The Religious Creeds Of All
These People Are Publicly Known; But The Fanatism Of The Damascenes,
However Violent, Is Easily Made Subservient To Their Fears Or Interests;
Every Religious And Moral Duty Being Forgotten When The Prospect Of Gain
Or The Apprehension Of Danger Presents Itself.
At three hours and a quarter from Kessoue is the village El Merdjan.
When I passed this place in
1810, I found a single Christian family in
it; I now found eight or ten families, most of them Druses, who had
emigrated hither from Shaara, a well peopled village in 1810, but now
deserted. They had brought the fertile soil round El Merdjan into
cultivation, and had this year sown eight Ghararas of wheat and barley,
or about one hundred and twenty cwt. English.[The Gharara of Damascus is
eighty Muds, at three and a half Rotola per Mud, or twenty pounds.] The
taxes paid by the village amounted to a thousand piastres, or fifty
pounds sterling, besides the tribute extorted by the Bedouins. The
vicinity of the village is watered by several springs. I was obliged to
remain at Merdjan the next day, because my mare fell ill, and was unable
to proceed. As I did not like to return to Damascus, I bought a mare of
the Sheikh of the village, a Christian of Mount Libanus, who knew me,
and who took a bill upon Damascus in payment. This mare I afterwards
bartered for a Bedouin horse.
April 23d.--I left Merdjan to examine the eastern limits of the Ledja.
We passed the Aamoud Eszoubh [Arabic], or Column of the Morning, an
insulated pillar standing in the plain; it is formed
BERAK.
[p.214]of the black stone of the Ledja, about twenty-five or thirty feet
high, of the Ionic order, and with a high pedestal. I had been told that
there were some inscriptions upon it, but I did not find any. The column
is half an hour distant from Merdjan, to the eastward of south. Round
the column are fragments of three or four others, which appear to have
formed a small temple. The remains of a subterraneous aqueduct,
extending from the village towards the spot where the column stands, are
yet visible. In one hour from thence we passed a ruined village called
Beidhan [Arabic], with a saltpetre manufactory. Two hours from Merdjan
is Berak [Arabic], bearing from it S.E.b.E. Our road lay over a low
plain between the Djebel Kessoue and the Ledja, in which the Bedouins of
the latter were pasturing their cattle. Berak is a ruined town, situated
on the N.E. corner of the Ledja; there is no large building of any
consequence here; but there are many private habitations. Here are two
saltpetre manufactories, in which the saltpetre is procured by boiling
the earth dug up among the ruins of the town; saline earth is also dug
up in the neighbouring plain; in finding the productive spots, they are
guided by the appearance of the ground in the morning before sunrise,
and wherever it then appears most wet with dew the soil beneath is found
impregnated with salt.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 145 of 453
Words from 74967 to 75494
of 236498
