The Inhabitants, Though Not Rich, Are, In
General, In Independent Circumstances; Each Family Occupies One, Or At
Most Two Rooms.
The houses are built of mud; the roofs are supported by
one or two wooden posts in the midst
Of the principal room, over which
beams of pine-wood are laid across each other; upon these are branches
of oak trees, and then the earth, which forms the flat terrace of the
house. In winter the deep snow would soon break through these feeble
roofs, did not the inhabitants take care, every morning, to remove the
snow that may have fallen during the night. The people gain their
subsistence, partly by the cultivation of their vineyards and a few
mulberry plantations, or of their fields in the Bekaa, and partly by
their shops, by the commerce in Kourdine sheep, and their manufactures.
Almost every family weaves cotton cloth, which is used as shirts by the
inhabitants and
[p.7] Arabs, and when dyed blue, as Kombazes, or gowns, by the men.
There are more than twenty dyeing houses in Zahle, in which indigo only
is employed. The Pike [The Pike is a linear measure, equal to two feet
English, when used for goods of home manufacture, and twenty-seven
inches for foreign imported commodities.] of the best of this cotton
cloth, a Pike and a half broad, costs fifty paras, (above 1s. 6d.
English). The cotton is brought from Belad Safad and Nablous. They
likewise fabricate Abbayes, or woollen mantles.
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