Their Ideas Of Decency Appear Singular, When Compared With Our Own.
A
Turkman will talk before his wife, daughter, or sister upon subjects
which are banished from our discourse; at
The same time that he would be
much offended if any friend should in the presence of his females speak
in raptures or poetical terms of the charms of a beloved mistress.
Remains of Antiquity.
One of the principal motives of my visit to the Turkmans was my desire
to visit some ruins near their encampments, particularly those of Deir
Samaan, which at Aleppo I had heard compared to the temples at Baalbec.
I therefore made it a condition with my Turkman host, that he should
take me to Deir Samaan as well as to several other ruins whose names I
had collected from different Aleppines. The day after my arrival under
his tent, he set out with me towards the Deir, and we reached it after a
ride of four hours over the rocky hills which encircle the mountain of
St. Simon, called Djebel Samaan, or Sheikh Barekat. The Deir Samaan
consists of the ruins of a church, monastery, or episcopal palace, built
upon the top of an insulated hill, bearing from the top of the mountain
of St. Simon, N. 20 E., about eight miles distant. It is now inhabited
by several families of Kurds, who have their black goat hair tents
pitched in the middle of the ruins. They received us with much
hospitality; a sheep was immediately killed, and all the delicacies of
the season were served up to us. After dinner and coffee, Tshay[FN#1]
was served round, which the Aleppines and all Syrians esteem as one of
the greatest dainties: it is a heating drink, made of ginger, cloves,
rosewater, sugar and similar ingredients, boiled together to a thick
syrup. Mursa Aga, the chief, a handsome young man, then took up his
Tamboura or guitar, and the rest of the evening passed in music and
singing.
The whole summit of the hill, which is six hundred paces in length and
one hundred and seventy in breadth, was once covered with stately
buildings. A thick wall of square hewn stones, is traceable all round.
The principal ruins consist of two separate buildings, a palace, and a
church, or monastery, which were separated from each other by a court-
yard one hundred and ten paces in length. The palace, or perhaps the
high priest’s habitation, is not remarkable either for its size or
elegance. I could not enter it because it was occupied by the Harem of
Mursa Aga. A colonnade led from the palace to the church gate; the
broken fragments only of the columns remain. Of the church most of the
side walls are still standing, ornamented with pillars and arches worked
in the walls; it is divided into two circular apartments [p.645] of
which the inner may have been the sanctuary. On the eastern side of the
church is a dark vaulted room, which receives the daylight only from the
door, and which appears to have been a sepulchre.
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