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11968 (68) Making the World-Famed Damascus
Swords, Damascus, Palestine.

Our view conveys the good idea of the simple and primitive methods employed in sword making in Damascus. In the East customs are stereotyped, and no doubt an inspection of the shop shown in our view, and a study of the methods there employed in producing a sword in this day, say by the German Emperor when he visited Damascus in 1898, would be much the same as a similar inspection by the patriarch Abraham after his pursuit of the confederate kings, or long after, by Alexander the Great, when bent on the conquest of Persia, or still centuries later, by Saladin, when preparing for a campaign against the Franks.  The world-wide reputation the famous "Damascene blades" enjoyed in the Middle Ages is well woven into the verse and prose of mediaeval times. Those produced to-day are said to be of the same true and admirable temper, but the demand for them, except as ornaments and curiosities, is probably now limited to the Bedouin and other warriors of the region round about Damascus. The perfection of modern cutlery and edged weapons, as made in European centres of industry, is probably far beyond anything the East has ever produced.
Our next view shows another of the industries of Damascus.
For Booklet "Touring the Holy Land." (Copyrighted, 1905, by Griffith & Griffith.)