For the greater part of the year the climate renders little or no fire necessary; and the little that is used is not from coal, but from wood or charcoal. The rooms have neither chimneys nor fire-places, and, except for the preparation of the supper, fire is rarely required during the course of the day. Hence the oriental city is not encircled with a graceful wreath of smoke, to remind you either of an ungenial clime or of the progress of mechanical genius.
因为气候原因，这里的人们一年里很少用火；就算要用火，他们也是用木材或者木炭、而不是用煤炭生火。这里的房屋内既没有烟囱也没有壁炉，因为一天里人们除了准备晚餐，其他时间几乎不用火。而这座东方城市也因此没有被优美的烟圈环抱在怀，所以并不会让人感觉不宜居或者机械化气息太重。

But approach the city. All seems very still and quiet. Is it an enchanted capital, whose inhabitants have been turned into stone or brass? No; but the streets are not paved; there are no wheel-carriages of any kind; the shoes, more like foot-gloves than shoes, have no nails; no cotton-mills lift up their voice in the streets; —all those noisy triumphs of mechanical genius, in the way of forging, spinning, weaving, beetling, which are so frequent among us, are unknown in Damascus. The Easterns hold on their old course steadily, and yield to no seductions of novelty: the water-pump was invented in Alexandria, but the Alexandrians still prefer the ancient well and bucket.
而当你走近这座城市，你会感觉似乎一切都是静止的，四下布满宁静。难道这是一座被施了术的城市？难道这里的居民都被变成了石头和黄铜？不；这里没有铺平的街道；没有各种带着轮子的车辆；那鞋，与其说是鞋，不如说是套在了脚上的手套，因为没有钉鞋底；街头没有轰鸣的纺织厂；——所有那些我们已经司空见惯的机械噪音——锻造声、纺纱声、织布声和撞击声，在这里都听不到。这里的东方人固执地延续着祖辈们传承下来的生活方式，对新兴事物视而不见：（就像）在亚历山大发明出来的抽水机却被亚历山大人抛弃，他们还是最钟爱古老的水井和水桶。
But if the ear is not saluted with the roar and turbulence of mills, forges, and mechanical operations, Damascus has its own peculiar sounds, not less various and interesting in their way. The streets are filled with innumerable dogs, lean, lazy, and hungry-like; mules, donkeys, camels, dromedaries, meet and mingle in those narrow streets, and impress both the eye and the ear of the traveller with a pure and perfect idea of Orientalism.
没有被面粉厂、锻造厂和机器运转发出的轰鸣声和嘈杂声充斥着的大马士革，却有着属于自己的迥异而又充满趣味的独特声音。街道上尽是饿着肚子的狗儿们懒散无力的哀怨声；狭窄的巷子里有骡子、驴子、骆驼和单峰驼的叫声相互交织、此起彼伏，把纯正浓厚的东方韵味展现得活灵活现，让过往游客们的耳目焕然一新。