Damascus
3 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Damascus. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the capital of Syria. It is called the oldest city in the world. It is 96 miles by rail from Beirut, its Mediterranean seaport. Palmyra of the Desert is 100 miles eastward. Jerusalem, its neighbor on the southwest, is 150 miles away and 40 miles nearer the sea. Mecca, the sacred city, is 1,000 miles to the southward on the Medina road. Starting eastward by train from Beirut, the traveler ascends the Lebanon range, crosses the valley of the Upper Jordan, climbs a second range, and sees Damascus, a glittering panorma of mosques, palms, and minarets at his feet. One could not be in greater error than to imagine Damascus a tumbledown city in a desert. A mountain stream with a cold, swift, deep current, the Abana of Naaman, the leper (2 Kings, v: 12), rushes eastward into a plain which its waters have converted into a paradise. Three hundred square miles and a hundred more along the ancient Pharpar, watered by canal and pipes, are a veritable garden of fertility. Damascus has been a western station of the great caravan trade from time immemorial, and is a busy city today. Bazaars, narrow, roofed lanes lined with merchants' stalls, offer European clothes, Persian carpets, French ribbons and silks, Sheffield knives, Cashmere shawls, Mocha coffee, Dutch sugar, and Bagdad tobacco. The city manufactures swords, cloth, silks, cloaks, ornaments, guns, and household utensils. Five thousand hand looms clatter away; 10,000 people are engaged in weaving. Now that Damascus has a railway, a renewal of trade is growing up with the Arabs of the surrounding country, and several million dollars' worth of foreign goods are bought annually. The sights of Damascus are the swift river, the orchards, the bazaars, the khans, the mosques, and mansions with mud exteriors and open courts within. These courts are adorned with marble fountains, lemon trees, fragrant shrubs, and climbing vines. They are surrounded by apartments with marble floors, silk-cushioned divans, and ceilings in gilt arabesque. The city has a population of about 150,000, chiefly followers of Mohammed. About 16,000 Christians and 6,000 Jews are tolerated, but they are required to live in their own quarters. Once a year a great caravan convenes to visit the tomb of the prophet at Mecca, and to do a little trading at the Mecca fair. Railroad connections are cutting off this business; but the faithful still gather at Damascus for a four months' pilgrimage. Their setting out and their return are times of pomp and holiday. The early prominence of Damascus as a manufacturing town and a garden spot and a business center may be inferred from several words well fixed in our vocabulary. A Damascus blade is a sword of the finest temper known. Damascus steel is still a name for steel of a peculiar twist and toughness. Damask linen is the type of perfection for beautiful linens with woven figures. For damson plums we are indebted to the orchards of Damascus. On their return to Europe the Crusaders brought home many valuable ideas from Damascus. Damascus is now getting ideas in return from the western nations. A recent consular report gives an interesting account of a modern American steam threshing rig: Its recent triumphal march through Damascus stirred the "White City of the East" from center to circumference. On its way into the country it broke down bridges innumerable, but pulled itself and train out of the creek beds beautifully. It had the honor of being started on its pioneer career in the presence of the governor-general of the province, the field marshal in command of the fifth army corps, and many other gentlemen of high station in Ottoman civil and military life. With its self-feeder, automatic bagger, straw stacker, etc., it is a marvel of ingenuity, and its service to this country, in blazing the way for labor-saving machinery, with its accompanying amelioration of industrial and social conditions, in a region east of Mount Hermon, where people live and work as did their forefathers when Abraham crossed their pastures with his Chaldean flocks, is beyond estimation. See Asia Minor ; Syria ; Turkey ; Crusades ; Windmill 2026 Editor's Note: By way of comparison, Damascus today has about 2.5 million residents, up from the 150,000 this article reports. (Ed: BR 2026-07-02)
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a formerly capital of the Turkish vilayet of Syria, now capital of the independent state of SYRIA (q. v.). It is beautifully situated on a plain which is covered with gardens and orchards and watered by the Barrada. The appearance of the city, as it first opens on the view, has been rapturously rapturously spoken of by all travelers; but the streets are narrow, crooked, and in parts dilapidated, and, except in the wealthy Moslem quarter, the houses are low, with flat-arched doors and accumulations of filth before the entrance. Within, however, there is often a singular contrast, in courts paved with marble and ornamented with trees and spouting fountains the rooms adorned with arabesques and filled with splendid furniture. Among the chief buildings are the Great Mosque and the Citadel. The bazaars are a notable feature of Damascus. They are simply streets or lanes covered in with high wood-work and lined with shops, stalls, cafés, etc. In the midst of the bazaars stands the Great Khan, it and 30 inferior khans places by the merchants. One most important and busiest streets is "Straight Street," mentioned in connection with the conversion of the Apostle Paul. Damascus is an important emporium of trade in European manufactures; it is also a place of considerable manufacturing industry in silk, damasks, cotton and other fabrics, tobacco, glass, soap, etc. Saddles, fine cabinet-work, and elegant jewelry are well made; but the manufacture of the famous Damascus blades no longer exists. It has railway connections with Aleppo, Beirut, and the Hejas, and is the seat of a Melchite Patriarch. It is one of the holy Moslem cities, and continues to be one of the most thoroughly Oriental in all its features of any city in existence. Of its origin nothing nothing certain is known; but it is of great antiquity, being mentio as a place apparently of importance in Gen. xiv: 15. After passing successively under the power of Israelites, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, it fell at last in 1516 into the hands of the Turks. On Oct. 1, 1918, the city was occupied by British troops. Pop. about 250,000.
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
One of the most ancient cities of the world, mentioned as existing in the time of Abraham (Gen. xiv. 15), stood in the district afterwards called Coele-Syria, upon both banks of the river Chrysorrhoas or Bardines (Burada). The situation of the city is one of the finest on the globe.