Travels in Syria and the Holy Land Part 11

Turning from hence, in a N.W. direction, we came to the ruined village Shmerrin [Arabic], about three quarters of an hour from Keires. Over a door in the village I read:

[x.x.xxx].

Near the village stands an insulated tower, with an Arabic inscription,

AAERE.

[p.106]but so high that I could not copy it; above it in large characters is [Greek] [of Felix. Ed]. The Wady Zedi pa.s.ses close to this village, where a bridge of three arches is built over it; I was told that in winter the waters often rise over the bridge. Farther to the west this Wady joins that of Ghazale.

From Shmerrin we travelled to the northward; about an hour and a half to our left was the village Kharaba. We were now upon the Hadj route formerly pursued by the pilgrims from Damascus through the Ledja to Soueida and Boszra. The road is still marked by stones scattered over it, the remains, probably, of its pavement.

Thee quarters of an hour from Shmerrin, close to the right of the road, stands Deir Esszebeir [Arabic], a ruined village with a building like a monastery. At sunset we reached Aaere, two hours and a quarter from Shmerrin.

November 24th and 25th.--I remained at Aaere these two days, during which the Sheikh continued his friendly behaviour towards me. It was my wish to make an excursion towards the western parts of the plain of the Haouran, in order to visit Draa, and the ruins of Om Edjemal and Om Ezzeroub, distant one day's journey from Draa, which, judging from all the information I had received, seemed to be well worth seeing. I offered to any person, or company of men, who would undertake to guide me to the spot, thirty piastres, a large sum in these parts, but n.o.body was to be found. The fact was that the road from Aaere to Draa, as well as that from thence to Om Edjemal, was infested by a party of Arabs Serdie, the brother of whose chief had recently been killed by the Pasha's troops; and besides these, it was known that numerous parties of Arabs Sheraka made incursions in the same direction I

THAALE.

[p.107]was therefore obliged to give up my project, but with the intention of executing it at a future period.

November 28th.--I left Aaere in the company of a Druse; at parting the Sheikh made me promise that I would again visit his village. The direction of our route was to the N.W. In an hour and a quarter, over a plain, in most parts cultivated, we reached El Kenneker [Arabic], a solid building upon a hill, with a few habitations round it; all the villages in this part are inhabited; we saw the traces of the Wahabi in a burnt field. E. from hence one hour is Deir Ettereife [Arabic]. N.E.

half an hour, the village Hadid [Arabic]; half an hour farther pa.s.sed Ousserha [Arabic], a village with a copious spring. One hour and a half E. we saw Walgha [Arabic]. Just before we reached Ousserha we pa.s.sed the Wady El Thaleth, which I have mentioned between Soueida and Zahouet.

Continuing on the side of the Wady for three quarters of an hour, we came to Thaale [Arabic], where there is a Birket: here we stopped to breakfast. It is inhabited by Mohammedans only.

In a building now used as a mosque, within which are four arches, and three short pillars in the vestibule, I copied the two following inscriptions placed opposite each other.

[Greek][A.D. 683, the twenty-third year of the Emperor Heraclius.].

On a long wall of a building entirely in ruins:

[Greek].

From Thaale one hour S.W. is Tel Sheikh Houssein, with the village Deir Ibn Kheleif; to the W. of which is El Kerak. We

NAHITA.

[p.108]proceeded from Thaale in a W. direction, half an hour, to Daara [Arabic], a village with a Birket. On the wall of the mosque I read as follows:

[Greek].

One hour to the W. of the village is Rakham. Travelling from Daara N.W.

we reached in one hour and a quarter the village Melihat Ali, to the S.

of which, half an hour, stands Melihat el Ghazale. In one hour and a quarter from Melihat Ali we reached Nahita [Arabic], where we slept. On the S. side of the village, near a well, now filled up, stands a small square tower, built with large stones; there is a long inscription over its entrance, but illegible.

November 27th.--In a ruined arched building I copied the following:

[Greek].

and over a door as follows:

[Greek].

This village has a large Birket, and contains a ruined tower, with vaulted buildings adjoining.

We proceeded one hour to Melihat el Hariri, so named from

KHABEB.

[p.109]its Sheikh being generally of the family of Hariri; the proper name of the village is Melihat el Atash. I there copied the following, over a door:

[Greek].

From thence, in one hour and a quarter, I reached Ezra, and alighted at the house of the priest. I again endeavoured to visit Draa, but no body would undertake to act as my guide except a peasant, in whose company I did not think that I should be sufficiently secure; for it had been a constant rule with me, during this tour, not to expose myself to any hazard, well knowing that this was not the place, where duty and honour obliged me to do so; on the contrary, I felt that I should not be justified in risking my life, in this quarter, destined as I am to other, and it is hoped, more important pursuits.

November 28th.--I left Ezra this morning with the priest, to visit some villages in the northern Loehf, and if possible to enter the Ledja. We rode one hour to Keratha, close to which is a spring. From Keratha, in an hour and a quarter, we came to Mehadje, whence I saw Tel s.h.i.+ehhan bearing E.S.E. To the east of the road from Ezra to Mehadje on the Ledja are the ruins of Sour and Aazim. From Mehadje we entered the Ledja, and continued in it, at half an hour's distance from the cultivated plain, in the direction N.E., till we reached Khabeb [Arabic] at the end of two hours. Between Tebne and Khabeb lies the village Bossir. From Khabeb the Kelab Haouran bears S.S.E. This is a considerable village, inhabited for the greater part by Catholic Christians, who, as I have mentioned above, emigrated from Szalkhat. The Sheikh is a Druse. I met here a poor Arab, a native of the country three days journey from Mekka; he told me that the

DHAMI.

[p.110]Wahabi had killed four of his brothers; that he fled from home, and established himself at Dael, a village in the Haouran, which was ransacked last summer by the same enemies, when he lost the whole of his property. This man corroborated what I have repeatedly been told, that a single person may travel over the Wahabi dominions with perfect safety.

November 29th.--I here took two Druses to conduct me into the interior of the Ledja. The Arabs who inhabit that district pay some deference to the Druses, but none whatever to the Turks or Christians of the neighbouring villages. In one hour we pa.s.sed the two ruined cities Zebair [Arabic] and Zebir [Arabic], close to each other. At the end of two hours and a quarter, our road lying in the direction of the Kelab Haouran, we came to the ruined village Djedel [Arabic]. Thus far the Ledja is a level country with a stony soil covered with heaps of rocks, amongst which are a number of small patches of meadow, which afford excellent pasture for the cattle of the Arabs who inhabit these parts.

From Djedel the ground becomes uneven, the pasturing places less frequent, the rocks higher, and the road more difficult. I had intended to proceed to Aahere, where there is a fine spring; but evening coming on we stopped near Dhami [Arabic], three hours and three quarters from Khabeb, and two hours distant from Aahere. It appears strange that a city should have been built by any people in a spot where there is neither water nor arable ground, and nothing but a little gra.s.s amidst the stones. Dhami may contain three hundred houses, most of which are still in good preservation. There is a large building whose gate is ornamented with sculptured vine leaves and grapes, like those at Kanouat.

Every house appears to have had its cistern; there are many also in the immediate vicinity of the town: they are formed by excavations in the rock, the surface of which is supported by props

DEIR DHAMI.

[p.111]of loose stones. Some of them are arched and have narrow ca.n.a.ls to conduct the water into them from the higher grounds. S.E. of Dhami half an hour is Deir Dhami [Arabic], another ruined place, smaller than the former, and situated in a most dreary part of the Ledja, near which we found, after a good deal of search, an encampment of Arabs Medledj, where we pa.s.sed the night.

November 30th.--These Arabs being of a doubtful character, and rendered independent by the very difficult access of their rocky abode, we did not think it prudent to tell them that I had come to look at their country; they were told, therefore, that I was a manufacturer of gunpowder, in search of saltpetre, for at Dhami, and in most of the ruined villages in the Ledja, the earth which is dug up in the court- yards of the houses, as well as in the immediate vicinity of them, contains saltpetre, or as it is called in Arabic, Melh Baroud, i.e.

gunpowder salt.

The Ledja, which is from two to three days journey in length, by one in breadth, is inhabited by several tribes of Arabs; viz. Selman [Arabic], Medledj [Arabic], Szolout [Arabic], Dhouhere [Arabic], and Siale [Arabic]; of these the Szolout may have about one hundred tents, the Medledj one hundred and twenty, and the others fifty or sixty. They breed a vast number of goats, which easily find pasturage amongst the rocks; a few of them also keep sheep and cows, and cultivate the soil in some parts of the Ledja, where they sow wheat and barley. They possess few horses; the Medledj have about twenty, and the Szolout and Dhouhere each a dozen. But I shall have occasion to speak of these Arabs again in describing the people of the country.

The tent in which we slept was remarkably large, although it could not easily be perceived amidst the labyrinth of rocks where it was pitched; yet our host was kept awake the whole night by

THE LEDJA.

[p.112]the fear of robbers, and the dogs barked incessantly. He told me next morning that the Szolout had lately been very successful in their nightly depredations upon the Medledj. Our host having no barley, gave my horse a part of some wheat which he had just brought from the plain, to bake into bread for his family.

December lst.--We departed at sunrise, the night having been so cold that none of us was able to sleep. We found our way with great difficulty out of the labyrinth of rocks which form the inner Ledja, and through which the Arabs alone have the clue. Some of the rocks are twenty feet high, and the country is full of hills and Wadys. In the outer Ledja trees are less frequent than here, where they grow in great numbers among the rocks; the most common are the oak, the Malloula, and the Bouttan; the latter is the bitter almond, from the fruit of which an oil is extracted used by the people of the country to anoint their temples and forehead as a cure for colds; its branches are in great demand for pipe tubes. There are no springs in any part of this stony district, but water collects, in winter time, in great quant.i.ties in the Wadys, and in the cisterns and Birkets which are every where met with; in some of these it is kept the whole summer; when they are dried up the Arabs approach the borders of the Ledja, called the Loehf, to water their cattle at the springs in that district. The camel is met with throughout the Ledja, and walks with a firm step over the rocky surface.

In summer he feeds on the flowers or dry gra.s.s of the pasturing places.

In the interior parts of the Ledja the rocks are in many places cleft asunder, so that the whole hill appears s.h.i.+vered and in the act of falling down: the layers are generally horizontal, from six to eight feet, or more, in thickness, sometimes covering the hills, and inclining to their curve, as appears from the fissures, which often traverse the rock from top to bottom. In

[p.113] many places are ruined walls; from whence it may be conjectured that a stratum of soil of sufficient depth for cultivation had in ancient times covered the rock.

We had lost our road, when we met with a travelling encampment of Medledj, who guided us into a more open place, where their companions were pitching their tents. We breakfasted with them, and I was present during an interesting conversation between one of my Druse companions and an Arab. The wife of the latter, it appeared, had been carried off by another Arab, who fearing the vengeance of the injured husband, had gone to the Druse Sheikh of Khabeb, and having secured his Dakhil [Arabic], or protection, returned to the woman in the Ledja. The Sheikh sent word to the husband, cautioning him against taking any violent measures against his enemy. The husband, whom we here met with, wished to persuade the Druses that the Dakhil of the Sheikh was unjust, and that the adulterer ought to be left to his punishment. The Druse not agreeing with him, he swore that nothing should prevent him from shedding the blood of the man who had bereft him of his own blood; but I was persuaded that he would not venture to carry his threat into effect; for should he kill his enemy, the Druses would not fail to be revenged upon the slayer or his family.