"Like the first view of Constantinople," said Mr. Charles G. Addison, forty-five years ago, this of Damascus and its surroundings "is unique, and will bear comparison with no other that I have seen. Conceive our sensations, after journeying through thirsty, dusty plains, and across white, sterile mountains, diversified only with ruined villages and collections of miserable mud huts, suddenly to find ourselves standing on a lofty ledge of rocks, and looking down from an elevation of one thousand feet upon a vast plain, bordered in the distance by blue mountains, and occupied by a rich, luxuriant forest of the walnut, the fig, the pomegranate, the plum, the apricot, the citron, the locust, the pear, and the apple, forming a waving grove more than fifty miles in circuit; not such a wood as one sees in England, France, or Germany, but possessing a vast variety of tint, a peculiar density and luxuriance of foliage, and a wildly picturesque form, from the branches of the loftier trees throwing themselves up above a rich underwood of pomegranates, citrons, and oranges, with their yellow, green, and brown leaves; and then conceive our sensations to see, grandly rising in the distance above this vast superficies of rich, luxuriant foliage, the swelling leaden domes, the gilded crescents, and the marble minarets of ["the one hundred and one" mosks in] Damascus, while in the centre of all, winding towards the city, ran the main stream of the river Barada" (1).
1. Damascus and Palmyra, vol. II (pp. 59-60 in one edition or 92-93, in another).
William McClure Thomson, The Land and the Book, Vol. III, Lebanon, Damascus, and Beyond Jordan. Harper1886 (p. 357).
