Banias

scott 3 December 2021
The very first thing one feels like doing when he gets into camp, all burning up and dusty, is to hunt up a bath. We followed the stream up to where it gushes out of the mountain side, three hundred yards from the tents, and took a bath that was so icy that if I did not know this was the main source of the sacred river, I would expect harm to come of it. It was bathing at noonday in the chilly source of the Abana, “River of Damascus,” that gave me the cholera, so Dr. B. said. However, it generally does give me the cholera to take a bath.

Bædeker: From Damascus to Ez-Zebedâni (1898)

scott 3 December 2021

From Damascus to Ez-Zebedânî via Helbûn. Starting from the Bâb Tâmâ (p. 360) we follow the Aleppo road and diverge from it to the left after 11 minutes. After 9 min. we avoid a path to the left, and after 14 min. emerge from among the gardens. About 1/4 hr. to the right is the village of Kâbûn. We reach (20 min.) the village of Berzeh. A Muslim legend makes this the birthplace of Abraham, or at least the point to which he and his servants penetrated in this direction (Gen. xiv. 15). Here we turn to the left, and in 8 min. reach the entrance of a gorge. In 33 min.

Damascus

scott 3 December 2021

View From the Mountain

Damascus is beautiful from the mountain. It is beautiful even to foreigners accustomed to luxuriant vegetation, and I can easily understand how unspeakably beautiful it must be to eyes that are only used to the God-forsaken barrenness and desolation of Syria. I should think a Syrian would go wild with ecstacy when such a picture bursts upon him for the first time.

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