Note 28 — Chapter VIII · THE PORT OF THE WILDERNESS

Estimates of the population of the city vary from 150,000 to a more probable 300,000. Of this number, some 10,000 are Jews, 30,000 are “Greek” and “Latin” Christians, and a few score are Protestants. At least four-fifths of the population is Mohammedan, and Islam is dominant and uncompromising in Damascus, as it is not in cities like Constantinople and Cairo, where Moslem fanaticism is to a greater or less degree held in check by the constant menace of interference by Christian powers.