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. The two manufactures produce about three Kantars, or fifteen or sixteen quintals per month of saltpetre, which is sold at about fifteen shillings per quintal. The boilers of these manufactories are heated by brush-wood brought from the desert, as there is little wood in the Ledja, about Berak. The whole of the Loehf, or limits of the Ledja, is productive of saltpetre, which is sold at Damascus and Acre; I saw it sold near the lake of Tiberias for double the price which it costs in the Loehf. In the interior of a house among the ruins of Berak, I saw the following inscription:

[p.215]

[Greek] ["The tenth of Peritius of the eighth year." Peritius was one of the Macedonian months, the use of which was introduced into Syria by the Seleucidae.

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