Travels in Syria and the Holy Land Part 12

The outer Ledja is to be distinguished from the inner, on this side as well as on that by which we entered it, the former being much less rocky, and more fit for pasturage than the latter. On the borders of the inner Ledja we pa.s.sed several places where the mill-stones are made, which I have mentioned in a former part of my journal. The stones are cut horizontally out of the rocks, leaving holes of four or five feet in depth, and as many in circ.u.mference; fifty or sixty of these excavations are often met with in the circ.u.mference of a mile. The stones are carried to be finished at Ezra, Mehadje, Aeib, Khabeb, and Shaara.

SHAARA.

[p.114] In one hour and a half from the borders of the Ledja, we came to Kastal Kereim, a ruined village, with a Birket; half an hour from it, Kereim, a Druse village. Between Kereim and Khabeb in the Loehf, is Aeib [Arabic], a Druse village, in which is a powder manufactory; there is another at Khabeb. Half an hour from Kereim is Kalaat Szamma [Arabic], a ruined village, with several towers. One hour and a half, Shaara, a village inhabited by about one hundred Druse and Christian families. We travelled this day about eight hours and a half. Shaara was once a considerable city; it is built on both sides of a Wady, half an hour from the cultivated plain, and is surrounded by a most dreary barren War. It has several large solidly built structures, now in ruins, and amongst others a tower that must have been about forty-five feet high.

In the upper town is an ancient edifice with arches, converted into a mosque: over its door is this inscription:

[Greek].

There is a salt-petre manufactory in the town; the earth in which the salt-petre is found, is collected in great quant.i.ties in the ruined houses, and thrown into large wooden vessels perforated with small holes on one side near the bottom. Water is then poured in, which drains through the holes, into a lower vessel, from whence it is taken, and poured into large copper kettles; after boiling for twenty-four hours, it is left in the open air; the sides of the kettles then become covered with crystals, which are afterwards washed to free them from all impurities. One hundred Rotolas of saline earth give from one to one and a half Rotola of salt-petre. I was told by the Sheikh of the village, who is the manufacturer

MISSEMA.

[p.115]on his own account, that he sends yearly to Damascus as much as one hundred Kantars. Here is also a gunpowder manufactory.

December 2d.--The Greek priest, who had not ventured to accompany me into the Ledja, I found again at Shaara. I wished to see some parts of the northern Loehf, and particularly the ruins of Missema, of which I heard much from the country people. I therefore engaged a man at Shaara, to conduct me to the place, and from thence to Damascus. We set out in the morning, proceeded along the limits of the War, in an easterly direction, and in three quarters of an hour came to the sources of water called Sheraya [Arabic]; they are five or six in number, are situated just on the borders of the War, and extend as far as Missema, watering all the plain before them. Here, in the spring, the people of Shaara grow vegetables and water melons, and in summer the Arabs of the Ledja sometimes sow the neighbouring fields with wheat; but the frequent pa.s.sage of the Bedouins renders the collection of the harvest somewhat precarious. Missemi, or Missema, is situated in the Ledja, at one hour and a half from Shaara; it is a ruined town of three miles in circuit.

Over the door of a low vaulted building I read the following inscription in well executed characters:

[Greek]. [Helvius]

The princ.i.p.al ruin in the town is a temple, in tolerable preservation; it is one of the most elegant buildings which I have seen in the Haouran. The approach to it is over a broad paved area, which has once been surrounded by a row of short pillars; a flight of six steps, the whole length of the facade,

[p.116] leads up to the portico, which consists of seven Doric columns, but of which three only are now standing. The entrance to the temple is through a large door in the centre, on each side of which is a smaller door; over the latter are niches. There are no sculptured ornaments on any part of the great door: the temple is sixteen paces square within.

Four Corinthian columns standing in a square in the centre of the chamber support the roof. About two feet and a half under their capitals is a ring; their pedestals are three feet and a half high. Opposite the entrance is a large semicircular niche, the top of which is elegantly sculptured so as to resemble a sh.e.l.l. On either side of the niche is a pilaster, standing opposite to one of the columns. At the door are two pilasters similarly placed, and two others upon each of the side walls.

Projecting from the bottom of each of these side walls, are four pedestals for busts or statues. The roof is formed of several arches, which, like the walls, are constructed with large stones. On either side of the interior niche is a small dark room. The door of the temple faces the south, and is almost completely walled up with small stones. Over the pedestals of two of the remaining columns of the portico are the following inscriptions:

[Greek].

Over the great door:

[Greek]

MISSEMA.

[p.117] [Greek].

In larger characters immediately under the former.

[Greek] [Legionis tertiae Gallicae. Ed.].

On one of the jambs of the door;

[Greek].

Upon a broken stone in the portico: [Greek].

[p.118] [Greek].

On the pedestal of a statue in the temple:

[Greek].

On another pedestal:

[Greek][Tribunum ([Greek]) Legionis Flaviae firmae. This was the 16th legion, as appears from the two following inscriptions. The 16th has the same t.i.tle in an inscription in Gruter (p. 427). Ed.].

Under the niche to the left of the great door:

[Greek].

Under that to the right:

[Greek].

There are several other public buildings at Missema; but in no way remarkable for their architecture. I had been told that in one of these buildings was a large stone covered with small Greek characters. I sought for it in vain. Missema has no inhabitants; we met with only a few workmen, digging the saline earth: there are no springs here, but a number of cisterns. E. of Missema are no inhabited villages, but the Loehf contains several in ruins.

MERDJAN.

[p.119]From Missema our way lay N.N.W. over the desert plain, towards Djebel Kessoue. This route is much frequented in the summer time by the Aeneze, who pa.s.s this way to and from the Haouran. The plain is intersected in every direction by paths formed by camels, called Daroub el aarb [Arabic]. At the end of two hours we saw to the left, in the mountains, the ruined village Om el Kezour; and one hour eastward from thence, in the plain, an insulated pillar called Amoud Ess...o...b.. [Arabic], i.e. the Column of the Morning, on which, as I was afterwards told, are several inscriptions. Our road now turned N. and we reached, after sunset, in three hours and a quarter from Missema, the ruined village Merdjan, where we found some men who had come to sow a few acres of ground, and partook of a frugal supper with them.

December 3d.--The small village of Merdjan is picturesquely situated on a gentle declivity near the foot of the mountain, and is surrounded by orchards, and poplar trees, which have escaped the rapacious hands of the Arabs: hard by flows a rivulet, which irrigates the adjacent grounds. We left Merdjan early in the morning. Twenty minutes north is Ain Toby [Arabic], or the spring of the gazelle, consisting of several wells, round one of which are the remains of a well built wall. At one hour and a half is Soghba [Arabic], a few houses surrounded by a wall; three quarters of an hour from thence is Deir Ali [Arabic], a village at the western foot of Djebel Mane; before we came to the village we crossed the Moiet Deir Ali, a rivulet whose source is in the neighbourhood. Half an hour from Deir Ali is Meshdie [Arabic], a small village, in the valley between Djebel Mane and Djebel Khiara, which is about three hours in breadth. The ground is here for the greater part cultivated. Our route was N.N.W. from Deir Ali, from whence, in two hours, we reached El Kessoue, and towards sunset we entered Damascus.

[p.121]

JOURNAL

OF A

TOUR FROM ALEPPO TO DAMASCUS,

THROUGH THE VALLEY OF THE ORONTES AND MOUNT LIBa.n.u.s,

IN FEBRUARY AND MARCH, 1812.

February 14th.--I LEFT Aleppo at mid-day; and in half an hour came to the miserable village Sheikh Anszary [Arabic], where I took leave of my Worthy friends Messieurs Barker and Van Ma.s.seyk, the English and Dutch Consuls, two men who do honour to their respective countries. I pa.s.sed the two large cisterns called Djob Mehawad [Arabic], and Djob Emballat [Arabic], and reached, at the end of two hours and a half, the Khan called Touman [Arabic], near a village of the same name, situated on the Koeyk, or river of Aleppo. The Khan is in a bad state; Pashas no longer think of repairing public edifices.

February 15th--After a march of ten hours and a half, I arrived at Sermein, having had some difficulty in crossing the muddy plain. The neighbourhood of Sermein is remarkable for great numbers of cisterns and wells hewn in the rock: in the town every house has a similar cistern; those in the plain serve to water the peasants' cattle in the summer, for there are no springs in these parts. On the S.E. side of Sermein is a large subterraneous vault, cut in the solid rock, divided into several apartments, and

EDLIP.

[p.122]supported in various places by round pillars with coa.r.s.ely wrought capitals; near this are several other excavations, all inhabited by the poor peasants. Sermein belongs to the family of Khodsy Effendy of Aleppo.

February 16th.--Half an hour to the left, near our road, is an insulated hill, with the tomb of a saint, called Kubbet Denneit [Arabic]; the plain is here well cultivated, but nothing is sown at present between Khan Touman and Sermein. To the right of the road, on a similar hill, stands Mezar Kubbet Menebya [Arabic]; and one hour to the right, also upon a Tel, Mezar Tar [Arabic]. Half an hour S.E. from Denneit is the village Gemanas.

In two hours and a half from Sermein we reached the town of Edlip [Arabic], the approach to which is very picturesque; it lies round the foot of a hill, which divides it into two parts; there is a smaller hill on the N. side: the town is surrounded by olive plantations, and the whole landscape put my companion, an English traveller, in mind of Athens and its vicinity. Here again are many wells cut in the rocky soil round the town. This place is called Little Edlip [Arabic]. Of Great Edlip [Arabic], the name only remains: it stood at half an hour's distance from the present town, which is of modern date, or about the middle of the seventeenth century. I reckoned the number of its houses at about one thousand. The inhabitants are for the most part Turks; there are only eighty Greek Christian families, and three of Armenian Greeks. They have a church, and three priests, and are under the immediate jurisdiction of the Greek Patriarch of Damascus.

The princ.i.p.al trade of Edlip is in soap; there are some manufactories of cotton stuffs, and a few dyeing-houses. The Bazars are well built, some of them of stone. In the town are several Khans, two of which are destined for the reception of strangers;

[p.123]but the best edifice is the soap manufactory (El Meszbane), a large building. Edlip has no gardens, because there is no water but from wells and cisterns; there are a few orchards of pomegranate and fig trees, and some vine plantations. The place is supplied with vegetables from Rieha, and from Aere, a village two hours distant, lying between Darkoush and Djissr Shogher. There is a single spring in the town of brackish water, which is never used but in seasons of great drought; a man who had cleansed the bottom of the deep well in which the spring issues, told me that he found two openings in the rock, near each other, from the one of which flows sweet water, while that from the other is brackish. I made the tour of the town in thirty-seven minutes; the rocky ground is full of caverns, wells, and pits.