Bisbee daily review., 1908-04-09
REVIEW MORNING

i
 nerve and nervousness of 5000 years | by the way, they met me in passing
 and almost pulled me into their shops When too many collected around us
 would jump up and down like jump ing jack, yelling like them at the tor
 of my voice, and they would see the
 joke and disperse. It headed then
 off for one time. and usually shocAet
 Mrs. Young that should be 80 undig
 nified in a large city. But they art
 not fools. and while modern progres: is helping these people yet some ot lhem have been shrewd from the be
 ginning. I visited a real Damascus blow hatory which employed hun.
 dreds of men. All the blows are made
 of wood and have but one handle, and
 not even 8 metal point on them. Crude
 as the affair is in comparison with
 our modern blows the mechanism oi
 1t is perfect. If it was put together ir a clumsy manner there would be nc
 endurance, but as it is the blow does
 fairly good blowing and lasts well
 There is not circular saw in Damas
 GUS. all saving is done with the old.
 fashioned rip saw.
 The meal or flower is ground by two stones made flat but circular, and about the size of a wheel on a baby buggy. The lower stone is laid on
 the floor, the upper one on top, and through a hole the grain is poured in by hand fulls and by a small handle attached to the upper stone the grind ing is done. The process is just about 500 years ahead of the grinding done by the Indians in North America. I visited the stockyards. No animals unharnessed are permitted in the city walls. Any thing for, sale or barter during the day is stopped on the out side of what is called the Animal Gate" It has a large arch over it built by the Romans and by the an cient Christians was called the Gate of God" but the Turkish conquerors turned it into the Animal Gate"
 The visit here was interesting and again I saw the snrewd traders whose ancestors have been bartering around Damascus thousands of years. Cat tie, horses, burros, mules, goats, sheep, and lambs for the slaughterer were all mixed together and the noise and yelling was like pandemonium of a whole city gone mad.
 Just beyond the place, and outside the city wall is the site of the house of ''Naaman the leper' who was heal ed by bathing, as he was told, in the river Jordan. This house was outside the old city wall, which is about one hundred feet away, because Naaman was leper; and it is still so for there are lepers in the house now. There is no doubt about this being the place re- ferTed to in the Bible, second Kings, 5th chapter; not the same house of course, but part of the arches are standing which were erected long be- fore Christ.
 Not many yards from here is the spot where the Apostle Paul escaped by being let down in a basket through a window outside the city wall by some ropes. There is no doubt about the wall being old, for it is well known to have been built by the Phoenicans long before Christ. And the place in the wall is not but two hundred yards from the supposed house of Ananias where the mob gathered to slay the Apostle that night, and from which hc escaped to the window in the vail and his friends let him down in a rope basket
 The Turks and Arabs conquered Damascus from the Romans in 634 4. D., and there is a mosque here now that was once the church of St. John under Christian rule. I visited it today and was shown the dividing line which once separated the half which was used by the Turks and other half by the Christians. This did not last but a few years and the Christians were driven out altogether, but may be not forever. Aaron the Fortunate" had the wrong name, for he was the meanest ruler the Turks ever had in Damascus. When men came in his power he had them cut into small pieces instead of ordinary decent death. It is to him that Ara bian Knights makes reference, which ever reader of the volume will never forget. This meanest of all Turkish officials who died S09 A. D., left be- hind some lineage which proved as mean as he in later years. In 1860 the Turkish authorities connived a massacre of Christian people in Dam ascus and 6,0O0 were slain and their homes and businesses were burned. It is a fact of history that the pow the affair that ths governor, Ahmed Pasha, with a crowd of conspirators was brought to trial and beheaded.
 In later years this side of the ques- tion of freedom has changed, and now in and around Damascus are ten pro testant congregations which have schools and mostly native teachers. Again I state as in another letter that the Turks do not give 'rap" about the other mans religion, but they fear that too much freedom will cause a political uprising.
 The best educated people find here are not among the Mohammedans but among Jews, Greeks, and others. And I must again state as in another place in this letter, that these are not fools by any means. One example is fair sample of many others. I talked to a young Greek who has little Turkish blood in him. When asked how many languages he could speak, he replied by naming six. had often cangratu- lated my self that could speak two