In five hours we
passed Wady Aallan [Arabic], a considerable torrent flowing towards the
Sheriat, with a ruined bridge; and in five hours and a half Tseil,
[Arabic], an inhabited village. Here the plain begins to be cultivated.
There
[p.283]are no villages excepting Djeibein to the south of the road by
which we had travelled, as far as the banks of the Sheriat. The
inhabitants of the country are Bedouins, several of whose encampments we
passed. Tseil is one of the principal villages of Djolan, and contains
about eighty or one hundred families, who live in the ancient buildings
of the ruined town; there are three Birkets of rain water belonging to
it. The only building of any size is a ruined mosque, which seems to
have been a church. In coming from Feik the soil of the plain is black,
or gray; at Tseil it begins to be of the same red colour as the Haouran
earth.
After dinner we continued our route. In half an hour from Tseil we
passed on our left Tel Djemoua [Arabic]. The greater part of the plain
was covered with a fine crop of wheat and barley. During the years 1810
and 1811, the crops were very bad all over Syria; the rains of last
winter, however, having been very abundant, the peasants are every where
consoled with the hopes of a good harvest.
![Travels In Syria And The Holy Land By John Lewis Burckhardt
- At four hours we
reached a spring called Ain Keir [Arabic], and a little farther another
called Ain Deker [Arabic - Page 359](../images/travel.jpg)
