The interior of these tombs is a square of six paces; on the
side opposite the door is a stone coffin; and two others in each of the
other two walls; the pyramidal roof is well constructed, being hollow to
the top, with rounded angles, and without any interior support. On the
outside the pyramid is covered with thin slabs, on each of which is a
kind of knob, which gives the whole a very singular appearance. The
height of the whole building may be about twenty-four feet. In one of
the tombs is a window, the other is quite dark. Two of them stand near
together; a third is in a different part of the town. The sides of one
of the coffins is carved with a cross in the middle.
[p.132]The mode of construction in all the private habitations is
similar to that which I noticed in the ancient towns of the Haouran, and
which, in fact, is still in use in most of the Arab villages in Syria,
with this difference, that the latter build with timber and mud instead
of stone.
On the N. side of El Bara stands a castle, built in the Saracen or
Crusade style, with a spring near it, called Bir Alloun [Arabic], the
only one in the neighbourhood of the ancient town, and which apparently
was insufficient to the inhabitants, as we found many cisterns cut very
deep in the rock.
