The Water Brings With It A Large Quantity Of
Fish.
The camels and horses drink the water of these Wadys.
35. (8) Khalysz [Arabic], a village with a rivulet.
36. (9) El Szafan [Arabic], two wells.
37.(10) Wady Fatme [Arabic], a rivulet, with a village and gardens.
38. Mekke.
[FN#1] To the southward of Kerek all the women on the Hadj route wear
the Egyptian face veil or Berkoa [Arabic], which is not a Syrian
fashion.
[p.662] APPENDIX. No. IV.
Description of the Route from Boszra in the Haouran, to the Djebel
Shammor.
ON the western side of the Djebel Haouran, at a small distance from its
southern extremity, lies Boszra. On the eastern foot and declivity of
Djebel Haouran, are upwards of two hundred villages built of black stone
in ruins, at a quarter or half an hour’s distance from each other. The
country beyond them is completely level and is called El Hammad
[Arabic]. About five hours to the S. of the Djebel, lies the half ruined
town of Szalkhat [Arabic]; it has a large castle, with strong walls,
several cisterns and Birkets of rainwater. From that place begins the
Wady Serhhan [Arabic], which runs to the E.S.E. It is a low ground, with
sloping sides; at every three or four hours a well is met with in the
Wady, with a little grass round it, but even in winter there is no
running stream; though water is found in many places at a small depth
below the surface of the earth. The traveller frequently passes in that
Wady small hills (Tels), which consist of thin layers of salt (about six
inches thick), alternating with layers of earth of the same thickness.
The Arabs sell the salt in the villages of the Haouran. Following the
course of that Wady, which at length takes a more southerly direction,
you arrive, after ten or eleven days journey (with camels about eight
days), in the country called Djof [Arabic]. The Tels about Djof are
called Kara [Arabic]. The Djof is a collection of seven or eight
villages, built at a distance of ten minutes or a quarter of an hour
from each other, in an easterly line. The ground is pure sand. These
villages are called Souk (or markets), the principal of them are: Souk
Ain Um Salim [Arabic], Souk Eddourra [Arabic], Souk Esseideiin [Arabic],
Souk Douma [Arabic], Souk Mared [Arabic]. These villages are all built
alike: the houses are built round the inside of a large square mud wall,
which has but one entrance. This wall therefore serves as a common back
wall to all the houses, which amount in some of the Souks to one hundred
and twenty, in others from eighty to one hundred. The middle part of the
enclosed square is empty. The roofs of the houses are made of palm wood,
and their walls of bricks, called Leben, dried in the sun, which are
about two feet square, and one foot thick.
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