Often a traveler buys something in a Damascus bazaar only to find on it later the tell-tale words “Made in Birmingham.”

A white picture painted on white paper or a red picture on red paper would not show, but in Damascus they used to make a beautiful kind of cloth with designs of the same color as the cloth woven into it by hand. This kind of cloth is called damask, after Damascus. White damask has white designs on it and red damask has red designs, and they do show. You probably have in your own home linen damask table-cloths and napkins or silk coverings on chairs, but the damask that we buy now is made by machinery and does not come from Damascus.

The people in Damascus also used to make a kind of jewelry of iron, with gold designs laid in the iron. This was called Damascene work. Damascene work was much used in decorating swords, and they used to make wonderful swords and knives with edges so sharp they could cut through a bar of iron, so they say. These were called Damascus blades. Soldiers no longer use swords except for show or ornament. Wars are now fought at long distance and soldiers seldom get close enough to use swords.

South of Syria is Palestine, which is also called the Holy Land. On my map there is no room to print the names of even a very few of the places you know. They would run out into the Mediterranean on one side and into the desert on the other, and would be so crowded together that they would cover the little country completely.

You see how small the Holy Land really is.