Farren, who hoisted his flag in the city
as consul-general for the district, had soon put an end to all
intolerance of Englishmen. Damascus was safer than Oxford. {44}
When I entered the city in my usual dress there was but one poor
fellow that wagged his tongue, and him, in the open streets,
Dthemetri horsewhipped. During my stay I went wherever I chose,
and attended the public baths without molestation. Indeed, my
relations with the pleasanter portion of the Mahometan population
were upon a much better footing here than at most other places.
In the principal streets of Damascus there is a path for foot-
passengers, which is raised, I think, a foot or two above the
bridle-road. Until the arrival of the British consul-general none
but a Mussulman had been permitted to walk upon the upper way. Mr.
Farren would not, of course, suffer that the humiliation of any
such exclusion should be submitted to by an Englishman, and I
always walked upon the raised path as free and unmolested as if I
had been in Pall Mall. The old usage was, however, maintained with
as much strictness as ever against the Christian Rayahs and Jews:
not one of them could have set his foot upon the privileged path
without endangering his life.
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