Between these two buildings stands the gate of an ancient house,
communicating with the ruins of an edifice, the only remains of which is
a large semi-circular vault, with neat decorations and four small niches
in its interior; before it lie a heap of stones and broken columns. Over
the gate of the house is the following inscription:
[p.228] [Greek].
The natives have given to this house the name of Dar Boheiry, or the
house of Boheiry. This Boheiry is a personage well known to the
biographers of Mohammed, and many strange stories are related of him, by
the Mohammedans, in honour of their Prophet, or by the eastern
Christians, in derision of the Impostor. He is said to have been a rich
Greek priest, settled at Boszra, and to have predicted the prophetic
vocation of Mohammed, whom he saw when a boy passing with a caravan from
Mekka to Damascus. Abou el Feradj, one of the earliest Arabic
historians, relates this anecdote. According to the traditions of the
Christians, he was a confidential counsellor of Mohammed, in the
compilation of the Koran.
To the west of the abovementioned buildings stands the great mosque of
Boszra, which is certainly coeval with the first aera of Mohammedanism,
and is commonly ascribed to Omar el Khattab [Arabic]. Part of its roof
has fallen in. On two sides of the square building runs a double row of
columns, transported hither from the ruins of some Christian temple in
the town. Those which are formed of the common Haouran stone are badly
wrought in the coarse heavy style of the lower empire; but among them
are sixteen fine variegated marble columns, distinguished both by the
beauty of the material, and of the execution: fourteen are Corinthian,
and two Ionic; they are each about sixteen or eighteen feet in height,
of a single block, and well polished. Upon two of them standing opposite
to each other are the two following inscriptions:
1. [Greek]
[p.229] [Greek].
2. [Greek].
The walls of the mosque are covered with a coat of fine plaster, upon
which were many Cufic inscriptions in bas-relief, running all round the
wall, which was embellished also by numerous elegant Arabesque
ornaments; a few traces of these, as well as of the inscriptions, still
remain. The interior court-yard of the mosque is covered with the ruins
of the roof, and with fragments of columns, among which I observed a
broken shaft of an octagonal pillar, two feet in diameter; there are
also several stones with Cufic inscriptions upon them.
Passing from the great mosque, southwards, we came to the principal ruin
of Boszra, the remains of a temple, situated on the side of a long
street, which runs across the whole town, and terminates at the western
gate.
