THE PORT OF THE WILDERNESS
hand, the curs which infest the busiest streets are innumerable and are disgusting in appearance beyond any other dogs I have ever seen. Yet these sore, starved racks of bones, with hardly the energy to get out of the way of a passing carriage, have organizations of their own. At any rate, they recognize definite boundaries; and a dog who ventures outside the territory occupied by his own clan does so at peril of his life. One evening a friend of mine, who is a good mimic, was so unwise as to bark lustily just as he entered our hotel. In a moment every cur in the district was giving voice; and far into the night, as unhappily was all too strongly impressed upon us, they kept up their vociferous search for the unknown intruder.
But it is never quiet in Damascus. Most Orientals go to bed very early Jerusalem is like a city of the dead by half-past eight in the evening. The Damascenes, however, seem to need no sleep, and the noises of the streets never cease. The only noticeable change in their volume is that, when the shops close, just before sunset, the tumult suddenly increases. Then, hour after hour, you can hear the heavy murmur of the multitude, broken occasionally by the voice of someone singing, or by a chorus of loud cheers. An interminable succession of songs and marches, all of them fortissimo and in a strident minor key, shatter what ought to be the midnight stillness as they rattle from phonographs whose
[ 105 ]
