[P.146]Called El Shyhy [Arabic], Was To Our Right; At Three Hours, We Passed The Village El Djadjye [Arabic], Distant From The Left Of The Road A Quarter Of An Hour; And Near It The Village El Kasa.

The fertile soil now begins to be well cultivated.

In four hours we reached Hamah, where we alighted, at the house of Selym Keblan, one of the Mutsellim's secretaries, the most gentlemanly Levantine I had yet known.

Hamah is situated on both sides of the Orontes; a part of it is built on the declivity of a hill, and a part in the plain; the quarters in the plain are called Hadher [Arabic] and El Djissr; those higher up El Aleyat [Arabic], and El Medine. Medine is the abode of the Christians. The town is of considerable extent, and must contain at least thirty thousand inhabitants, of whom the Greek families, according to the Bishop's information, are about three hundred. In the middle of the city is a square mound of earth, upon which the castle formerly stood; the materials, as well as the stones with which it is probable that the hill was faced, have been carried away and used in the erection of modern buildings. There are four bridges over the Orontes

in the town. The river supplies the upper town with water by means of buckets fixed to high wheels (Naoura) [Arabic], which empty themselves into stone canals, supported by lofty arches on a level with the upper parts of the town. There are about a dozen of the wheels; the largest of them, called Naoura el Mohammedye, is at least seventy feet in diameter. The town, for the greater part, is well built, although the walls of the dwellings, a few palaces excepted, are of mud; but their interior makes amends for the roughness of their external appearance. The Mutsellim resides in a seraglio, on the banks of the river. I enquired in vain for a piece of marble, with figures in relief, which La Roque saw; but in the corner of a house in the Bazar is a stone with a number

[p.147]of small figures and signs, which appears to be a kind of hieroglyphical writing, though it does not resemble that of Egypt. I counted thirteen mosques in the town, the largest of which has a very ancient Minaret.

The principal trade of Hamah is with the Arabs, who buy here their tent furniture and clothes. The Abbas, or woollen mantles made here, are much esteemed. Hamah forms a part of the province of Damascus, and is usually the station of three or four hundred horsemen, kept here by the Pasha to check the Arabs, who inundate the country in spring and summer. Few rich merchants are found in the town; but it is the residence of many opulent Turkish gentlemen, who find in it all the luxuries of the large towns, at the same time that they are in some measure removed from the extortions of the government.

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