Military Road, Damascus
In 1516 A. D. Damascus was taken by the Turks, and it has belonged to them since that time with the exception of a few years when it belonged to the Pasha of Egypt. All military authority belongs to the Turks. This is the principal garrison of Syria. The road we see is called the military road because the soldiers use it to exercise their horses. It runs along one of the channels of the Abana River. The walls along the way are of old brick; beautiful trees overhang; and here is a very old plane tree whose branches have for centuries shaded the street along which Abraham perhaps wended his way while he was ruler of Damascus. The soldiers to-day may be seen riding along this road at almost all hours mounted on good Arab horses, and it must be confessed that foreigners are not sorry to see plenty of these protectors. Peace is kept here only by force. The people are ignorant and fanatical, and are conceited enough to imagine themselves superior to all the rest of the world. Their religious convictions have no tendency to abate their belligerent nature. Without the slightest twinge of conscience they could at any time rise and rob and murder all the foreigners. The Turkish soldiers, therefore, represent whatever of law and western civilization there may be in the present government. The Syrians despise the Turks, and it is only by the presence of the army that the Sultan keeps the natives under the dominion of Constantinople. Roman road-making was actively going on at the time of Saul’s visit to Damascus and it is probable that the persecutor entered Damascus by the way of the Merj and the military road.
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