Travels in Syria and the Holy Land Part 8

[Greek]

From a stone over the door of a private dwelling:

[Greek].

TEL s...o...b...

[p.78]Upon a stone in the wall of another house, I found the figure of a quadruped rudely sculptured in relief.

On the wall of a solid building are the two following inscriptions:

[Greek]

On the wall of another building:

[Greek]

East of El Hait three quarters of an hour lies the village Heitt [Arabic].

November 16th.--We returned from Hait, directing our route towards Tel Shiehhan. In one hour we pa.s.sed the village of Ammera.

From Ammera our way lay direct towards Tel Shiehhan. The village Um Ezzeitoun lay in the plain below, one hour distant, in the borders of the Ledja. Upon the top of Tel Shiehhan is a Meziar. Tel Szomeit [Arabic], a hill in the Ledja, was seen to the N.W. about three hours distant; Tel Aahere [Arabic], also in the Ledja, to the west, about four hours distant. The Tel Shiehhan is completely barren up to its top: near its eastern foot we pa.s.sed the Wady Nimri w-el Heif, close to a mill which works in the winter

SOUEIDA.

[p.79]time. From hence we pa.s.sed between the Tel Shiehhan and Tel Es- s...o...b.. the ground is here covered with heaps of porous tufa and pumice stone. The western side of the Tel s...o...b.. seems to have been the crater of a volcano, as well from the nature of the minerals which lie collected on that side of the hill, as from the form of a part of the hill itself, resembling a crater, while the neighbouring mountains have rounded tops, without any sharp angles.

We repa.s.sed Ain Mourdouk, and continued our way on the sloping side of the mountain to Saleim, a village one hour from the spring; it has been abandoned by its former inhabitants, and is now occupied only by a few poor Druses, who take refuge in such deserted places to avoid the oppressive taxes; and thus sometimes escape the Miri for one year. They here grow a little tobacco. In the village is a deep Birket. At the entrance of Saleim are the ruins of a handsome oblong building, with a rich entablature: its area is almost entirely filled up by its own ruins. Just by is a range of subterraneous vaults. The Wady Kanouat pa.s.ses near the village. The day was now far gone, and as my priest was afraid of travelling by night, we quickened our pace, in order to reach Soueida before dark. From Saleim the road lies through a wood of stunted oaks, which continues till within one hour of Soueida. We had rode three quarters of an hour when I was shewn, E. from our road, up in the mountain, half an hour distant, the ruins of Aatin [Arabic], with a Wady of the same name descending into the plain below. In the plain, to the westward, upon a hillock one hour distant, was the village Rima el Khalkhal, or Rima el Hezam [Arabic] (Hezam means girdle, and Khalkhal, the silver or gla.s.s rings which the children wear round their ankles.) Our road from Saleim lay S. by E. over a stony uncultivated ground, till within one hour of Soueida, where the wood of oaks terminates, and the fields begins, which extend up

[p.80]the slope of the mountain for half an hour to the left of the road. From Saleim to Soueida is a distance of two hours and three quarters.

Soueida is situated upon high ground, on a declivity of the Djebel Haouran; the Kelb Haouran, or highest summit of the mountain, bearing S.E. from it. It is considered as the first Druse village, and is the residence of the chief Sheikh. To the north, and close to it, descends the deep Wady Essoueida, coming from the mountain, where several other Wadys unite with it; it is crossed by a strong well built bridge, and it turns five or six mills near the village. Here, as in all their villages, the Druses grow a great deal of cotton, and the cultivation of tobacco is general all over the mountain. Soueida has no springs, but there are in and near it several Birkets, one of which, in the village, is more than three hundred paces in circuit, and at least thirty feet deep: a staircase leads down to the bottom, and it is entirely lined with squared stones. To the S. of the village is another of still larger circ.u.mference, but not so deep, also lined with stone, called Birket el Hadj, from the circ.u.mstance of its having, till within the last century, been a watering place for the Hadj, which used to pa.s.s here.

To the west of Soueida, on the other side of the Wady, stands a ruined building, which the country people call Doubeise: it is a perfect square of thirteen paces, with walls two feet thick, and ornamented on each side with six Doric pilasters, sixteen spans high, and reaching to within two feet of the roof, which has fallen down, and fills up the interior. No door or opening of any kind is visible. On the wall between the pilasters are some ornaments in bas-relief.

On the N. wall is the following inscription, in handsome characters;

[p.81] [Greek].

Soueida was formerly one of the largest cities of the Haouran; the circuit of its ruins is at least four miles: amongst them is a street running in a straight line, in which the houses on both sides are still standing; I was twelve minutes in walking from one end to other. Like the streets of modern cities in the East, this is so very narrow as to allow s.p.a.ce only for one person or beast to pa.s.s. On both sides is a narrow pavement. The great variety seen in the the mode of construction of the houses seems to prove that the town has been inhabited by people of different nations. In several places, on both sides of the street, are small arched open rooms, which I supposed to have been shops. The street commences in the upper part of the town, at a large arched gate built across it; descending from thence I came to an elegant building, in the shape of a crescent, the whole of whose front forms a kind of niche, within which are three smaller niches; round the flat roof is written in large characters:

[Greek].

On a stone lying upon the roof [Greek]. Continuing along the street I entered, on the left, an edifice with four rows of arches, built with very low pillars in the ugly style already described.

Upon a stone, built upside down in one of the interior walls, was this;

[Greek].

[p.82] [Greek] [The fourteenth Legion was surnamed Gemina. See several inscriptions in Gruter. Ed.]

At the lower end of the street is a tower about thirty feet high, and eighteen square.

Turning from the beginning of the street, to the south, I met with a large building in ruins, with many broken pillars; it seems to have been a church; and it is joined to another building which has the appearance of having once been a monastery. In the paved area to the S. of it lies a water trough, formed of a single stone, two feet and a half in breadth, and seven feet in length, ornamented with four busts in relief, whose heads have been knocked off.

In a stony field about three hundred yards S. of the Sheikh's house, I found engraved upon a rock:

[Greek].

KANOUAT.

[p.83]Round a pedestal, which now serves to support one of the columns in the front of the Sheikh's house, is the following: [Greek]. On the side of the pedestal is a figure of a bird with expanded wings, about one foot high, and below it is a man's hand grasping at something.

Near the Sheikh's house stands a colonnade of Corinthian columns, which surrounded a building, now entirely in ruins, but which appears to have been destined for sepulchres, as there are some small arched doors, quite choaked up, leading to subterraneous apartments.

November 17th.--We rode to the ruined city called Kanouat [Arabic], two hours to the N.E. of Soueida; the road lying through a forest of stunted oaks and Zarour trees, with a few cultivated fields among them. Kanouat is situated upon a declivity, on the banks of the deep Wady Kanouat, which flows through the midst of the town, and whose steep banks are supported by walls in several places. To the S.W. of the town is a copious spring. On approaching Kanouat from the side of Soueida, the first object that struck my attention was a number of high columns, upon a terrace, at some distance from the town; they enclosed an oblong square fifteen paces in breadth, by twenty-nine in length. There were originally six columns on one side, and seven on the other, including the corner columns in both numbers; at present six only remain, and the bases of two others; they are formed of six pieces of stone, and measure from the top of the pedestal to the base of the capital twenty-six feet; the height of the pedestal is five feet; the circ.u.mference of the column six feet. The capitals are elegant, and well finished. On the northern side was an

[p.84]inner row of columns of somewhat smaller dimensions than the outer row; of these one only is standing. Within the square of columns is a row of subterraneous apartments. These ruins stand upon a terrace ten feet high, on the N. side of which is a broad flight of steps. The pedestals of all the columns had inscriptions upon them; but nothing can now be clearly distinguished except [Greek] upon one of them.

Two divisions of the town may be distinguished, the upper, or princ.i.p.al, and the lower. The whole ground upon which the ruined habitations stand is overgrown with oak trees, which hide the ruins. In the lower town, over the door of an edifice which has some arches in its interior, and which has been converted in modern times into a Greek church, is an inscription, in which the words [Greek] only, were distinguishable.

A street leads up to this building, paved with oblong flat stones placed obliquely across the road in the same manner which I have described at s...o...b... Here are several other buildings with pillars and arches: the princ.i.p.al of them has four small columns in front of the entrance and an anti-room leading to an inner apartment, which is supported by five arches. The door of the anti-room is of one stone, as usual in this country, but it is distinguished by its sculptured ornaments. A stone in this building, lying on the ground, is thus inscribed: [x.x.xxx].

[p.85]The princ.i.p.al building of Kanouat is in the upper part of the town, on the banks of the Wady. The street leading up to it lies along the deep bed of the Wady, and is paved throughout; on the side opposite to the precipice are several small vaulted apartments with doors. The entrance of the building is on the east side, through a wide door covered with a profusion of sculptured ornaments. In front of this door is a vestibule supported by five columns, whose capitals are of the annexed form. This vestibule joins, towards the north, several other apartments; their roofs, some of which were supported by pillars, have now all fallen down. The abovementioned wide door opens into the princ.i.p.al apartment of the edifice, which is twenty-two paces in breadth by twenty-five in length. From each side of the entrance, through the middle of the room, runs a row of seven pillars, like those described above; at the further end, this colonnade is terminated by two Corinthian columns. All the sixteen columns are twenty spans high, with pedestals two feet and a half high. In the wall on the left side of this saloon are three niches, supported by short pillars. To the west is another vestibule, which was supported by five Corinthian columns, but four of them only are now standing. This vestibule communicates through an arched gate with an area, on the W. side of which are two Corinthian pillars with projecting bases for statues. On the S. side of the area is a large door, with a smaller one on each side. That in the centre is covered with sculptured vines and grapes, and over the entrance is the figure of the cross in the midst of a bunch of grapes. I observed similar ornaments on the great gate at Shakka, and I have often seen them since, over the entrances of public edifices. In the interior of the area, on the E. side, is a niche sixteen feet deep, arched at the bottom, with small vaulted rooms on both its sides, in which there is no other opening than the low door.

KANOUAT.

[p.86]On the S. and W. sides, the building is enclosed by a large paved area.

At a short distance from thence is another building, whose entrance is through a portico consisting of four columns in front and of two others behind, between two wings; on the inner sides of which are two niches above each other. The columns are about thirty-five feet high, and three feet and a half in diameter. Part of the walls only of the building are standing. In the wall opposite the entrance are two niches, one above the other. Not far from this building, toward its western side, I found, lying upon the ground, the trunk of a female statue of very inelegant form and coa.r.s.e execution; my companion the priest spat upon it, when I told him that such idols were anciently objects of adoration; by its side lay a well executed female foot. I may here mention for the information of future travellers in these parts, that on my return to Soueida, I was told that there was a place near the source of spring water, where a great number of figures of men, women, beasts, and men riding naked on horses, &c. were lying upon the ground.

Besides the buildings just mentioned, there are several towers with two stories upon arches, standing insulated in different parts of the town; in one of them I observed a peculiarity in the structure of its walls, which I had already seen at Hait, and which I afterwards met with in several other places; the stones are cut so as to dovetail, and fit very closely.

The circuit of this ancient city may be about two miles and a half or three miles. From the spring there is a beautiful view into the plain of the Haouran, bounded on the opposite side by the mountain of the Heish, now covered with snow. There were only

EZZEHOUE.

[p.87]two Druse families at Kanouat, who were occupied in cultivating a few tobacco fields. I returned to Soueida by the same road which I had come.

November 18th.--After having made the tour of the city, I took coffee at the house of the Sheikh, whose brother and sons received me very politely, and I visited some sick people in the village,--for I was continually pressed, wherever I went, to write receipts for the sick,--I then left Soueida, with the intention of sleeping the following night in some Arab tent in the mountain, where I wished to see some ruined villages. The priest's fear of catching cold prevented me from proceeding according to my wishes. Pa.s.sing the Birket el Hadj, we arrived in an hour and a quarter at a miserable village called Erraha [Arabic]; twenty minutes farther we pa.s.sed the Wady el Thaleth [Arabic], so called from three Wadys which, higher up, in the mountain unite into one. Here were pointed out to me, at half an hour to the N.E. on the side of the Wady in the mountain, the spring called Ain Kerashe, and at half an hour's distance, in the plain, the Druse village Resas. In a quarter of an hour from Thaleth, we reached Kherbet Rishe, a ruined village, and in one hour more Ezzehhoue [Arabic], where my companion insisted upon taking shelter from the rain.

November 19th.--A rivulet pa.s.ses Ezzehhoue, called Ain Ettouahein [Arabic]; i.e. the Source of the Mills, which comes down from Ain Mousa, the spring near Kuffer, and flows towards Aaere. Ezzehhoue is a Druse village, with a single Christian family. I was not well received by the Druse Sheikh, a boy of sixteen years, although he invited me to breakfast with him; but I was well treated by the poor Christian family.

When I left the village there was a rumor amongst the Druses, that I should not be permitted to depart, or if I was, that I should be waylaid on the road, but neither happened. The people of the village make coffee mortars out of

AAERE.

[p.88]the trunks of oak trees, which they sell at twenty and twenty-five piastres each, and export them over the whole of the Haouran. At three quarters of an hour from Ezzehhoue, to the left of our route, is the Tel Ettouahein, an insulated hill in the plain, into which the road descends at a short distance from the village. Near the hill pa.s.ses the Wady Ezzehhoue, a winter torrent which descends from the mountain. Two hours from Ezzehhoue is Aaere [Arabic], a village standing upon a Tel in the plain.