The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1911-12-29
CHAPTER Xxx

me President of the United st..a.
see how We thin, ugly human -
ings dress ourselves in countries ana
nations! These are royal garments
assuredly. Seal-skin and mink ana
otter and peacock feathers--wbat .ro
these to robe made of the glory III -
was Rome's? To walk down tba
street with flowing cloak made of
Babylon. that were a parade worth
while.
Every Catholic priest is dressed
with the grandeur of that church
Every Jew with the sunset colors Of
the Jewish people-their prophets
and their poems. Every sailor with
the for ntand majesty of oceans
Every woman with the wonders of all
the yorld.
And Nahoomi Nahoom-get the
original effect of the name. Nahoom
Nohoom.
Nahoom conducts a restaurant in
Tallahassee.
Ray Bullock and l had a pair of
pomeios and two pair of egg FREEDOM
eiter-side and two cups of coffee and
some fried ham there one evening
during the session.
Come. join us, at the small table
topped with a marble slab. 1t seems
that the walls are lined with bottles
OF STUFFED olives, tomato catsup,
green peas and bottles of pickles. 1t
seems. at first, that we are in Talla-
hassee.
Not so. There is Nahoom. He
is the pebble of Hasheesh and we, the
Count of Monte Christie, and the mag
ic of the drug transports us into the
dreamland of the oldest city of the
world.
Nahoom was born and raised in Da-
mascus. There are oleanders of the
east around us. II is thousands of
years before Greek has begun to
live at the foot of the Acropolis, and
the wolves, that later will suckle.
Romulus and Remus are skulking on
the hills of the city on the Tiber. 1t
will be FIVE hundred years and more
before Moses will be discovered in
the river rushes. Abraham has not
vet lifted his knife to thrust it in the
body of his son at the command OF
God. Nebuchadnezzar will wait many
centuries before he is sent out to be-
come a beast till he knows that the
Most High God rules in the kingdom
of men. The hanging gardens OF
Babylon do not yet exist IL the mind
of the poet who planned them. There
has been no migration yet of the Ay-
ran stock from the banks of the Oxus
and Jaxertes, and the mother and
father of India and Europe and Amer
lea sit on the bank of the Oxus river
while the cattle drinking see renee
lions in the still and slowly moving
waters. People are alive who may
have seen Adam in his old age. But
here is amascus out of which in A. ID.
1895. a young Syrian. allured by the
cali of the strange, new land 10 the
west. will Journey to the Atlantic
ocean. to the Damascus of America
to the hill country of Florida, to TAI
lahassee. There he stands by the ci-
gar counter, watching Ray Bullock
and YOU and me scoop up shaddock
Juice out of a hemisphere OF grape
fruit.
Nahoom! He may be descendant
of Naaman, who was cursed OF lepro-
sy by faith in the god of the jewish
nronhet In him may be thin trickie
of the blood of Hammurabi. he
might be a cousin of Semiramis. one
of his grandfathers might have Deen
with ST. Paul when the second great
event of the world happened on the
mad 70 the native city OF Nanoom'
..The ends of the world have come
mon him and his eyelids are little
waarv" He looks on this brash young
land. and the south and Leon county,
as Methusaleh might graVeiy oosei'e
a yellow puppy swapping at a mosqui-
TO hawk in the late afternoon OF June.
His native city is in the pale light OF
The star that shone over Bethlehem
and the figures of the wise men on
camels pass hazily toward the birth
Mace AS John Cook and /. ten or
twelve years of age. were taken by
Mr. John Grady from Apalachicola TO-
pensacola-my first sight of city
so Young Abraham might have been
taken by a friend of the family to Da-
mascus the home of Nahoom. The
riches Of Nahoom's home tantalizeo
young Alexander the Great before ..i he
tanned tanned Bucephalus; and King David va.
in his moments of melancholy lei.
the onpression of the greater glory OF
tho cvr;an metropolis.