" She did not please for three-
quarters of an hour. She also visited _cafes_ which Moslem women do not
visit, and shocked the kawwasses so much that they begged the French
Consul not to send them to guard her, as they were losing their
reputation! But to return to our muttons. This superb Mosque has
alternately served as a place of worship for many creeds: for the Pagans
as a temple, for the Christians as a cathedral, and for the Moslems as a
mosque. Like Damascus, it has had its vicissitudes, and it has been
taken captive by Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Assyrians, and Turks.
The Hammam, Or Turkish Bath, is another feature of Damascus, and was one
of my favourite haunts. I first went to the Hammam out of curiosity, and
was warmly welcomed by the native women; but I was rather shocked. They
squat naked on the floor, and, despoiled of their dress and hair and
make-up, are, most of them, truly hideous. Their skins are like
parchment, and baggy; their heads as bald as billiard-balls. What little
hair they have is dyed an orange red with henna. They look like witches
in Macbeth, or at least as if they had been called up from out of the
lower regions. They sit chatting with little bundles of sweets and
narghilehs before them. An average Englishwoman would look like an
_houri_ amongst them; and their customs were beastly, to use the mildest
term. The Hammam was entered by a large hall, lit by a skylight, with a
huge marble tank in the centre and four little fountains, and all around
raised divans covered with cushions.
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