The Harvest In
The Latter Districts, Therefore, Is In Proportion To The Abundance Of
The Winter Rains.
The first harvest is that of horse-beans [Arabic] at
the end of April:
Of these there are vast tracts sown, the produce of
which serve as food for the cows and sheep. Camels are fed with the
flour made from these beans, mixed with barley meal, and made into a
paste. Next comes the barley harvest, and towards the end of May, the
wheat: in the interval between the two last, the peasants eat barley
bread. In abundant years, wheat sells at fifty piastres the
Gharara,[Three Rotola and a half make a Moud, and eighty Moud a Gharara.
A Rotola is equal to about five and a halfpounds English.] or about two
pounds ten shillings for fifteen cwt. English. In 1811, the Gharara rose
as high as to one hundred and ninety piastres. The wheat of the Haouran
is considered equal, if not superior to any other in Syria. Barley is
generally not more than half the price of wheat. When I was in the
Haouran, the price of an ox or cow was about seventy piastres, that of a
camel about one hundred and fifty piastres.
The lands which are not capable of artificial irrigation are generally
suffered to lie fallow one year; a part of them is sometimes sown in
spring with sesamum, cucumbers, melons, and pulse. But a large part of
the fruit and vegetables consumed in the Haouran is brought from
Damascus, or from the Arabs Menadhere, who cultivate gardens on the
banks of the Sheriat el Mandhour.
The peasants of Haouran are extremely shy in speaking of the produce of
their land, from an apprehension that the stranger's enquiries may lead
to new extortions. I have reason to believe, however, that in middling
years wheat yields twenty-five fold; in some parts of the Haouran, this
year, the barley has yielded fifty-fold, and even in some instances
eighty. A Sheikh, who formerly
[p.297]inhabited the small village of Boreika, on the southern borders
of the Ledja, assured me that from twenty Mouds of wheat-seed he once
obtained thirty Ghararas, or one hundred and twenty fold. Fields watered
by rain (the Arabs call them Boal, [Arabic]), yield more in proportion to
the seed sown, than those which are artificially watered; this is owing
to the seed being sown thinner in the former. The Haouran crops are
sometimes destroyed by mice [Arabic], though not so frequently as in the
neighbourhood of Homs and Hamah. Where abundance of water may be
conducted into the fields from neighbouring springs, the soil is again
sown, after the grain harvests, with vegetables, lentils, peas,
sesamums, &c.
The Fellahs who own Fedhans often cultivate one another's fields in
company: a Turk living in a Druse village often wishes to have a Druse
for his companion, to escape in some degree the vexations of the Druse
Sheikh. At the Druse Sheikhs, black slaves are frequently met with; but
the Turk and Christian proprietors cultivate their lands by hired native
labourers.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 196 of 453
Words from 101585 to 102103
of 236498
