I Remained Therefore At Kerek For Twenty
Successive Days, Changing My Lodgings Almost Every Day, In Order To
Comply With The Pressing Invitations Of Its Hospitable Inhabitants.
The town of Kerek (Arabic), a common name in Syria, is built upon the
top of a steep hill, surrounded on all sides by a deep and narrow
valley, the mountains beyond which command the town.
In the valley, on
the west and north sides, are several copious springs, on the borders of
which the inhabitants cultivate some vegetables, and considerable
plantations of olive trees. The principal of these sources are, Ain Sara
(Arabic), which issues from the rock in a very romantic spot, where a
mosque has been built, now in ruins; this rivulet turns three mills: the
other sources are Ain Szafszaf (Arabic), Ain Kobeyshe (Arabic), and Ain
Frandjy (Arabic), or the European spring, in the rock near which, as
some persons told me, is an inscription in Frank characters, but no one
ever would, or could, shew it me.
The town is surrounded by a wall, which has fallen down in several
places; it is defended by six or seven large towers, of which the
northern is almost perfect, and has a long Arabic inscription on its
wall, but too high to be legible from the ground; on each side of the
inscription is a lion in bas-relief, similar to those seen on the walls
of Aleppo and Damascus. The town had originally only two entrances, one
to the south and the other to the north; they are
[p.380] dark passages, forty paces in length, cut through the rock.
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