The Circuit Of This Ancient City May Be About Two Miles And A Half Or
Three Miles.
From the spring there is a beautiful view into the plain of
the Haouran, bounded on the opposite side by the mountain of the Heish,
now covered with snow.
There were only
EZZEHOUE.
[p.87]two Druse families at Kanouat, who were occupied in cultivating a
few tobacco fields. I returned to Soueida by the same road which I had
come.
November 18th.--After having made the tour of the city, I took coffee at
the house of the Sheikh, whose brother and sons received me very
politely, and I visited some sick people in the village,--for I was
continually pressed, wherever I went, to write receipts for the sick,--I
then left Soueida, with the intention of sleeping the following night in
some Arab tent in the mountain, where I wished to see some ruined
villages. The priest's fear of catching cold prevented me from
proceeding according to my wishes. Passing the Birket el Hadj, we
arrived in an hour and a quarter at a miserable village called Erraha
[Arabic]; twenty minutes farther we passed the Wady el Thaleth [Arabic],
so called from three Wadys which, higher up, in the mountain unite into
one. Here were pointed out to me, at half an hour to the N.E. on the
side of the Wady in the mountain, the spring called Ain Kerashe, and at
half an hour's distance, in the plain, the Druse village Resas. In a
quarter of an hour from Thaleth, we reached Kherbet Rishe, a ruined
village, and in one hour more Ezzehhoue [Arabic], where my companion
insisted upon taking shelter from the rain.
November 19th.--A rivulet passes Ezzehhoue, called Ain Ettouahein
[Arabic]; i.e. the Source of the Mills, which comes down from Ain Mousa,
the spring near Kuffer, and flows towards Aaere. Ezzehhoue is a Druse
village, with a single Christian family. I was not well received by the
Druse Sheikh, a boy of sixteen years, although he invited me to
breakfast with him; but I was well treated by the poor Christian family.
When I left the village there was a rumor amongst the Druses, that I
should not be permitted to depart, or if I was, that I should be waylaid
on the road, but neither happened. The people of the village make coffee
mortars out of
AAERE.
[p.88]the trunks of oak trees, which they sell at twenty and twenty-five
piastres each, and export them over the whole of the Haouran. At three
quarters of an hour from Ezzehhoue, to the left of our route, is the Tel
Ettouahein, an insulated hill in the plain, into which the road descends
at a short distance from the village. Near the hill passes the Wady
Ezzehhoue, a winter torrent which descends from the mountain. Two hours
from Ezzehhoue is Aaere [Arabic], a village standing upon a Tel in the
plain.
Aaere is the seat of the second chief of the Druses in the Haouran: he
is one of the most amiable men I have met with in the East, and what is
still more extraordinary, he is extremely desirous to acquire knowledge.
In the conversations I had with him during my repeated visits at Aaere,
he was always most anxious to obtain information concerning European
manners and institutions. He begged me one day to write down for him the
Greek, English, and German alphabets, with the corresponding sound in
Arabic beneath each letter; and on the following day he shewed me the
copy he had taken of them. His kindness towards me was the more
remarkable, as he could not expect the smallest return for it. He
admired my lead pencils, of which I had two, but refused to accept one
of them, on my offering it to him. These Druses, as well as those of
Kesrouan, firmly believe that there are a number of Druses in England; a
belief originating in the declaration of the Christians in these
countries, that the English are neither Greeks, nor Catholics, and
therefore not Christians.
Upon a stone in the village I copied the following;
[xxxxx].
November 20th.--Being desirous of visiting the parts of the Haouran
bordering upon the desert, of crossing the Djebel Haouran, or
mountainous part of the district, and of exploring several ruined
HEBRAN.
[p.89]cities which I had heard of in the desert, I engaged, with the
Sheikh's permission, two Druses and a Christian, to act as guides. As
there was considerable risque of meeting with some hostile tribe of
Arabs on the road, I gave my purse to the Greek priest, who promised to
wait for my return; he did not keep his word, however, for he quitted
Aaere, taking my money with him, no doubt in the view of compelling me
to follow him to his village, from whence he might again have a chance
of obtaining a daily allowance, by accompanying me, though he well knew
that it was my intention to return to Damascus by a more western route;
nor was this all, he took twenty piastres out of my purse to buy straw
for his camels. On his repeatedly confessing to me, afterwards, his
secret wishes that some Frank nation would invade and take possession of
the country, I told him that he would by no means be a gainer by such an
event, as a trick such as that he had played me would expose him to be
turned out of his living and thrown into a prison. "You must imprison
all the people of the country then," was his reply; and he spoke the
truth. I have often reflected that if the English penal laws were
suddenly promulgated in this country, there is scarcely any man in
business, or who, has money-dealings with others, who would not be found
liable to transportation before the end of the first six months.
Our road lay over the plain, E.N.E. for three quarters of an hour; we
then began to mount by a slight ascent.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 35 of 232
Words from 34599 to 35621
of 236498
