Dauntless Tourists

Busy little white men, ever ready to oil dark palms, shepherd droves of curious, prying U. S. tourists about the earth, bribe warring Chinese Tuchuns to desist and let them pass, wheedle and bluff their way through situations that would stagger a master strategist. As the Anchor liner California docked at Manhattan last week her Thomas Cook conducted passengers effervesced with triumph at having visited on their Mediterranean cruise a city which was at the time beseiged by some 2,000 rebel tribesmen--Damascus.

When the California anchored off Beirut, a month ago, 50 males and 140 females of her 400 passengers were booked for the optional trip to Damascus. Resolutely curious, they feared not rebels, waited with calm expectancy for their tour manager, Mr. Robert Grinsel, to disperse the heathen who barred their way. He, resourceful, secured from the resident French commander at Beirut an armed motor convoy and an armored train. Ninety-five of the tourists motored in trucks bristling with machine guns. The rest entrained behind stout armor plates from which bristled French 75's. No sooner were they quartered at the two principal hotels of Damascus than the usual evening bombardment of the suburbs by the French garrison began.

Due to a sudden failure of the electric plant all lights went out at about 9 p. m. While many a tourist, not frightened by gun fire, shrieked with alarm at the innocuous darkness, Arab servants rushed about, knocking over tables, chairs, in a wild scramble for candles. Once light was restored, the panic guttered. Said one Harry Patterson Hale of Boston, tourist, to newsgatherers who boarded the California: "It was well worth the risk in going to Damascus, for the city was the most interesting* one that we visited on the cruise."

* William Alexander Kinglake, famed British 19th century explorer lusciously described Damascus in his Eothen: "Close along on the Abanah river's edge through seven sweet miles of rustling boughs and superb shade, the city spreads her whole length as a man falls flat, face forward, in the brook that he may drink and drink again; so Damascus, thirsty forever, lies down with her lips to the stream and clings to its rustling waters." Tradition ascribes to Damascus the title "oldest city in the world."