DAMASCUS (usually called Esh Shâm, also Dimeshk) is one of the oldest and most remarkable cities in the world, and bursts upon the view of the traveller like a vision of paradise. It is situated at the base of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, in latitude 33° 32´ north, longitude 36° 20´ east; one hundred and thirty-three English miles north-north-east of Jerusalem, one hundred and eighty miles south-by-west of Aleppo, and about fifty miles east of the Mediterranean, at an altitude of two thousand two hundred and sixty feet above the sea-level. It numbers about one hundred and twenty thousand...