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The city of Antioch is incomparably beautiful, second to none in the majesty of its buildings; it is pleasantly situated, with an unequalled climate, and with fertile vines and rich fields. To the east it is surrounded by four high mountains; to the west its walls are washed by a river renowned in the Bible, the Pharphar, whose waves are dense with fish.
As soon as they saw this, the enemy fled towards the Pharphar river, intending to cross the strait. In their hasty flight the mass of men was jammed together in the attempt to cross, and as the wedge of knights and infantry piled up in a very small space, struggling to pass each other, men knocked each other down.
Pharphar was the name of the river on which she was located. When our men had reached a place near the bridge over that river, some of them, who had been assigned the task of forming the vanguard of the army, met up with a large force of Turks, who were well supplied with provisions, and were hurrying to bring aid to the besieged.
That day the battle was very bitter, and many of our men were slaughtered by the arrows of the enemy. The cavalry of the enemy extended from the river Pharphar to the mountains, length of two miles.
But the Abana has now become the Barada, or "cold one," while the Pharphar is the Nahr el-Awaj. The Damascus of to-day stands on the site of the city from which St. Paul escaped, and "the street which is called Straight" can still be traced by its line of Roman columns. But it is doubtful whether the Damascus of the New Testament and of to-day is the same as the Damascus of the Old Testament.
The signs of carnage were so great that the Pharphar seemed to flow with blood, not with water. The sounds made there by the vanquished and the victors, by the dying and by those who were forcing them to die, were so terrible that the highest vault of the heavens seemed to resound with their shrieks.
The conclusion was easily drawn by all the "dissenters" present. On another occasion of the same sort, when his church was filled with people from other congregations, he took as his subject the story of Naaman the Syrian, his text being, "Are not Abana and Pharphar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the rivers of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean?"
At daylight the next day, some of the Turks came forth from the city to collect the bodies of their dead; they found some, but others had disappeared, carried off in the bed of the river. They buried those they found in the temple called the Mahometry, on the other side of the Pharphar, near the gate of Antioch.
If the scenery of the south be less romantic and sublime than that of the northern mountains, it must be allowed to possess in the same proportion superior softness and beauty; and upon the whole, we feel ourselves entitled to exclaim with the patriotic Syrian "Are not Pharphar and Abana, rivers of Damascus, better than all the rivers of Israel?"
Our men fell upon the fleeing Turks, who were running at great speed, helter-skelter, and we did not cease cutting them down and decapitating their bodies all the way to the narrow bridges of the Pharphar, After such slaughter, the Turks entered the fort of Areg, which I mentioned above, looted it entirely, set it afire, and then fled, never to return to it.
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