro,,ob tho fonts or han