Chapter 7

[p.52]weight among the Greeks than the Bouyourdi was among the Turks.

Being thus furnished with what I considered most necessary, I assumed the dress of the Haouran people, with a Keffie, and a large sheep-skin over my shoulders: in my saddle bag I put one spare shirt, one pound of coffee beans, two pounds of tobacco, and a day's provender of barley for my horse. I then joined a few Felahs of Ezra, of one of whom I hired an ass, though I had nothing to load it with but my small saddle-bag; but I knew this to be the best method of recommending myself to the protection of my fellow travellers; as the owner of the ass necessarily becomes the companion and protector of him who hires it. Had I offered to pay him before setting out merely for his company on the way, he would have asked triple the sum I gave him, without my deriving the smallest advantage from this increase, while he would have considered my conduct as extraordinary and suspicious. In my girdle I had eighty piastres, (about £4. sterling) and a few more in my pocket, together with a watch, a compass, a journal book, a pencil, a knife, and a tobacco purse. The coffee I knew would be very acceptable in the houses where I might alight; and throughout the journey I was enabled to treat all the company present with coffee.

My companions intending to leave Damascus very early the next morning, I quitted my lodgings in the evening, and went with them to sleep in a small Khan in the suburb of Damascus, at which the Haouaerne, or people of Haouran, generally alight.

November 9th.--We departed through this gate of the Meidhan, three hours before sun-rise, and took the road by which the Hadj annually commences its laborious journey; this gate is called Bab Ullah, the Gate of God, but might, with more propriety be named Bab-el-Maut, the Gate of Death; for scarcely a third ever

KESSOUE.

[p.53]returns of those whom a devout adherence to their religion, or the hope of gain impel to this journey. The approach to Damascus on this side is very grand: being formed by a road above one hundred and fifty paces broad, which is bordered on each side by a grove of olive trees, and continues in a straight line for upwards of an hour. A quarter of an hour from Bab Ullah, to the left, stands a mosque with a Kiosk, called Kubbet el Hadj, where the Pasha who conducts the Hadj passes the first night of his journey, which is invariably the fifteenth of the month Shauwal. On the other side of the road, and opposite to it, lies the village El Kadem (the foot), where Mohammed is said to have stopped, without entering Damascus, when coming from Mekka. Half an hour farther is a bridge over a small rivulet: to the left are the villages Zebeine and Zebeinat; to the right the village Deir raye. In another half hour we came to a slight ascent, called Mefakhar; at its foot is a bridge over the rivulet El Berde; to the right is the village El Sherafie: to the left, parallel with the road, extends a stony district called War- ed-djamous [Arabic] the Buffaloes War, War being an appellation given to all stony soils whether upon plains or mountains. Here the ground is very uneven; in traversing it we passed the Megharat el Haramie [Arabic] or Thief's Cavern, the nightly refuge of disorderly persons. On the other side of the War is a descent called Ard Shoket el Haik, which leads into the plain, and in half an hour to the village El Kessoue; distant from Damascus three hours and a quarter in a S.S.E. direction. El Kessoue is a considerable village, situated on the river Aawadj [Arabic], or the crooked, which flows from the neighbourhood of Hasbeya, and waters the plain of Djolan; in front of the village a well paved bridge crosses the river, on each side of which, to the W. and E. appears a chain of low mountains; those to the east are called Djebel Manai [Arabic], and contain large caverns; the

GHABARIB.

[p.54]summits of the two chains nearest the village are called by a collective name Mettall el Kessoue [Arabic]. I stopped for half an hour at Kessoue, at a coffee house by the road side. The village has a small castle, or fortified building, over the bridge.

From Kessoue a slight ascent leads up to a vast plain, called Ard Khiara, from a village named Khiara. In three quarters of an hour from Kessoue we reached Khan Danoun, a ruined building. Here, or at Kessoue, the pilgrim caravan passes the second night. Near Khan Danoun, a rivulet flows to the left. This Khan, which is now in ruins, was built in the usual style of all the large Khans in this country: consisting of an open square, surrounded with arcades, beneath which are small apartments for the accommodation of travellers; the beasts occupy the open square in the centre. From Khan Danoun the road continues over the plain, where few cultivated spots appear, for two hours and a quarter; we then reached a Tel, or high hill, the highest summit of the Djebel Khiara, a low mountain chain which commences here, and runs in a direction parallel with the Djebel Manai for about twenty miles. The mountains Khiara and Manai are sometimes comprised under the name of Djebel Kessoue, and so I find them laid down in D'Anville's map. The summit of Djebel Khiara is called Soubbet Faraoun. From thence begins a stony district, which extends to the village Ghabarib [Arabic], one hour and a quarter from the Soubbet. Upon a hill to the W. of the road, stands a small building crowned with a cupola, to which the Turks resort, from a persuasion that the prayers there offered up are peculiarly acceptable to the deity. This building is called Meziar Eliasha [Arabic], or the Meziar of Elisha. The Hadj route has been paved in several places for the distance of a hundred yards or more, in order to facilitate the passage of the pilgrims in years when the Hadj takes place during the rainy season.

SZANAMEIN.

[p.55]Ghabarib has a ruined castle, and on the side of the road is a Birket or reservoir, with a copious spring. These cisterns are met with at every station on the Hadj route as far as Mekka; some of them are filled by rain water; others by small streams, which if they were not thus collected into one body would be absorbed in the earth, and could not possibly afford water for the thousands of camels which pass, nor for the filling of the water-skins.

At one hour beyond Ghabarib is the village Didy, to the left of the road: one hour from Didy, Es-szanamein [Arabic], the Two Idols; the bearing of the road from Kessoue is S.b.E.[The variation of the compass is not computed in any of the bearings of this journal.] Szanamein is a considerable village, with several ancientbuildings and towers; but as my companions were unwilling to stop, I could not examine them closely. I expected to revisit them on my return to Damascus, but I subsequently preferred taking the route of the Loehf. I was informed afterwards that many Greek inscriptions are to be found at Szanamein.

From Szanamein the Hadj route continues in the same direction as before to Tafar and Mezerib; we left it and took a route more easterly. That which we had hitherto travelled being the high road from the Haouran to Damascus, is perfectly secure, and we met with numerous parties of peasants going to and from the city;

but we had scarcely passed Szanamein when we were apprised by some Felahs that a troop of Arabs Serdie had been for several days past plundering the passengers and villages in the neighbourhood. Afraid of being surprised, my companions halted and sewed their purses up in a camel's pack saddle; I followed their example. I was informed that these flying parties of Arabs very rarely drive away the cattle of the Haouran people, but are satisfied with stripping them of cash, or any new piece of dress

EZRA.

[p.56]which they may have purchased at Damascus, always however giving them a piece of old clothing of the same kind in return. The country from Szanamein to one hour's distance along our road is stony, and is thence called War Szanamein. After passing it, we met some other Haouran people, whose reports concerning the Arabs so terrified my companions, that they resolved to give up their intention of reaching Ezra the same day, and proceeded to seek shelter in a neighbouring village, there to wait for fresh news. We turned off a little to our left, and alighted at a village called Tebne [Arabic], distant one hour and a half from Szanamein. We left our beasts in the court-yard of our host's house, and went to sup with the Sheikh, a Druse, at whose house strangers are freely admitted to partake of a plate of Burgoul. Tebne stands upon a low hill, on the limits of the stony district called the Ledja, of which I shall have occasion to speak hereafter. The village has no water but what it derives from its cisterns, which were at this time nearly dry. It consists wholly of ancient habitations, built of stone, of a kind which I shall describe in speaking of Ezra.

November 10th.--We quitted Tebne early in the morning, and passing the villages Medjidel [Arabic], Mehadjer [Arabic], Shekara [Arabic], and Keratha [Arabic], all on the left of the route, arrived, at the end of three hours and a quarter, at Ezra [Arabic]. Here commences the plain of the Haouran, which is interrupted by numerous insulated hills, on the declivities, or at the foot of which, most of the villages of the Haouran are seated. From Tebne the soil begins to be better cultivated, yet many parts of it are overgrown with weeds. On a hill opposite Manhadje, on the west side of the road, stands a Turkish Meziar, called Mekdad. In approaching Ezra we met a troop of about eighty of the Pasha's cavalry; they had, the preceding night, surprised the above- mentioned

[p.57]party of Arabs Serdie in the village of Walgha, and had killed Aerar, their chief, and six others, whose heads they were carrying with them in a sack. They had also taken thirty-one mares, of which the greater number were of the best Arabian breeds. Afraid of being pursued by the friends of the slain they were hastening back to Damascus, where, as I afterwards heard, the Pasha presented them with the captured mares, and distributed eight purses, or about £200. amongst them.

On reaching Ezra I went to the house of the Greek priest of the village, whom I had already seen at the Patriarch's at Damascus, and with whom I had partly concerted my tour in the Haouran. He had been the conductor of M. Seetzen, and seemed to be very ready to attend me also, for a trifling daily allowance, which he stipulated. Ezra is one of the principal villages of the Haouran; it contains about one hundred and fifty Turkish and Druse families, and about fifty of Greek Christians. It lies within the precincts of the Ledja, at half an hour from the arable ground: it has no spring water, but numerous cisterns. Its inhabitants make cotton stuffs, and a great number of millstones, the blocks for forming which, are brought from the interior of the Ledja; the stones are exported from hence, as well as from other villages in the Loehf, over the greater part of Syria, as far as Aleppo and Jerusalem. They vary in price, according to their size, from fifteen to sixty piastres, and are preferred to all others on account of the hardness of the stone, which is the black tufa rock spread over the whole of the Haouran, and the only species met with in this country.

Ezra was once a flourishing city; its ruins are between three and four miles in circumference. The present inhabitants continue to live in the ancient buildings, which, in consequence of the strength and solidity of their walls, are for the greater part in complete preservation

[p.58]They are built of stone, as are all the houses of the villages in the Haouran and Djebel Haouran from Ghabarib to Boszra, as well as of those in the desert beyond the latter. In general each dwelling has a small entrance leading into a court-yard, round which are the apartments; of these the doors are usually very low. The interior of the rooms is constructed of large square stones; across the centre is a single arch, generally between two and three feet in breadth, which supports the roof; this arch springs from very low pilasters on each side of the room, and in some instances rises immediately from the floor: upon the arch is laid the roof, consisting of stone slabs one foot broad, two inches thick, and about half the length of the room, one end resting upon short projecting stones in the walls, and the other upon the top of the arch. The slabs are in general laid close to each other; but in some houses I observed that the roof was formed of two layers, the one next the arch having small intervals between each slab, and a second layer of similar dimensions was laid close together at right angles with the first. The rooms are seldom higher than nine or ten feet, and have no other opening than a low door, with sometimes a small window over it. In many places I saw two or three of these arched chambers one above the other, forming so many stories. This substantial mode of building prevails also in most of the ancient public edifices remaining in the Haouran, except that in the latter the arch, instead of springing from the walls or floor, rests upon two short columns. During the whole of my tour, I saw but one or two arches, whose curve was lofty; the generality of them, including those in the public buildings, are oppressively low. To complete the durability of these structures, most of the doors were anciently of stone, and of these many are still remaining; sometimes they are of one piece and sometimes they are folding doors; they turn upon hinges worked out of the stone, and are about four [p.59]inches thick, and seldom higher than about four feet, though I met with some upwards of nine feet in height.

I remained at Ezra, in the priest's house, this and the following day, occupied in examining the antiquities of the village. The most considerable ruins stand to the S.E. of the present habitations; but few of the buildings on that side have resisted the destructive hand of time. The walls, however, of most of them yet remain, and there are the remains of a range of houses which, to judge from their size and solidity, seem to have been palaces. The Ezra people have given them the appellation of Seraye Malek el Aszfar, or the Palace of the Yellow King, a term given over all Syria, as I have observed in another place, to the Emperor of Russia. The aspect of these ruins, and of the surrounding rocky country of the Ledja, is far from being pleasing: the Ledja presents a level tract covered with heaps of black stones, and small irregular shaped rocks, without a single agreeable object for the eye to repose upon. On the west and north sides of the village are several public edifices, temples, churches, &c. The church of St. Elias [Arabic], in which the Greeks celebrate divine service, is a round building, of which the roof is fallen in, and only the outer wall standing. On its S. side is a vestibule supported by three arches, the entrance to which is through a short arched dark passage. Over the entrance is the following inscription:

[Greek]

Over a small side gate I observed the following words:

[Greek]

[p.60] On the arch of the entrance alley,

[Greek]

On the outer wall, on the north side of the rotunda;

[Greek]

On the south side of the village stands an edifice, dedicated to St. Georgius, or El Khouder [Arabic], as the Mohammedans, and sometimes the Christians, call that Saint. It is a square building of about eighty- five feet the side, with a semicircular projection on the E. side; the roof is vaulted, and is supported by eight square columns, which stand in a circle in the centre of the square, and are united to one another by arches. They are about two feet thick, and sixteen high, with a single groove on each side. Between the columns and the nearest part of the wall is a space of twelve feet. The niche on the east side contains the altar. The vaulted roof is of modern construction. The building had two entrances; of which the southern is entirely walled up; the western also is closed at the top, leaving a space below for a stone door of six feet high, over which is a broad stone with the following inscription upon it:

[Greek]

[p.61] [Greek] [A.D. 410. This was the third year of the Emperor Theodosius the younger, in whose reign the final decrees were issued against the Pagan worship. It appears from the inscription that the building upon which it is written was an ancient temple, converted into a church of St. George. Editor.]

Before the temple is a small paved yard, now used as the exclusive burial ground of the Greek priests of Ezra.

In the midst of the present inhabited part of the village stand the ruins of another large edifice; it was formerly applied to Christian worship, and subsequently converted into a mosque: but it has long since been abandoned. It consists of a quadrangle, with two vaulted colonnades at the northern and southern ends, each consisting of a double row of five columns. In the middle of the area stood a parallel double range of columns of a larger size, forming a colonnade across the middle of the building; the columns are of the Doric order, and about sixteen feet high. The side arcades are still standing to half their height; those of the middle area are lying about in fragments; the E. and W. walls of the building are also in ruins. Over the entrance gate are three inscribed tablets, only one of which, built upside down in the wall, is legible; it is as follows:

[Greek]

Over an inner gate I saw an inscription, much defaced, which seemed to be in Syrian characters.

Adjoining this building stands a square tower, about fifty feet high; its base is somewhat broader than its top. I frequently saw

[p.62]similar structures in the Druse villages; and in Szannamein are two of the same form as the above: they all have windows near the summit; in some, there is one window on each side, in others there are two, as in this at Ezra. They have generally several stories of vaulted chambers, with a staircase to ascend into them.

To the E. of the village is the gateway of another public building, the interior of which has been converted into private dwellings; this building is in a better style than those above described, and has some trifling sculptured ornaments on its gate. On the wall on the right side of the gate is this inscription.

[Greek]

There are many private habitations, principally at the S. end of the town, with inscriptions over the doors; most of which are illegible. The following I found in different parts of the village, on stones lying on the ground, or built into the walls of houses.

Over the entrance of a sepulchral apartment,

[Greek]

[p.63]I observed a great difference in the characters in which all the above inscriptions were engraved. That of S. Georgius is the best written.

In the evening I went to water my horse with the priest's cattle at the spring of Geratha, one hour distant from Ezra, N. by E. I met there a number of shepherds with theyr flocks; the rule is, that the first who arrives at the well, waters his cattle before the others; several were therefore obliged to wait till after sunset. There are always some stone basins round the wells, out of which the camels drink, the water being drawn up by leathern buckets, and poured into them: disputes frequent1y happen on these occasions. The well has a broad staircase leading down to it; just by it lies a stone with an inscription, of which I could make out only the following letters

[Greek]

This well is called Rauad.

November 12th.--I left Ezra with the Greek priest, to visit the villages towards the mountain of the Haouran. I had agreed to pay him by the day, but I soon had reason to repent of this arrangement. In order to protract my journey, and augment the number of days,

KERATHA.

[p.64]he loaded his horse with all his church furniture, and at almost every village where we alighted he fitted up a room, and said mass; I was, in consequence, seldom able to leave my night's quarters before mid-day, and as the days were now short our day's journey was not more than four or five hours. His description of me to the natives varied with circumstances; sometimes I was a Greek lay brother, sent to him by the Patriarch, a deception which could not be detected by my dress, as the priesthood is not distinguished by any particular dress, unless it be the blue turban, which they generally wear; sometimes he described me as a physician who was in search of herbs; and occasionally he owned that my real object was to examine the country. Our road lay S.E. upon the borders of the stony district called Ledja; and at the end of two hours we passed the village of Bousser [Arabic] on our left, which is principally inhabited by Druses; it lies in the War, and contains the Turkish place of pilgrimage, called Meziar Eliashaa. Near it, to the S. is the small village Kherbet Hariri. In one hour we passed Baara, a village under the control of the Sheikh of Ezra; and at half an hour farther to our right, the village Eddour [Arabic]. The Wady Kanouat, a torrent which takes its rise in the mountain, passes Baara, where it turns several mills in the winter season; towards the end of May it is generally dried up. At one hour from Baara is the Ain Keratha, or Geratha, according to Bedouin and Haouran pronunciation [Arabic]. At the foot of a hill in the War are several wells; this hill is covered with the ruins of the ancient city of Keratha, of which the foundations only remain: there had been such a scarcity of water this year, that the people of Bousser were obliged to fetch it from these wells. A quarter of an hour E. of them is the village Nedjran [Arabic], in the Ledja, in which are several ancient buildings inhabited by Druses. In the Ledja, in the neighbourhood of Keratha,

MEDJEL.

[p.65]are many spots of arable ground. Upon a low hill, in our route, at an hour and a quarter from the Ain or well, is Deir el Khouat [Arabic], i.e. the Brothers' Monastery, a heap of ruins. From thence we travelled to the south-eastward for three quarters of an hour, to the village Sedjen [Arabic], where we alighted, at the house of the only Christian family remaining among the Druses of the place. Sedjen is built, like all these ancient towns, entirely of the black stone peculiar to these mountains.

November 13th.--We left Sedjen about noon; and in half an hour came to the spring Mezra [Arabic], the water of which is conducted near to Sedjen by an ancient canal, which empties itself in the summer time into a large pond; in the winter the stream is joined by a number of small torrents, which descend from the Djebel Haouran between Kanouat and Soueida; it empties itself farther to the west into the Wady Kanouat. Above the spring is a ruined castle, and near it several other large buildings, of which the walls only are standing; the castle was most probably built to protect the water. There is a tradition that Tamerlane filled up the well; and a similar story is repeated in many parts of the Haouran: it is said that he threw quick-silver into the springs, which prevented the water from rising to the surface; and that the water collecting under ground from several sources near Mezerib, at length burst forth, and formed the copious spring at that place, called Bushe. From Mezra to Medjel we travelled E.N.E. one hour. It rained the whole day. On arriving at Medjel I alighted to copy some inscriptions, when the Druse Sheikh immediately sent for me, to know what I was about. It is a general opinion with these people that inscriptions indicate hidden treasure; and that by reading or copying them a knowledge is obtained where the treasure lies. I often combated this opinion with success, by simply asking them,