I Have Seen The Most Common Articles Sold At Two
Hundred Per Cent.
Profit.
The trade is carried on chiefly by barter: and
every thing is valued in measures of corn, this being the readiest
representative of exchange in the possession of the town’s-people; hence
the merchants, make their returns chiefly in corn and partly in wool.
The only artizans in Kerek who keep shops are a blacksmith, a shoemaker,
and a silversmith. When the Mekka caravan passes, the Kerekein sell
provisions of all kinds to the Hadj, which they meet at the castle of
Katrana. Many Turks, as well as Christians, in the town, have negro
slaves, whom they buy from the Bedouins, who bring them from Djidda and
Mekka: there are also several families of blacks in Kerek, who have
obtained their liberty, and have married free black women.
The houses of Kerek have only one floor, and three or four are generally
built in the same court-yard. The roof of the apartment
[p.389] is supported by two arches, much in the same way as in the
ancient buildings of the Haouran, which latter however have generally
but one arch. Over the arches thick branches of trees are laid, and over
the latter a thin layer of rushes. Along the wall at the extremity of
the room, opposite to the entrance, are large earthen reservoirs of
wheat (Kowari Arabic). There is generally no other aperture in these
rooms than the door, a circumstance that renders them excessively
disagreeable in the winter evenings, when the door is shut and a large
fire is kindled in the middle of the floor.
Some of the Arab tribes in the territory of Kerek pay a small annual
tribute to the Sheikh of Kerek, as do likewise the peasants who
cultivate the shores of the Dead sea. In order, however, to secure their
harvests against any casualties, the Kerekein have deemed it expedient
to pay, on their, part, a tribute to the Southern Arabs called El
Howeytat, who are continually passing this way in their expeditions
against the Beni Szakher. The Christians pay to one of the Howeytat
Sheikhs one Spanish dollar per family, and the Turks send them annually
about fifteen mule loads of carpets which are manufacured at Kerek.
Whenever the Sheikhs of the Beni Szakher visit the town, they receive
considerable presents by way of a friendly tribute.
The district of Kerek comprises three other villages, which are under
the orders of the Sheikh of Kerek: viz. Ketherabba (Arabic), Oerak
(Arabic), and Khanzyre (Arabic). There are besides a great number of
ruined places in the district, the principal of which are the following;
Addar (Arabic), Hedjfa (Arabic), Hadada (Arabic), Thenye (Arabic), three
quarters of an hour to the S. of the town; Meddyn (Arabic), Mouthe
(Arabic), Djeldjoun (Arabic), Djefeiras (Arabic), Datras (Arabic), about
an hour and a half S.E. of the town, where some walls of houses remain;
Medjdelein (Arabic), Yarouk (Arabic), Seraf
[p.390] (Arabic), Meraa (Arabic), and Betra, where is a heap of stones
on the foot of a high hill, distant from Kerek to the southward and
westward about five hours.
Several Wadys descend from the mountains of Kerek into the plain on the
shore of the Dead sea, and are there lost, either in the sands or in the
fields of the peasants who cultivate the plain, none of them reaching
the lake itself in the summer. To the S. of Modjeb is the Seyl Djerra
(Arabic), and farther south, Wady Beni Hammad (Arabic). In the valley of
this river, perhaps the Zared of Scripture, are hot-wells, with some
ruined buildings near them, about five hours from Kerek, in a northern
direction. Next follow Seyl el Kerek, Wady el Draah (Arabic), Seyl Assal
(Arabic), perhaps Assan, which rises nearer Ketherabba; El Nemeyra
(Arabic), coming from Oerak; Wady Khanzyre (Arabic), and El Ahhsa, a
river which divides the territory of Kerek from the district to the S.
of it, called El Djebel.
Not having had an opportunity of descending to the borders of the Dead
sea, I shall subjoin here a few notes which I collected from the people
of Kerek. I have since been informed that M. Seetzen, the most
indefatigable traveller that ever visited Syria, has made the complete
tour of the Dead sea; I doubt not that he has made many interesting
discoveries in natural history.
The mountains which inclose the Ghor, or valley of the Jordan, open
considerably at the northern extremity of the Dead sea, and encompassing
it on the W. and E. sides approach again at its S. extremity, leaving
only a narrow plain between them. The plain on the west side, between
the sea and the mountains, is covered with sand, and is unfit for
cultivation; but on the E. side, and especially towards the S.
extremity, where it continues to bear the appellation of El Ghor
(Arabic), the plain is in many places very fertile. Its breadth
[p.391] varies from one to four and five miles; it is covered with
forests, in the midst of which the miserable peasants build their huts
of rushes, and cultivate their Dhourra and tobacco fields. These
peasants are called El Ghowárene (Arabic), and amount to about three
hundred families; they live very poorly, owing to the continual
exactions of the neighbouring Bedouins, who descend in winter from the
mountains of Belka and Kerek, and pasture their cattle amidst the
fields. The heat of the climate of this low valley, during the summer,
renders it almost uninhabitable; the people then go nearly naked; but
their low huts, instead of affording shelter from the mid-day heat
rather increase it. At this period violent intermittent fevers prevail,
to which, however, they are so much accustomed, that they labour in the
fields during the intervals of the paroxysms of the disease.
The principal settlement of the Ghowárene is at the southern extremity
of the sea, near the embouchure of the Wady el Ahhsa; their village is
called Ghor Szafye (Arabic), and is the winter rendezvous of more than
ten large tribes of Bedouins.
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