In her old age she saw Rome built; she saw it overshadow the world with its power; she saw it perish.

The few hundreds of years of Genoese and Venetian might and splendor were, to grave old Damascus, only a trifling scintillation hardly worth remembering.
Damascus has seen all that has ever occurred on earth, and still she lives.

She has looked upon the dry bones of a thousand empires, and will see the tombs of a thousand more before she dies.

Though another claims the name, old Damascus is by right the Eternal City.
We reached the city gates just at sundown.

They do say that one can get into any walled city of Syria, after night, for bucksheesh, except Damascus.