ANTONIAE FORTVNATAE ANTONIVS. V . . CES CONIVGI PIISIMAE
[p.235] Near it is another altar, with a defaced inscription.
In going northward from the springs, I passed the rivulet Djeheir, whose
source is at a short distance, within the precincts of the town. It
issues from a stone basin, and was conducted anciently in a canal. Over
it seems to have stood a small temple, to judge by the remains of
several columns that are lying about. The source is full of small fish.
Youssef Pasha built a barrack here also; but it was destroyed by the
Wahabi who made an incursion into the Haouran in 1810, headed by their
chief Ibn Saoud, who encamped for two days near this spot, without being
able to take the castle, though garrisoned by only seven Moggrebyns. The
banks of the Djeheir are a favourite encampment of the Bedouins, and
especially of the Aeneze.
Beyond the town walls, and at some distance to the north of the Djeheir,
stands the famous mosque El Mebrak; and near it is the cemetery of the
town. Ibn Affan, who first collected the scattered leaves of the Koran
into a book, relates that when Othman, in coming from the Hedjaz,
approached the neighbourhood of Boszra with his army, he orderd his
people to build a mosque on the spot where the camel which bore the
Koran should lie down; such was the origin of the mosque El Mebrak.
[Mebrak [Arabic] means the spot where a camel couches down, or a
halting-place.] It is of no great size; its interior was embellished,
like that of the great mosque, with Cufic inscriptions, of which a few
specimens yet remain over the Mehrab, or niche towards which the face of
the Imam is turned in praying.
