In A Narrow Valley About Ten Minutes Walk From The Town,
Is Another Spring Called Ain Djedour (Arabic), The Waters
Of both serve
to irrigate the gardens and orchards which lie along the valley.
Opposite to Ain Djedour is a
Spacious sepulchral cave cut in the rock,
which the people affirm to have been a church. In the town, an old
mosque is the only object that presents itself to the antiquary. The
Christians have a small church, dedicated to the Virgin, where divine
service is performed by two priests, who each receive annually from
their community about £4. They are not very rigid observers either of
their prayers or fasts; and although it was now the time of Lent with
the Greeks, I daily saw the most respectable Christians eating flesh and
butter.
The greater part of the population of Szalt is agricultural, a few are
weavers, and there are about twenty shops, which sell on commission for
the merchants of Nazareth, Damascus, Nablous, and Jerusalem, and furnish
the Bedouins with articles of dress and furniture. The prices are at
least fifty per cent. higher than at Damascus. The culture consists of
wheat and barley, the superfluous produce of which is sold to the
Bedouins; vast quantities of grapes are also grown, which are dried and
sold at Jerusalem. The arable fields are at least eight miles distant
from Szalt, in the low grounds of the neighbouring mountains, where they
take advantage of the winter torrents. In the time of harvest the
Szaltese transport their families thither, where they live for several
months under tents, like true Bedouins. The principal encampment
SZALT
[p.351] is at a place called Feheis, about one bour and a half to the
S.E. of Szalt.
In addition to the means of subsistence just mentioned the inhabitants
of Szalt have several others: in July and August they collect, in the
mountains of the Belka the leaves of the Sumach, which they dry and
carry to the market at Jerusalem, for the use of the tanneries; upwards
of five hundred camel loads are yearly exported, at the rate of fifteen
to eighteen piastres the cwt. The merchants also buy up ostrich feathers
from the Bedouins, which they sell to great advantage at Damascus.
The food and clothing of the Szaltese are inferior in quality to those
of the peasants of northern Syria. Their dress, especially the women’s
approaches to that of the Bedouins: their language is the true Bedouin
dialect. The only public expense incurred by them is that of
entertaining travellers: for this purpose there are four public taverns
(Menzel, or Medhafe), three belonging to the Turks and one to the
Christians; and whoever enters there is maintained as long as he
chooses, provided his stay be not prolonged to an unreasonable period,
without reasons being assigned for such delay. Breakfast, dinner, and
supper, with a proportionate number of cups of coffee, are served up to
the stranger, whoever he may be.
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