CURTIS'S WANDERER IN SYRIA. * TlIERE is not much novelty of
scene in the Syrian wanderings of Mr. Curtis. His route was from Cairo to Jerusalem, Damascus, and Baalbec ; his adventures by the way were few. Neither had he any particular object in view which might give unity and purpose to his travel, nor does he present a continuous narrative to his reader. The American (and apparently the New Yorkist's) volume is not without attraction for independence of treatment, facility of handling, and a bold fresh kind of rhetoric. Except about himself, he tells us little or nothing which we did not know before ; and the impression which he leaves is not permanent as a whole : but he is an agreeable companion, from whom the reader can carry something away, though it may not altogether be of Palestine.
The Wanderer in Syria is not exactly an account of a journey. It is a book containing the impressions made upon the traveller, with the suggestions as well. Hence it is peculiarly a personal book : for although, of course, a man can only describe what he sees, still the description of an actual fact or appearance varies chiefly as regards the power and spirit of the 'describer. The im- pression will differ according to the general character of the recipient, but suggestions must depend upon all the countless cir- cumstances that have contributed to make up the individual life. A book of this kind must mainly owe its effect to the literary skill of the writer ; and though the wanderings are not without such faults of taste as too much effort and an egotistical display, the attention of the reader is sustained; and though he may not gain a clearer impression of the East than he had before, he will get a clear idea of the impression it made upon Mr. Curtis. The plan is adapted to the purpose of the writer. He divides his book into three sections,—the Desert, Jerusalem, Damascus ; each section subdivided into chapters, with titles that do not always correspond in their substance to their name.. This mode has its ad- vantages. It enables the writer to get rid of the formal narrative of a tour; to introduce only the striking scenes or incidents of his journey ; to treat them as briefly as he pleases; and when the jour- ney furnishes nothing worth writing a chapter about, he can use a title as a peg on which to hang a disquisition—historical, social, or religious as the case may be : and as these disquisitions are not elongated, they are not tedious, and are often far from the worst part of the book. Long and varied travel in the Old World has knocked out of Mr. Curtis the narrowness and self-sufficiency of the raw Ameri- can: he is cosmopolitan in mind, and liberal in his ideas. If he has not imagination, he has a fluency of fancy and a freedom in using it which "serve the turn as well." This passage from the chapter on Cairo does not describe anything exactly, but it con- veys a distinct idea of the Oriental grade of the city.
"The Arabian poets celebrate the beauty of Cairo,—' Misr, without an equal, the mother of the world, the superb town, the holy city, the delight of the imagination, greatest among the great, whose splendour and opulence made the Prophet smile.' "Nor the Prophet only. For even to Frank and Infidel eyes it is the most beautiful of Eastern cities.
"It is not so purely Oriental as Damascus, nor can it rival the splendour of the Syrian capital as seen from a distance ; but, architecturally, Cairo is the triumph of the Arabian genius. It woos the eye and admiration of the stranger with more than Muslim propriety. Damascus is a dream of beauty as you approach it. But the secret charm of that beauty, when you are within the walls, is discovered only by penetrating deeper and farther into its exquisite courts and gardens and interiors, as you must strip away the veils and clumsy outer robes to behold the beauty of the Circassian or Georgian slave.
"Prince Soltikoff, a Russian Sybarite, who winters upon the Nile as Eng- lishmen summer upon the Rhine, agreed that, to the eye of the stranger in its streets, Cairo was unsurpassed. "'But Ispahan ? I suggested : for the Prince chats of Persia as men gos- sip of Paris, and illuminates his conversation with the glory of the
s'
Persia has nothing so fair,' replied the Prince. Leave Ispahan and Teheran unvisited save by your imagination, and always take Cairo as the key-note of your Eastern recollections.'
• The Wanderer in Syria. By George William Curtis, Author of " Nile Notes." Published by Bentley.
"It is built upon the edge of the desert, as other cities stand upon the sea- shore. The sand stretches to the walls, girdling the delight of the imagi, nation' with a mystery and silence profounder than that of the ocean. "It is impossible not to feel here, as elsewhere in the East, that the na- tional character and manners are influenced by the desert, as those of mari- time races by the sea. This fateful repose, this strange stillness, this uni- versal melancholy in men's aspects, and in their voices, as you note them in quiet conversation, or in the musical pathos of the muezzin's cry—the in- tent but composed eagerness with which they listen to the wild romances of the desert, for which even the donkey-boy pauses, and stands, leaning upon his arms across his beast, and following in imagination the fortunes of Aboo Seyd, or the richer romances of the Thousand and One Nights,—all this is of the desert, this is its silence articulated in Art and Life."
Jerusalem has been done often and often ; but Mr. Curtis gives freshness to his picture, first by the brevity of his general desciip- tion and then by the complete manner in which he works out the details of a particular spot, which, as it cannot be seen as a sight, is often disregarded.
"Within the walls, Jerusalem is among the most picturesque of cities. It is very small. You can walk quite round it in less than an hour. There are only some seventeen thousand inhabitants, of whom nearly half are Jews. The material of the city is a cheerful stone ; and so massively are the lofty blind house-walls laid, that, in pacing the more solitary streets, you seem to be threading the mazes of a huge fortress. Often the houses extend over the street, which winds under them in dark archways, and where there are no overhanging buildings there are often supports of masonry thrown across from house to house. There are no windows upon the street, except a few picturesque projecting lattices.
"Jerusalem is an utter ruin. The houses, so fair in seeming, are often all crumbled away upon the interior. The arches are shattered, and vines and flowers wave and bloom down all the vistas. The streets are never straight for fifty rods, but climb and wind with broken steps; and the bold buildings thrust out buttressed corners, graced with luxuriant growths, and arched with niches for statue and fountain. It is amass of • beautiful bits,' as artists say. And you will see no fairer sight in the world than the groups of bril- liantly-draped Orientals emerging into the sun from the vine-fringed dark- ness of the arched ways. "Follow them as they silently pass accompanied by the slave who bears the chibouque. Follow, if it is noon, for soon you will hear the cry to prayer, and they are going to the mosque of Omar.
"There are minarets in Egypt so beautiful, that, when completed, the Sultan ordered the right-hand of the architect to be struck off, that he might not repeat the work for any one else. They are indeed beautiful : yet, if their grace cost but a hand, the beauty of this mosque were worth a head. "The mosque of Omar occupies the site of Solomon's temple, about an eighth of the area of the whole city. It is the most beautiful object in Jeru- salem, and the most graceful building in the East. It is not massive or magnificent; but the dome, bulbous, like all Oriental domes, is so aerial and elegant that the eye lingers to see it float away or dissolve in the ardent noon.
"The mosque of Omar is octagonal in form, and built of bluish-white marble ; over the sacred stone on which Jacob dreamed, and whence Moham- med ascended to heaven. It is one of the two temples of the Muslim faith, that of Mecca being the other. These temples are consecrated by the pecu- liar presence of the Prophet, and are only accessible to tree believers. Or- dinary mosques are merely places of worship, and are accessible to unbe- lievers, ?abject only to the stupid intolerance of the faithful. "The beautiful building stands within a spacious enclosure of green lawn and arcades. Olive, orange, and cypress trees grow around the court ; which, in good sooth, is a little heaven below' for the Muslim who lie dreaming in the soft shade, from morning to night. It is a foretaste of Paradise, in kind, excepting the houris. For, although the mosques are not forbidden to women, Mohammed said it would be better for them to have prayers read by eunuchs in their own apartments. "In the picturesque gloom and brightness of the city, the mosque is a dream of heaven also, even to the unbelievers.
"There are many entrances; and as you saunter under the dark archways of the streets, and look suddenly up a long, dim arcade, upon the side, you per- ceive, closing the vista, the sunny green of the mosque-grounds, and feel the warm air stealing outward from its silence, and see the men and women and children praying under the trees. "Or at sunset, groups of reverend Muslim pass down the narrow street, returning from prayer, looking like those Jewish doctors who in the old pictures haunt the temple on this very site."
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