And how they will pay for it when Russia turns her guns upon them again! It is soothing to the heart to abuse England and France for interposing to save the Ottoman Empire from the destruction it has so richly deserved for a thousand years.

It hurts my vanity to see these pagans refuse to eat of food that has been cooked for us; or to eat from a dish we have eaten from; or to drink from a goatskin which we have polluted with our Christian lips, except by filtering the water through a rag which they put over the mouth of it or through a sponge! I never disliked a Chinaman as I do these degraded Turks and Arabs, and when Russia is ready to war with them again, I hope England and France will not find it good breeding or good judgment to interfere.
In Damascus they think there are no such rivers in all the world as their little Abana and Pharpar.

The Damascenes have always thought that way.
In 2 Kings, chapter v., Naaman boasts extravagantly about them.

That was three thousand years ago.

He says: "Are not Abana and Pharpar rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?
May I not wash in them and be clean ?" But some of my readers have forgotten who Naaman was, long ago.