which flows round the side adjoining the wall that has the conduit.

Mount Qasiyun near a village called Barzah,

from the Bab al-Barid, and the fourth to the right of him who emerges from the Bab al-Ziyadah. These reservoirs are among the great advantages afforded to strangers

thirty lavatories

han boys, there is in the town a large school with a genero~s endowment from _which the teachers draw enough to sustam themselves, and d1s

contrivance has been arranged whe.reby at the end of each hour of the day two brass balls fall each from the mouths of two brazen falcons set above two brass cups, one below each bird. One falcon is beneath the first door, and the other beneath the last (and twelfth). The cups are perforated so that when the balls fall into them, they return through the inside of the wall to the gallery. You may see the two falcons stretch-ing forth their necks with the balls (in their ~ouths) t'?wards the cups, and throwing them do~ sharply _wi~ splendid 1:re-cision, so that the imagination rmght conceive it to be a piece of sorcery. When the balls fall into the cups, a noise is heard from them, and the yellow door corresponding to that hour closes upon the instant. Thus it happens as each hour of the day comes to a close, until all the doors are shut and the (twelve) hours are ended, when the process returns again to the begin-ning. At night there is another arrangement. In the archway that bends over these (twelve small) arches are twelve per-forated brass discs at each of which, inside the wall of the gallery, is set a plate of glass. All thi~ is arranged b~hind the (hour) arches mentioned above. Behind each glass is a lamp which is turned by water on an hourly system, so that when an hour has passed the light from the lamp illu

Coppersmiths' Ro

declared that one prayer in this mosque is worth thirty thousand (elsewhere).

272 THE TRAVELS OF IBN JUBA YR stretches as far as the eye can see, and wherever you look on its four sides its ripe fruits hold the gaze. By Allah, they spoke truth who said: 'If Paradise is on the earth then Damascus without a doubt is in it. If it is in the sky, then it vies with it and shares its glory.' A description of her venerated Cathedral Mosque116 May God Most High prosper it For beauty, perfection of construction, marvellous and sump-tuous embellishment and decoration, it is one of the most celebrated mosques of the world. Its general fame in this regard renders valueless a deep description.

'If Paradise is on the earth then Damascus without a doubt is in it