Xerxes sent me the text and images of his lecture he gave at the Cervantes Institute in Damascus on Monday 23.
Before entering the text should be specified :
types of passengers: 1-Official
: diplomats, spies, scientists.
2-Independent writers, tourists, pilgrims.
literature travelers who influences: Romanticism, Realism, Modernism.
type of texts: diplomatic memoir, memories of expeditions, travelogues, pilgrimages, newspaper reports and press articles about 1860, encyclopedias, magazines, manuals, geography, etc..
The first is Sunday Badia Leblich Barcelona 1767 man of the Enlightenment but with a good dose
romantic hero to be not only a traveler but also a spy, a convert to Islam and a man with at least three identities: 1 - Sunday Leblich Badia.
2 - Traveler Alepin residing in London leaves Cádiz 1803 until 1806 arrives in Alexandria.
3 - Ali Bey the Abbasid, Sheriff Bey, the son of Sultan of Garb. Sunday
Badia Godoy has a plan to travel from 1804-07 until he was discovered in Turkey is at the service of Bonaparte. 1807 dynastic struggle between Charles IV and Ferdinand II had entered the French troops in March 1807 to invade Portugal calls Godoy. In est
and Turkey is currently in Paris and passed to the French. Dies poisoned Istanbul looking for a route Meca-Senegal in a French expedition in Syria. accused of "French in Paris published his book 1814, Valencia in Spain in 1836 without the atlas. Geographic, botanical, sociological, weights, mediated, distance, language, monuments, gastronomy, etc.. Ali Bey
horse arrived in Damascus on August 22, 1807. He had left three days before Nazareth where had posed as the son of the king of Morocco and was leading an expedition, thirty men on horseback and camels carrying back the goods. As they were in summer had started at five in the morning to avoid the heat:
At eight and half
, having gone through several hills that surround the horizon, I discovered a vast plain to the east, with mountains to the north, I noticed a particularly isolated from the others in a giant pyramid, at the foot of which, in a maze of gardens, rise the minarets of the mosques of Damascus. The curd is plain villages surrounded by trees and orchards. After to rest a few moments in the hamlet of Daria, located in the gardens of Damascus, where I entered a quarter to eleven, I arrived at 0:30 the first houses of the city, which the Arabs call Sham.
One of the best English diplomats who knew the Middle East was Antonio Bernal O'Reilly appointed consul general in Syria since November 1863 to November 1866.
The English consulate in Syria was located in Beirut and during his stay also attending to the affairs in Palestine, which enabled him to know the area well as evidenced by his books In Lebanon, relations on the cards Syria (187?) Journey to the East, in Egypt (1876), In the Holy Land: The Judea Samaria and the Galilee (1896) and Jerusalem, Easter (1877). A Bernal, O'Reilly was commissioned to collect compensation for the events in Damascus, 1860. Another remarkable aspect was the practice of journalism through the pages La Epoca. This ended his diplomatic career in Bayonne and was appointed Fuenterrabia adopted son. Mentaberry Adolfo del Pozo : Spain opens a consulate that will keep until 1886. One
of the first to occupy it was Adolfo de Mentaberry March 1 1866 will remain until July 18, 1867, when he moved to the English legation in Istanbul as first secretary. Diplomat, journalist English and American Enlightenment and romantic author follows its panoramic view of Madrid to Constantinople "Since its height is discovered a splendid sight as wonderful and as beautiful as it is rarely given to humans to contemplate. Damascus (...); and lying in an orchard, with its gleaming white towers and minarets, the Sultana same as just swimming in the Bared, and wipe your body beautiful with the mantle of the sun, regardless of the breeze caressing meanwhile turned its forms. " Adolfo Rivadeneyra
(Valparaiso 1841-Madrid 1882), comes to Spain with 7 year-old son Manuel, editor Mercurio, very important work
Library English authors (end volumes 67-71), studied in Germany France and Belgium. His diplomatic career began in 1863 as Young Language Levante bound, sent to Beirut 1864-1867, Learn Arabic, Jerusalem consulate. Ceylon, 1868 1869-1870 Damascus, Persia Mogador 1874-75 and 1878. He is the author of From Ceylon to Damascus and Persia Trek, which have recently been edited by Fernando Escribano in Miraguano. Manuel Quintana, Consul the years 1874-75 in Beirut whose work Syria and Lebanon appeared in Madrid in 1877 dedicated to Alfonso XII. His wife Elizabeth dies Much information about the different peoples of the region, Druze, Maronites, Ismaili,
Assyrians (Chaldeans) Yezidi, Metualis (Shiite and / or Alawites) type report.
Fernando de Aranda (Madrid 1878-Damascus 1969) His father was an Ottoman imperial court between 1886-1909. Fernando de Aranda came to Damascus in 1902, becoming one of the most important architects, author of the railway station from Damascus to
Hejaz, a preliminary step to enter the holy city of Medina, several ministries or the Zenobia Hotel in Palmyra. Fernando de Aranda was Honorary Consul 1912-1936 with interruptions. During the Great War as a mediator of Spain is allied interests in Turkey and the work of Aranda was recognized and rewarded by the French and Italian. He was replaced by Vicente Amigo, who was present during the arrival of Anglo-Arab army troops in the fall of 1918. We have this career diplomat reference by TE Lawrence of Arabia in his book The Seven Pillars of Wisdom when his troops occupied Damascus in 1918: "A fun event that happened to me was an officer called me the English consul in the city, a man of refined English accent, which I presented as charge d'affaires of seventeen different nationalities (including all combatants, except the Turks) and searched in vain for the legally constituted authority in the city. " The Spain-Syria relations are marked by several events the most important
was civil war in 1860 between Christians and Muslims in that. The English Franciscan convent was destroyed on July 10 and its occupants, Manuel Ruiz, Father Superior, Carmelo Bolton, pastor, Francis Pinney, sacristan, Juan Jacobo Fernández, cook, Engelbert Kolland, coadjutor, three students of Arabic, Nicholas Alberca, Pedro Soler and Ascanio and three brothers Lebanese Maronite family Massabki killed. Besides the media campaign was another in churches and they must be pretty impressed by the parishioners, because two years 
then delivered 64,956 reales legation in Istanbul for the Christians of Syria, 13,586 came from the Diocese of Toledo. Spain made the setting appropriate compensation claims for losses 2,182,417 piastres and with this money the church was rebuilt, and built a new convent to Spain in 1870 which sent valuable paintings and objects of worship.
the Algerian Abdel Kader helped the Christians, his voice reached the English press as seen by an article published in English in Madrid Thinking on 9 August 1860. DAMASCUS
zilhége 27 1276 (July 18, 1860)
Dear and worthy friends: I wish much to see you and ask Allah to preserve you. I received your dignified letter, dated July 13, in which I ask what has happened to the Christians of Damascus. I say in reply that on Monday, July 9, at two in the afternoon, the war began, motivated by the punishment imposed by the governor of this city some Muslims who insult to Christians. Those Muslims were enraged and ran armed to the homes of Christians were killed, burned and looted at the same time. Turkish soldiers came to his aid, pretending to appease the revolt, but making common cause to kill, steal and pillage. Some elderly Muslims made common cause to stop the action, but the heads of Turkish soldiers did not want peace, on the contrary they have led their soldiers against the unfortunate Christians, the soldiers were
supported by hordes of scoundrels of all records. Seeing this state of affairs, I hurried to get under my protection to all those unfortunate Christians, took me to my Algerian and we get to life men, women and children. During this state of affairs which lasted on Monday and Tuesday, not ceasing the disturbers of killing, burning and slay Christians without the governor sought to defend, sent for Mr Lanusse, Consul of France and other French. Wednesday, with the pretext that they had been found dead two Muslims, which was not true, the war began again. But Damascus also has a governor, but the same as if it had. For my part, I sympathized with the unfortunate incident happened to the poor Christians. Unrecognized site of their houses, are all reduced to ashes, no one knows the number of their dead, but is estimated at 3,000 victims. Finally, all the Christians and Europeans que pude reunir están en el abrigo de mi casa; les doy todo lo que les hace falta y ruego a Allah que salve a esos pobres cristianos de las manos de esos furiosos.
Firmado: Abd-el-Kader Ebn Mahhieddir.
Viajeros románticos
El primer viajero romántico hispánico que visita Damasco es Pedro Paz Soldán y Unanue , el
cual no salió de España sino de Perú en el año 1859, cuando contaba con veinte años de edad. Este miembro de la aristocracia criolla limeña viajará por Europa y el Medio Oriente durante tres años con el dinero que había obtenido tras cobrar una suculenta herencia. Posteriormente será uno de los literatos más within your country, elected correspondent of the Real Academia de la Lengua in Madrid in 1882. Young, rich with literary pretensions and a desire to see the world fit the prototype of the romantic traveler in search of the exotic. Unlike Chateaubriand or Lamartine is more interested in learning about other cultures and new experiences that in fact know the place where Jesus was born and died. Not interested in Beirut, for being too similar to Europe, and goes to Damascus in 1862 where he will spend a week. The English State and Hispanic readers also had official information through the memories of several warships were sent to the Mediterranean
eastern and observers. The broadcast had been more of Juan de Dios de la Rada y Delgado , an intellectual of the first rank, in charge of drafting the Journey to the East of War frigate Arapiles that traces the journey of this boat in 1871-72. Published in three volumes with color illustrations a few years later, it is a veritable compendium of English intellectual knowledge of the time on the area. Damascus also has a small section with contributions of historical, political, social, artistic and economic. It appears that the stay did not exceed a couple of days, but the city, its monuments and people are treated appropriate. Most official authors approach the liberal Spain, which competed with conservative Carlist Spain, very strong among religious sectors
most radical and the aristocracy. An example of these authors are José María Fernández Sánchez and Francisco Barreiro Freire, professors at the University of Santiago Santiago published, Jerusalem, Rome, Diary of a pilgrimage to these and other holy places in Spain, France, Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Italy in the Universal Jubilee year of 1875 in the printing of reconciliation seminar in Santiago. The title of the book leaves glimpse of what's inside: the state of the main places of pilgrimage for Catholics, some of which, as the Holy Land belonged to the Ottoman Empire. travel guide, history, notes ... Narciso Pérez
Reoyo accompanied the professors of the University of Santiago. His work, Travel to Egypt, Palestine and other Eastern countries was published in Lugo in 1883. It is a complementary text to that of their peers, less erudite and without notes as footnotes, but describing the same city and the people they met during the three days of April 1875 they remained in Damascus
One example is Real Octavio Velasco begins his book, From Rome to Jerusalem, visiting the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1889 from where he moved to Rome and then to the Holy Land and, incidentally, Lebanon, Syria and Greece to end in Barcelona where his book published a year later. Cartoons.
Enrique Gomez Carrillo Guatemala 1873-Paris 1927 He was traveling in Turkey, Syria and Egypt
between October to December 1911. The Guatemalan newspaper published in Madrid, Buenos Aires and Mexico City chronicles the life of Paris and other places like Morocco, Japan, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. Gomez Carrillo said that what he found in their trip was "the soul of the countries that interest me. What I seek is something more frivolous, more subtle, more positive: the feeling. " All these spaces are marked by two key elements of modernism: the cosmopolitan and exotic. Includes Damascus in his book Dream City with Istanbul, Jerusalem, Athens and Nikko in Japan. This is one of the most beautiful descriptions of the Syrian capital where they are present much of the artistic resources of this artistic movement. beings And delicious, courteous, kind, gallant, hospitable, discreet, forgiving.
In these same times que los preparativos para la peregrinación de la Meca atiza en las almas el fuego religioso, no puede nadie sorprender en las calles, la más ligera muestra de hostilidad contra los cristianos. En la gran mezquita de los ommíadas, donde pasamos la mañana, no notamos una sola mirada hostil. Cuando entramos en el santuario, después de habernos descalzado piadosamente, la escuela de los “muftis” está en plena actividad. Acurrucados en una inmensa tarima, los futuros sacerdotes oyen al imán, que les explica los grandes secretos del Corán con ese tono de melopea adormecedora que en todas partes tienen las recitaciones de iglesia. Los adolescentes de perfiles de bronce parecen oír la venerable palabra con la mayor deferencia. Countless faithful, who finished as the prez 
morning with his face turned to the "We looked at", remain prostrate at the foot of the columns, long dreaming dreams. In some little corner reserved for special devotions and miraculous score, believers in delusional abísmanse invocations. The whole temple seems animated by a mystical activity. 
